Citadel sequence cut from Mass Effect 2 returns in Mass Effect 3

by JC Fletcher on Nov 30th 2011 12:00PM

A segment of the Mass Effect story set in the Citadel, originally planned for Mass Effect 2, is finally being made for inclusion in Mass Effect 3, lead writer Mac Walters told OXM. "There was a Mass Effect 2 plot that was a kind of callback to the first Mass Effect that was going to be on the Citadel, and we cut it," he said. "But now it's made a resurrection in Mass Effect 3, so I'm happy, but I can't say what it is."

That's right. Content that was conceived for the second game, and refers to the first game, is now in the third. And speaking of things that have been around since the first game, Walters acknowledged the difficulty of continuing the Mass Effect story after the second game's ending, which can kill off important characters.

"The classic example [of a hurdle faced in writing ME3] is 'Hey, let's make the ending of Mass Effect 2 a suicide mission where all your henchmen can possibly die, and Shepard can even die!'" Walters said. "Oh right... and then we're gonna do another game after that. What the hell are we gonna do with all those guys?"

Unfortunately, Walters didn't go on from there. We're going to have to wait until March to find out just what the hell does happen to all those guys.

Source: OXM

Tags: bioware, electronic-arts, mac-walters, mass-effect-2, mass-effect-3, microsoft, pc, playstation, ps3, xbox

Reader Comments (50)

I will maintain forever that the suicide mission ending was a terrible thing to put into the game, thematically and structurally. There was no reason for it. One or two plot related death decisions like ashley/kaiden in the first game would have had more impact, made us feel just as involved, and not have left them stuck with this problem for the third game.

@Dalrint

I would have been okay with it if the only person that suicided was Jack. What a space-pain in the space-ass.

@baby sea tuna I take it you didn't have Zaeed?

@Dalrint Know what I liked about it, that you could assemble your team, I wish that was something that happened in other missions... there are times when you are over encumbered in the game... but you get no back up from your own team. |:

But I did dislike the reasoning behind the deaths.

@Dalrint I think this ending has some problems too. Mainly regard to decisions. Throughout the rest of the two games, you have an idea to where a decision can take the story, even if you don't know for sure. In the suicide mission, If you choose someone wrong to generate the shield, for example, someone else dies. This is extremely problematic.

However, I don't know if it would have the same impact if it were done otherwise.

@Faceless Troll

Ugh, good point. "Zaeed...it's Australian for asshole."

@Dalrint
I think you might have missed the point of the suicide mission. It was the ultimate consequence of every decision you made during the game. The utter unpredictability of the entire sequence kept me on the edge of my seat and excited to see what was in store next. A seemingly inconsequential decision led to Tali going down and, though I loved Tali, I loved it even more that I didn't see her death coming. It made the rest of the mission that much more exciting.

At one point, Miranda was sliding down a falling piece of metal and Shepherd was falling after her trying to save her and I was literally standing up yelling at the screen for him to save her. I would have never believed she would be in danger if Tali hadn't died earlier in the mission. Good times.

@Dalrint
You had people die? Or do you just mean that the ending where there are deaths (which exists) should not have been included? I don't see why not. If they follow tradition, you'll have a mostly new crew for the third game and any deaths of non-deaths from volume 2 will covered by cutscenes and dialog. It will be really cool if they actually do let some "survivors" actually be in your party, and have stories fleshed out for them... That would be extra, possibly wasted work though, since for some players sticking with their story lines, those characters would not exist.

It would be nice to see the player's choices from previous games exist in ways more strongly than a few pieces of dialog here and there, though.

@sigma8
*deaths OR non-deaths

@sigma8

I played the game without any walkthrough or anything, and as far as I can remember, all my crew survived. I need to play it again in PS3 just cause I intend on getting ME3 on PS3.

I just made sure that I send heavy firepower when splitting up the team at the end. Being a soldier myself I could take care of anything that came my way without the support from the assault crew members. Worked out in the end.

After finishing and reading up on it, I found out that people had others die.

