Mass Effect 2 Interview, Part Two

As promised last week, PC World has released the second installment to their interview with Mass Effect 2 lead producer Casey Hudson.

GO: Speaking of ethical actions, in Knights of the Old Republic your morality system was scalar with “light side” versus “dark side” points distributed along a single axis. In Mass Effect it was represented by paragon, i.e. “balanced/systemic” versus renegade, i.e. “anarchic” actions, and you could see both separately at the same time. How does it work in Mass Effect 2?

CH: It works similarly in terms of accumulating paragon and renegade points separately. That said, we’re always working on improving the decisions that feed the system so they’re less about being good or evil and more about the agonizing choice between sacrifices. For example, sacrifices that are personal or selfless versus more brutal choices that might accomplish something more quickly but at significant cost to someone else.

Part of it’s that people will play these games multiple times, the first time generally making the choices they think they’d personally make, the second time maybe taking strictly paragon choices, a third time just to see all the renegade permutations. We’re always trying to make the decisions a little more sophisticated and agonizing so there’s never a right choice. It comes down to your personal values. The trick is that, when you have a meter that shows all of your accumulated decisions, that’s where it ultimately seems gamier than the actual decisions are. At the same time, it’s helpful to give player something to look at to gauge what their tendencies have been over the course of the game.