One of the big stars of E3 that just wrapped up in Los Angeles was BioWare's space-based role playing game, Mass Effect 2, mainly due to its initial trailer, which implied that the star of the first videogame, Commander Shepard, might be dead in this iteration or even one of the antagonists.

BioWare has since clarified the situation, explaining that the gamer plays as Shepard and that he is not really dead, just presumed to be killed in action. Apparently, there is a chance that the main character of the series, which has been designed as a trilogy from the beginning of development, will not make it into the third videogame that will probably be released sometime in 2011.

There was a sequence in the version of Mass Effect 2 shown at E3 in which the Normandy, the state of the art stealth ship serving as main base of action for Shepard and his crew of humans and aliens, is seen attacked by surprise and pretty much blown out of the sky as the Commander, in nothing more than a feeble space suit, speeds up towards the atmosphere of a nearby planet.

Casey Hudson, one of the producers on the game, implied heavily that betrayal would be one of the main motifs behind Mass Effect 2 as “this is a darker game. Your actions can have brutal consequences... important characters can die.” The key to the survival of the main character might be making sure that all those in the crew and that all those who are being rescued are truly loyal to humanity and to its first Spectre.

Apart from the plot, BioWare is promising that Mass Effect 2 will also improve on other aspects of the original release, like creating a fresh cover system and implementing the ability to take off the limbs of an enemy.