Mass Effect 2 Interview

VGD: It’s nice to know there are some people at BioWare who relax enough to drink! I met the Dragon Age team last year, and I can’t see those guys getting pissed and talking about what they’re going to do in the sequel.

Cho: Well, we’re people too! We like playing games, and we like going out for a drink. I think that keeps us relate-able to the audience, too – we have to listen to the people who play our games. And it’s no longer a “nerd” culture, we’re branching out to larger audiences, and we like watching movies, we like listening to the same music you guys do!

Either that's alien gore or they've been reduced to throwing custard pies.

VGD: What would you say was your chief responsibility this time round, as a producer?

Cho: One of the fun things of my job for Mass 2 was ensuring that things get done on time and efficiently – lots of times an asset goes through several different hands, so the joy is making sure that whole process isn’t blocked. I’m still able to take a lot of my tech experience and fill in the gaps, so to speak, but I get a lot of joy in seeing a character developed on time, passed onto animation and then coming to life in a cinematic, all running smoothly. Because if those assets ever get delayed, ultimately that has an impact down the line – you might not have a great-looking character, or as great-looking a character. But if you can help in a production capacity to ensure that things are delivered to the best quality and also on time…

VGD: Do you think that’s where some projects in the industry that have bags of potential end up going wrong? Because the glue that holds development together is missing?

Cho: Yes, because you have to look at the project holistically, and if there’s an imbalance – maybe you’ll have the best audio ever, but if no-one ever paid attention to the gameplay, what’s the point because nobody’s going to play your game, nobody’s going to hear your audio! So you kind of have to make sure equal attention is paid to all areas of a project, and to then allow each to shine as well, to have the opportunity to do the best they can, but to also keep the focus on – to say “we are together as a team, working on this one objective”. We definitely want people to bring their best, but to make sure everybody works well together.

The Collective mean business.

VGD: Last year you showed me the PC version of Mass 1, which obviously made a bunch of improvements on the Xbox 360 game. Will there be a discrepancy between versions this time round? Or will you bring the same stuff to both?

Cho: Definitely, it’s a very tight integration. We learned a lot about usability from PC development on Mass 1, and the great thing is with Mass 2 is that it’s a parallel development. So they’re sharing things and if they don’t work out so well on one platform or the other, or work out really well, we can seamlessly integrate those changes onto both. So there’s not necessarily an advantage or disadvantage with one.

VGD: You guys are working with EA Montreal on this as well.

Cho: Yeah, this is the first game we’ve started developing using a small subsidiary studio out there – BioWare Montreal – and they were helping out on all aspects of the game from cinematics to mission development to level art and character.