Mass Effect 3 Beta Leaks on Xbox Live, BioWare Explains Its Features

BioWare has released a statement over the leak of its internal demo for the upcoming Mass Effect 3 role playing shooter, which was made available, by mistake, for all Xbox Live users over the weekend.

It seems that somebody over at Microsoft was a bit too keen on letting others know just how the Mass Effect 3 beta handles, as the internal demo was made public for a brief time for everyone to download.

While the demo was pulled shortly after that, quite a lot of people managed to download it, and start it up to experience both the single-player demonstration that was public at Gamescom 2011 earlier this year, as well as check out some multiplayer footage and some peculiar options that will be included in the game.

Lots of videos and screenshots were made by Xbox 360 owners who got the demo, but BioWare has now released a statement concerning all of the things from that beta stage, highlighting the fact that the demo version was incomplete and not reflective of the quality of the final game.

The studio then explained the presence of game modes, specifically Action, Story, and RPG, which allowed players to experience various types of gameplay.

"One feature that was present in this early build is a set of game play modes that are in development," the studio revealed. "In the beta code they are referred to as "action mode", "story mode" and "RPG mode". We want to stress that these features are still in the early stages of development and will receive considerable iteration and refinement."

"These modes are designed to give players an even finer degree of control over their game experience than ever before. Whether it be someone who finds the combat difficult but wants to experience the amazing story, someone who wants to focus on the action and combat game play, or fans who want the rich, story-driven RPG Mass Effect experience they've come to love – Mass Effect 3 will support all of these options. We'll have more info in the days ahead!"

Another interesting reveal from the screenshots of the leaked demo is that, at least for the Xbox 360 version of Mass Effect 3, the game still has support for EA's Origin service, which, as of yet, is used just on its PC games, like Battlefield 3.

We already know that a Mass Effect 3 beta stage, with both single-player and multiplayer modes, will be released early next year, so expect more details until then.