With Dragon Age: Origins now released and set to receive another piece of DLC, called Return to Ostagar, in time for Christmas and with The Old Republic probably only coming at some point in 2011, the big marketing effort for BioWare and their publisher, Electronic Arts, is Mass Effect 2, the space based action role playing game which is set to arrive on the shelves of game stores in January. And the developers are saying that they will be making an important announcement related to it during this week.

A Facebook message from BioWare reads “Man, so much time tied up today in meetings and "secret stuff" I didn't get any time with ME2 at all. =( Still with the coming surprise for next week on the ME2 website, I'm sure fans will forgive me for no update. Did I, Evil Chris Priestly, just drop a hint? Yes. Yes I did”. It's not clear whether the “secret stuff” is related to gameplay or to the unveiling of a new character, but BioWare is being tight lipped about what it plans to do.

Mass Effect 2, as seen in a gameplay video and in developer diaries, looks pretty interesting, with most of the problems of the first game in the series apparently solved. The dialog system appears to be improved, with both more options and more consequences attached to it, and combat is now more fluid and more tactical. The developers at BioWare have repeatedly said that they plan for the second Mass Effect videogame to be darker and more complex than the first one, with Commander Shepard facing a tough seemingly suicide mission as he searches for whole human colonies that have been kidnapped.

The recent reveal of the Subject Zero character, with her tattoos and rough language, seems to have turned off some fans of Mass Effect and BioWare could be getting ready to show a more likable character to appease them.