Mass Effect 3 Goes Gold, Demo Ready to Go

Casey Hudson, who is an executive producer working on Mass Effect 3, has confirmed that the upcoming mix between role-playing and action from BioWare has reached Gold status ahead of its March launch date.

The Twitter message from the developer reads, “After an awesome effort by our team, I’m proud to announce #MassEffect3 is officially GOLD! Many surprises await you – this week and beyond.”

The Gold status means that the game is now code complete and that it will be sent to manufacturing to get printed on DVDs and on Blu-rays while a number of advanced copies are sent to reviewers.

There is no actual link between Gold status and the release of the demo for Mass Effect 3, which arrives tomorrow on the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360 and the PC, as the demo was likely finished some time ago and is based on game code from a few months before.

There’s little doubt that the development team at BioWare will continue to work on Mass Effect 3 ahead of the official launch date, especially when it comes to looking for bugs and fixing them.

If something important needs to be changed, then the team will likely create a launch day patch for the PC and they will aim to get it approved as quickly as possible on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.

BioWare is also likely already working on downloadable content for the game, although neither them nor the team handling the game at Electronic Arts has confirmed what players might receive after the game launches.

Mass Effect 3 will be the last of the games to feature Commander Shepard as the protagonist, trying to save both Earth and the Galaxy from the Reaper assault, but BioWare has confirmed that it will then use the same universe for other stories.

The launch dates for Mass Effect 3 are March 6 in the United States and March 9 for gamers in Europe.