Interview With Dr. Greg Zeschuk [Mass Effect]

[cmd]

Well, you’re coming up to the end of the project, and that’s always exciting.

Greg Zeschuk: Yeah, it is really exciting. It’s almost kind of a surreal feel to it. It seems, in some ways…it really has been a long, tough sort of development. [However], it’s been incredibly useful—it’s hard to express how excited we are about what has come out of it. I think, probably, a part of that is the whole next-gen thing, because I know all of us in the industry felt we were really going for it, to get to the top of the next-gen mountain—and it feels like we figured it out, so to speak. It’s dangerous whenever you say that [smiles], but we’re very excited by where Mass Effect is ending up. It’s getting near completion and it’s ready to go.

You guys are always heavy on quality control and making sure that you’re happy with it before it goes out the door. There are companies that do the “It’ll be ready when it’s ready,” but you really seem to hang on to it as long as you need to. Little different working under Microsoft? I don’t know if it added pressure…

Greg Zeschuk: I think the interesting thing, working with Microsoft, is we were really aligned with what we were trying to do with this game. I think for them…they’ve got a really good [approach] nowadays on what they want to do from a quality perspective. It’s pretty clear—it’s evident to everyone, if you have the best quality stuff, that means you’re going to be more successful. It’s kind of how it works.

I think with us, we’ve always had that belief. It’s always been held true, like you said. We really spend an awful lot of time playing it. I think that’s one of the funny things that you wonder sometimes if companies say, “Okay, the features are all done,” then, zoom, it’s out the door. But, really, it’s about playing what you’ve created, and I think that’s actually, a lot of times, when we do our best work, when we have the game fully playable and you start playing, saying “This could use some tweaking here and maybe a little bit of strengthening.”

The other side of the coin is, I think everyone is getting that now. You’re seeing, almost across the board, with most folks’ games the quality is going up. This is going to be a very, very competitive Christmas season—there are some blockbuster, classic games coming out this year. It’s going to be amazing actually.

Okay, be as modest as you want…where does Mass Effect fit in amid the Halo 3s and the Call of Dutys…?

Greg Zeschuk: I think we compete extremely well with everything this fall. We know what we’ve got…we’re very proud of it. I think the biggest thing about Mass Effect that’s really going to shine through is it’s very different from anything that anybody has ever played. There’s never been a game made like this. This is the first time this has actually been achieved—the breadth of the universe and the galaxy, and the detail of interaction between characters. I think the market tends to reward uniqueness, the newness, the “differentness”—particularly when it’s done well.

I think that’s the other side of the coin. We’ve finished the game a couple of times—Ray [Muzyka, BioWare co-founder/CEO] and I both played—and we know it’s good. I think that the trick to it is, let’s get it done and get it done right, polish it off and go from there.

What was the biggest challenge doing Mass Effect?

Greg Zeschuk: I think one of the biggest challenges was just putting it all together. I think we had a lot of really great pieces that were all there—putting it together into one straight package. And then I think once we did that, it all kind of fell into place. Then we were able to sequentially go through each section—and tune it up, and tune it up, and tune it up. By the time you’ve done that to the whole game, you’ve got your game.

The next-gen thing is interesting, because you almost have this unlimited opportunity to polish and tweak and make things better and faster, but there’s a point where you have to go, “Okay, it’s great already,” and that’s there point where you have to stop it.

What do you hope the gamers will take away from Mass Effect?

Greg Zeschuk: I think one for sure is around that cinematic presentation and the movie-like feel of the game. In many ways, I still sit there sometimes and feel like I’m watching a movie—but one more step than that, it feels like I’m also the actor and the director, too. What’s really neat is I’m on this other playthrough where I was kind of the nice-ish character this time, and [in a different playthrough,] I’m a ruthless character. I’m completely surprised by what I’m doing, so there’s this other dimension of…it’s not really predictable. I think that’s one exciting thing about the game is, it really throws a lot of surprises at you. I don’t mean big, giant twists or anything like that, but you just don’t know what’s going to happen next. I think that completes the really exciting experience.

You kind of started that with KotOR. What was the evolution with Mass Effect—the thinking of what you had to do next?

Greg Zeschuk: I think there were a few steps along the way for the company. The character stuff—we certainly started with that voiceover in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and then we kind of moved to Jade Empire, which had more voiceover and actually some basic emotion on the characters, then finally to Mass Effect, where that was a fundamental aspect.

The second thing I think that much of the team working on Mass Effect tried to focus on from Knights of the Old Republic—and it’s also from other games, like Jade Empire and other stuff of the past—but you sort of take a lot of that experience with you, and you can take things further. I think that’s where we’ve gone with this game…being able to take things like interaction and take it to a really interesting place.

Games haven’t traditionally been like music records, where you’re buying the latest Beatles album or Linkin Park album. I’m sure there are people that buy a BioWare game because it’s a BioWare game, but what do you hope that people—especially those who haven’t been exposed to your product as much—will learn about BioWare with Mass Effect?

Greg Zeschuk: I feel Mass Effect is one of those games that has a real chance of expanding our audience. We traditionally have these roots in the PC space, with the Baldur’s Gate type of stuff, and we’re really proud of that—it’s a tremendous game. I think what Mass Effect does is show another dimension to us. It takes on a challenge that not really…in the same sense, anyone else is doing, the sort of the goals of emotional attachment and interaction with characters and story in a totally new way.

And also I think they’ll probably be quite surprised at the action in the game. That’s one of the other things that’s hard to make evident in a demo like this one, but the more you play it, the more you understand how all the bits of the game interact—and I think combat becomes more and more interesting, because you have more tools at your disposal. Well, so do your enemies, but we tend to be very creative in how we throw it.

Actually, it’s a really neat experience, because, building it, we really don’t trumpet it as much, but it’s something that people are going to see is the fact that much of the game has a shooter and action mechanic, but underneath it is still that sort of tactical RPG. I don’t think that’s actually been accomplished yet in the industry. So, I think we have the obvious accomplishment of the dialogue/interaction system and the emotional attachment, and underneath is that tactical depth in the combat.

It’ll be interesting. Every way you play it is totally different—if you play an Adept or a Soldier, it’s completely different. It’s really hard to emphasize that. You just have to try it…you’ll be amazed.

BioWare’s Dr.Greg Zeschuk Interview - Xbox

[marX]

CMD your one of my new favorite people on the board...always there to C/P, thank you.