@Dalrint

I didn't have anyone die, no. But that doesn't matter, because the possibility that the characters could have died diminishes their possible role in the third game. How can you have mordin be the science guy and a huge part of the plot if there's a chance some people playing have no mordin?

It's the same reason Wrex had such a small part in 2, since they couldn't make him a squad member if a bunch of people might have killed him.

I hope I'm wrong, I hope they barreled through anyway and gave all my favorite characters huge parts despite the chance they could die.

I picked up ME2 for PS3 from Walmart for $20 a few weeks ago...I guess I should probably start playing it, huh?

@King Johngie the Fourth

no. what you should do is buy Mass Effect 1 on the Xbox 360 / PC, play through that, then take your character from the first game and import it into Mass Effect 2 on the 360 / PC. that's the only true way to get the most out of ME.

@Liquidfingers I dont know if I want to get the most out of you o.o

@Liquidfingers

I agree with Evin. I don't really know you, so that would be weird...

Anyways, I don't have/want an Xbox, nor do I have a PC capable of running Mass Effect. I'll take what I can.

@King Johngie the Fourth
Have you already played the first one? Steam seems to frequently put ME1 and ME2 on sale for $6-$10 each.

@King Johngie the Fourth
The PS3 version actually has a really cool summary of the first game, with you having to make all the important choices from that game, then importing it through into your new file, so you should be right.

They all live in my ME2 save file so whatevs.

I hope we see a return of Conrad the stalker. I would be neat if, depending on how you treated him, he started a Shepard Fan/Hate Club.

@NaeemTHM

actually, he was in ME2. you can find him in the Eternity bar on Illium.

@Liquidfingers

Whoa really? How did I miss that?

@NaeemTHM

I missed it the first time around too. It's pretty awesome, you get to see how your choices from the previous game affected his life. poor guy. I feel bad just thinking about it.

Mass Effect 2 only consisted of building your team and fixing their lives, two missions each, that is the entirety of the game. It almost makes it seem like ME1 was 50% of Shepard's story and ME2 is the other 25%... I am assuming that ME3 will be the rest..? It's just an invasion.. how far can it go from there?

I like the games btw.

Easy fix: They were brought back via cloning or something or other, just like with Shepard. I know that's what I would have done if I had written myself into a corner like they did, but then again, I'm also lazy :P

If the leak is any indication, they'll swing it exactly like ME2 treated Wrex and/or Ashley/Kaidan. There's a placeholder character that takes their place, but if you saved them in ME2 you'll get dialogue specific to that character.

I always kinda felt that there was something missing from the Citadel in ME2. I didnt play the first game and I'm not really planning to due to Skyrim and all, but I saw some video walkthroughs on Nextgenwalkthroughs.com and it seemed alot things happened on the Citadel but you only visit it to say hi to some of your old buddies from ME1. Now I know why.

Glad to hear. I was a little disappointed that there wasn't much to do on the Citadel in ME2

Honestly I quite liked the suicide mission, I preferred it to the Choose this one or this one and you can't save them both decision from ME1.

Having characters possibly die, but not always adds to the RPG feeling in my opinion, anyway in both of my ME1/2 saves I have everyone alive, including Wrex

@(Unverified) Well, not everyone from ME1...

@Exu
I think you underestimate just how good this (Unverified) is at Mass Effect.

I liked the suicide mission idea, but I can see how it might have backed them into a corner for ME3. I just hope that characters who were potential victims from ME2 aren't skimped on dialogue and depth in ME3.

It's going to be the conclusion of the Conrad arc!

Here are the choices:
If you were nice to him and humored him, you will recieve a grand parade. If you didn't he sets up a rally to 'Occupy the Citidel' and decry your treatment of the Rachni Queen.

*spoilers*

I was fine with the suicide mission idea, I just didn't like what you found at the END of the suicide mission with the giant terminator thing. It was just terribly hokey and bordering on cheese.

@343 Guilty Fart

I thought the idea was vaguely interesting, but mostly rolled my eyes thinking, "Oh, so every galactic civilization that's risen before ours was evolved from cuttlefish?"

@Author X

Actually the cuttlefish design is a 'shell' for the Reaper body, which takes the shape of the species it's made of.

Keeper Scans .. no doubt

Huuuaaauuuhhh! *Husk sounds*

Any one else entering creepy, uncertain areas that occasionally spammed teammate commands to "not feel alone?"

*orders squad to follow 3 times* "Right behind you Shepard!

I feel safer now, it was just too quiet.

Well maybe they'll just hinge the plot on characters that weren't companions in ME3, Like Kaid- um.... well, what about Wre-

Uh.

Well, I'm sure they'll figure it out. They're good writers.

Personally, I'm more excited to find out how my decision in certain loyalty mission will totally screw me over or not in ME3. I wasn't even playing Shepard as 'evil', just intimidating, but then that option came up and it was too awesome to resist. Yeah, you know the one.

This makes me happy. I wondered why the Citadel felt so small in ME2.

MASS EFFECT 3 SPOILERS!

The mission they're talking about is helping Thane/his son and Kasumi take out an indoctrinated agent. The hanar homeworld comes under heavy attack and Ambassador Udina petitions to abandon the world and not try to rescue it. This leads to hanar religious extremists suicide bombing the Presidium (remember that hanar from ME1? It's him). It culminates with Udina trying to stage a coup against the Council and it's revealed that he's now working with Cerberus. Thane (if he's alive) manages to kill him, but his illness becomes fatal. He dies with Shepard happy knowing that the drell have repaid their debt to the hanar people.

@(Unverified)
Nice try, but no.

Especially goofy is Thane's illness has always been fatal, it's not going to spontaneously make him die. He states it in plain English that he'll be around a while longer.

@Jennacide
"Nice try"? I got those spoilers FROM THE GAME. An entire script has already been leaked because of the XBOX leak. You want more spoilers? I can rhyme them off right here if you want. Go get a copy off the Internet for yourself if you don't want to believe me.

So yeah, you accused me of lying wrongly.

@(Unverified)

I wish I'd had enough discipline not to read your post, but I have to say I pegged Udina as a Cerberus member since ME2.

@Jennacide

Well, ME3 takes place some time after ME2, and Thane could be dying during the entire mission, not just spontaneously passing away after killing Udina.

I doubt that the mission he outlined is what was missing from ME2, though; there's stuff in it that would contradict the basic plot of the game (Kahje being attacked by Reapers, Thane dying before the Suicide Mission, etc).

Hopefully they handle it better than they did with DA2... scores of people who were supposed to be dead just magically milling about.

My money is on dealing with the Consort. They made a big deal about her in the first game, audio in Omega references her decision to leave, but hasn't yet.

WOW! "Thing that players didn't know might have been in one game is put into another!" What a development.

With the release of mass effect 3 looming, I am dreading having to play through Mass Effect 1 and 2 again. Yes, the story was wonderful, but the gameplay left a bad taste in my mouth. I have already played through both games once so playing through again wouldn't add much in the story department. All I would have left is the gameplay. You can have the best game story in the world but if your gameplay isn't up to snuff, then the game has no replay value. I sincerely hope that they abandon cover based combat in the third game but I'm not optimistic.....

Garrus' awesomeness brings the rest of your team back from the dead.
That's how.

Mass Effect 3

Citadel sequence cut from Mass Effect 2 returns in Mass Effect 3

Reader Comments (50)

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 12:03PM Dalrint said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 12:07PM baby sea tuna said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 12:09PM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 12:19PM Eniko said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 12:19PM Thalesnm said

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Posted: Nov 30th 2011 1:00PM Liquidfingers said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 1:18PM Evin said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 1:27PM King Johngie the Fourth said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 5:00PM sigma8 said

Posted: Dec 1st 2011 5:19AM Sonictheratherquickhedgehog said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 12:07PM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 12:08PM NaeemTHM said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 1:02PM Liquidfingers said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 1:23PM NaeemTHM said

Posted: Nov 30th 2011 2:23PM Vladeon said

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Posted: Nov 30th 2011 12:27PM Ryguy226 said

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Posted: Nov 30th 2011 2:08PM Exu said

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