Mass Effect, not the spin-off Andromeda, but the trilogy, has consecrated itself as one of the greatest series of games in history. Each of the games has opened to critical acclaim each time, but none of this would not have been possible without the work of the great team of developers behind it. I want to explore a bit the processes that they went through and give my own insight of them, as a fan, but mainly as a game’s designer.

As all other games, the series began from one man with the insight of creating something original. In the case of Mass Effect, it was the Project Director Casey Hudson.

He was doing technical art from programming up to art tools, which gave him access to parts of a project, allowing him an overview of how things were done in each section of a game. As Bioware started working on a Star Wars title, he was chosen as Project Director, working on Knights of the Old Republic. After the project was done, he was switched to managing and creating a new Intellectual Property. Bioware wanted something different from Star Wars, but set in space as well, in an RPG style with a shooter type of gameplay, that would improve on the success of their game (Hudson, 2011).

Bioware was already known for being an amazing developer, as confirmed through all their games up to that point, Baldur’s Gate series, based on Dungeon and Dragons, and their first original IP, Jade Empire (I am still waiting for a sequel – hope dies last, they say). Rolling on the success that they had creating an RPG set in space, in Star Wars: Knights of the Own Republic, creating a new property based in the future was ideal. They proved that they could do an excellent job in creating RPGs, as attested by their work, as well as being able to create an interesting and original IP, as proven by the under-the-radar Jade Empire, so this step was normal.

Casey shared his game ideas and concepts with Greg and Ray from his design team. They were thinking about the games that they liked and what would they want to capture for the said games. In his case he liked Starflight, Deus Ex – with the skills and shooter concepts. This led to them creating a rough framework for what would become the Mass Effect Series. The researching ideas phase, in their case, took about a year, as they looked at, detailed and defined them. They worked from basic questions such as if the existence of aliens would be a staple of the game, if there would be different climates or would there be only one planet with the story set on it. Upon defining the details of the world and universe, they started thinking about the story that would be set within it. Having your own ship, being able to have decisional power, what is the reason behind taking those decisions (in this case, it was being part of the Spectres) (Hudson, 2011).

I would like to make a stop here and emphasise the time it took them to research the basic ideas that formed the skeleton for the series: 1 YEAR. This proves that ideas should be properly considered as it will aid in creating the core of what would become the series staple story and gameplay – I am looking at you, Andromeda, you little brother that built up hopes of what you could have become, only to be less than that, but still included, just cause you are part of the family.

As the roots of the series was decided, the art team is brought in to work their mojo and bring to life the beautiful world of Mass Effect. In this nice-looking world, the companions are what makes it enjoyable, being a staple of the series story, letting us become emotionally invested through their awesome personalities and pleasant voices (the wonderful robotic voice of Legion being the cherry on top – Shepard Commander).

Derek Watts shares some insight into how the designing of different aliens takes place. The team gets a brief description from the writers, then drawings which are deemed cool by the concept artist are done. Afterwards the look is solidified and detailed in the later phases, as the art is matched with the animation (Finlayson et al., 2010).

This is a standard workflow that we were thought at University. While creating a description of the character, it is indeed important to be brief or else it might affect all the wonderful concepts, as they would be restricted by too much detail. The later phase is also important, especially in a 3D world, as the animation rigs are the ones that affect the art the most in the respective stage. It is expensive cost-wise to create animation rigs for each different species, as such it takes patience and discipline to follow the guidelines, which helps the 3D model to match up with the animation skeleton.