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BioWare On Mass Effect 2
We talk to Ray Muzyka about the power of sequels, characterisation in RPGs and celebrity voice talent
Written by Andy Griffiths, 02 February 2010
GamerZines: All of the Mass Effect reviews have now gone live and the opinion is overwhelmingly positive, how do you feel about that?
Ray Muzyka: I think after twenty-seven reviews (at time of interview) the Metacritic average is at 97, which is outstanding, humbling and a great honour for the team to see that their hard work is respected and admired the way that it is. At the end of the day we're just trying to make a great game for the fans and hopefully their view will reciprocate those of the reviewers.
GZ: Do you think Mass Effect 2 is a success largely because its a sequel and you've had a chance to write all the wrongs of the original?
RM: Our team really love sequels because we can use feedback from fans and press. We take it to heart and try and make each game better than the last. For Mass Effect 2 we took feedback really seriously and I talked about this with Casey(Hudson) and Greg(Zeschuk). We wanted to make the game more intense, focus on technical improvements, amp up the fidelity of each of the uncharted worlds and make them more central to the experience. Add all those things together and this makes one of our best games to date. It is part of our effort to over deliver for our fans and make every game better than the last.
GZ: Do you think the inclusion of celebrity voice actors has added to the reception as well?
PCGZine Issue 38
For our latest Mass Effect 2 coverage, click here to download PCGZine Issue 38 for free.RM: Yeah they added a tremendous amount to characterisation, personality and the level of emotional engagement in the game. It has been an honour to work with great actors over the years, all of our games have always had great voice talent. You go back to when we started putting voice in our games we always had really exciting roles, with Mass Effect and Dragon Age being the best yet! The companion characters and the people you meet in the world are the foil to your actions. They are an important part of how we tell story, not the only way but still important.
GZ: Do you think there's ever a danger with using well known voice talent that it breaks the experience? For instance with Mass Effect 2, whilst talking to the Illusive Man instead of thinking the most powerful man in the universe, we sometimes imagined talking to President Bartlett.
RM: The key is getting actors who have a different range and embrace the roles. Martin Sheen is an example as The Illusive Man, he did a tremendous job of bringing that character to life. I'm a great fan of his work all the way back to Apocalypse Now and to work with talent like that is a great honour for our testing and localisation group.
GZ: Do spoilers have the potential to damage games?
RM: Well, we are pretty careful about how we describe the stories of our games and we revealed quite a lot for Mass Effect 2, but I had to chuckle when reading various blogs about spoiler moments which had already been revealed in Mass Effect 2, and they wondered, "Is there anything left?" Yes there's a ton left to be revealed! We are really careful how much information is out there because we know that's a lot of the joy for players, to discover your own moments and consequences of your actions - how the story's twists and turns unfold. If you go too far and reveal all the spoilers and don't recognise that's what makes the game fun, then you ruin the experience for players, but we are pretty careful about how we reveal the story moments. Sometimes we add more to the story to tease and tantalise the possibilities of what it can do, but when people play they realise there's a lot more.
GZ: It seems more of an issue when footage gets leaked onto YouTube etc.
RM: Post release you can't control that at all, there's already footage of ME2 on YouTube which is fun. If gamers want to record playthroughs of their game, that's fine, and if others want to watch it, that's really up to them. It's almost like watching the end of a movie before seeing the rest or flipping to the end of a book to see what happens to a character which you actually haven't met yet. That's your choice I guess. When it comes to journalists I prefer those who clearly point out - don't read further if you don't want spoilers - versus recording all the key moments, but most journalists are pretty good about that.
Mass Effect 2 coverage available in PCGZine Issue 38 - click here to download it for free!
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