DigitalBattle.com

Video games are in some ways are starting to resemble the auto industry. We’re hearing more and more details about future titles in a series that hasn’t even released a sequel yet. Eventually developers will leak details of sequels to games that have yet to hit the shelves. Regardless of how early this news is, it’s still interesting to hear. In the first trailers for Mass Effect 2 we saw little more than a robotic geth wearing the protagonists armor, leading many to assume that he’d died in the ambiguous ending of the original.

Later though it was revealed that he had survived and would be present for at least some of the sequel. Now BioWare’s Casey Hudson, the executive producer on the title has revealed that not only has Shepard survived to the sequel, he may even make it to the final chapter of the trilogy. I say ‘may’ however not out of any ambiguity on the part of the developer- the choice rests on the player. Mass Effect 2 will have certain events or differences based on choices you made in the original (assuming you played it and still have your save file). As you’ve probably heard, depending on your actions characters can die in this game. Hopefully it won’t simply be due to the rigors of everyday combat, because in the original I generally found myself the only one standing at the end of nearly every encounter. Not only can your teammates die, but Shepard himself can be offed.

Of course if you fail to keep him alive, he’ll be replaced by a stand-in character in Mass Effect 3 so as to not force the developers to create two different plotlines, but if you play your cards right the hero can survive the supposed suicide mission he embarks on in #2 and head out for another attempt at defeating overwhelming odds.