Next Mass Effect Comic-Con Panel Reports, Video

Yesterday lead animator Carl Boulay, producer Fabrice Condominas, senior artist Noel Lukasewich, community manager Jessica Merizan and producer Mike Gamble hosted a San Diego Comic-Con panel titled Charting a Course: Developing the Next Mass Effect which, as you might imagine, dealt with the upcoming and so far untitled Mass Effect sequel from BioWare Montreal. Most of us didn’t have a chance to be in San Diego to witness, which prompted some live tweeting on part of the Nerd Appropriate folks, who also managed to get a few snaps of some armor renders. It’s not quite a wealth of info, but we can get an idea of the direction of the next title, and got at least one concrete look at a returning vehicle from the first title of the series:

Frostbite engine has allowed the team to do a lot more than ever before.
– on multiplayer – It was born out of the idea of playing as various races in the ME universe.
– gender selection will remain in the next ME as it is an important part of the franchise.
Your Mako! “the Mako is back”–MG
“cooperative MP is bigger for us (than competitive)” – MG
We did get to see the Mako in action! She is a speedy little sucker !
No announcements on player race
Team reiterates that it is not Shepard’s story and that this story one is brand new.
You will see a bit of old with the new (old characters MAY appear) !!
no timeline was announced at the panel. Some hints were made but I have to re-listen to the audio.

Andrea Rene of the Escapist also has a couple of snippets in Twitter form:

Building a game about exploring places, so you need a vehicle for that
Sounds like the timeline of [the next Mass Effect] will be during Shepard’s lifetime but won’t involve Shepard…hard to tell [Mike Gamble] being cagey!

The Escapist also offers a video with some footage of the Mako driving, in the same “conceptual prototype” form as many Electronic Arts E3 videos this year: