Bioware: Microsoft mente at Mass Effect mindede for meget om Halo

Bioware's Mass Effect endte med at blive et kæmpe hit, men det var langt fra alle før udgivelsen, der så det som en potentiel hit.

Medstifteren af Bioware, Greg Zeschuk, har i et interview udtalt, at Microsoft, der var med til at udgive det første spil i serien, frygtede at spillet ville konkurrere mod deres Halo-serie:

"We had a really hilarious set of conversations about what Mass Effect was with Microsoft because they were just not getting it. I shouldn't say they weren't getting it. I should say they were concerned it was too much like Halo. So they kept trying to push it to these ridiculous non-confrontational story game things. They thought it was too close to Halo."

Der er små ligheder mellem de to spil, som at begge spilserier for eksempel foregår i rummet. Men der stopper ligheden også, da Mass Effect er historietungt, mens Halo er et action-orienterede skydespil. Microsoft tvang dog Bioware til at ændre på spillet:

"There were a couple things along the way in Mass Effect we did, things like completely changing the combat system two months before we shipped and did a bunch of aggressive changes."

At Mass Effect pludseligt skulle ændre spillet så drastisk kort før udgivelsen gjorde udvikleren nervøs. Ray Muzyka,der også er medstifter af Bioware, fortæller om Microsoft's reaktion, samt den feedback de fik for de testende spillere:

"Interface changes as well because it wasn't working two or three months before launch. I think it scared the s— out of our publishing partners at Microsoft...You know, we can actually thank them at the same time because their usability labs were awesome. We needed that feedback of players playing the game in the real world who weren't familiar with it who were just like, 'This isn't fun,' or, 'I just don't get what I have to do next.'", siger Muzyka i afslutningen på interviewet.

Spørgsmålet er, om hvor meget Microsoft faktisk krævede ændret, og om det var bedre eller værre for spillets udvikling.