14 DAY TRIAL // BioWare, as the developer, and Electronic Arts, as the publisher, have officially confirmed that they are working on Mass Effect 3, showing a reveal trailer at the Video Games Awards and saying that the game will be released during 2011.
Considering that fact that BioWare is already working on Dragon Age 2 and has a firm launch date set for March of next year, Mass Effect 3 will probably arrive at some point during the fall, fighting for the attention of gamers with other blockbusters.
The two companies in charge of the series have not talked about the platforms Mass Effect 3 will be arriving on, but a brief appearance on the EA online store suggests that it will be released at the same time on the PC, the PlayStation 3 from Sony and the Xbox 360 from Microsoft.
The most important line from the trailer is: “2 million dead by the first day. Another 7 million by the end of the first week.”
The trailer shown builds on the teasers that BioWare has revealed before the VGA ceremony, with a human sniper housed in the Big Ben taking out an unseen alien as Reaper style drop ships assault the city as part of a larger Earth wide operation.
The trailer suggests that Mass Effect 3 will ask the player to complete the fight against the Reapers by reuniting the various races in the galaxy in order to retake Earth and then take the fight to the enemies themselves.
The initial trailer does not offer any clear detail about how the game will actually work, but if the game comes in late 2011, it's pretty clear that BioWare and Electronic Arts will deliver more information pretty soon.
Here's the full trailer for Mass Effect 3 as it was shown at the Video Game Awards show: