BioWare’s Jesse Houston says that unlike the original Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 will be released for the Xbox 360 and PC at the same time.
Mass Effect didn’t appear on the PC until six months after it was released as an Xbox 360 exclusive in November 2007. The delay turned out to be a good deal for PC gamers, given the numerous interface tweaks and overall performance boost the game was given, but according to associate producer Jesse Houston that’s not going to happen the second time around; when Mass Effect 2 is released, we’re all going to get the same game at the same time.
“We learned a lot from building the PC version before, and having built it six months later there was a big difference. So we actually took what we learned from PC and put it back into 360,” he said in an interview with VG247.
“Fundamentally, we want you to have the same gameplay experience, but just with the difference in controls,” he continued. “This time around, doing it at the same time for a sim-ship, we can control the differences much more smoothly because it’s the same team building it now.”
He also noted that while much of the coverage of the game thus far has concentrated on improvements in the combat system, BioWare has taken great pains to significantly upgrade other aspects of the game as well. “The physical amount of content in the game is almost double this time round,” he said. “Visual assets, dialogue, how conversations work: the game itself is absolutely huge.”
