BioWare has already confirmed that we're dealing with a trilogy

Oct 4, 2007 09:36 GMT  ·  By

Just as we've finished discussing what BioWare's president revealed about the Collectors Edition of their upcoming role playing game, Mass Effect, we've just stumbled upon a more official report containing information about the respective edition of the game. Some highlights can be found within the lines below, along with the full contents of the Mass Effect Collectors Edition package.

First things first. Everyone should know that Mass Effect is a Sci-Fi RPG currently under heavy development over at by BioWare Corp., the company also responsible for Jade Empire, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and the Baldur's Gate series. Mass Effect is an exclusive Xbox 360 game for now, being published by Microsoft Game Studios. All right then, now you're all set for a bunch of details regarding the actual game (excerpts):

- Determine the fate of mankind as you lead an elite tactical strike force as an epic galaxy-wide conflict unfolds.

- The players' decisions and actions will serve to shape the destiny of all life in the galaxy as you become absorbed in the story that is "Mass Effect," the first game in an epic trilogy from BioWare (as BioWare has recently confirmed)

- Real-time, squad based, tactical combat system

- Visit a large number of uncharted, unexplored planets which are not directly tied to the main story. At any time during the campaign, a player can choose to explore one of these planets in an all-terrain rover in order to discover new alien life, resources, ruined civilizations and powerful technologies.

- Huge cast of in-engine digital actors that you will encounter as NPCs, enemies or as party members. Each will have life-like facial and body movements, and an advanced dialogue system will give them engaging personalities.

- Choose from a variety of photo-realistic character appearances at the start of the game, and throughout the game can increase various statistics which will have an impact on their performance during gameplay. Equipment, weapons and armor that are acquired during the course of the story will change the appearance of the characters.

- XBL features include premium downloadable content and recognition of achievement that will be available via the service later on.

Now here's what Limited Collector's Edition contains:

Fiction Book: Galactic Codex: Essentials Mass Effect Art Book: A Future Imagined 2nd DVD with exclusive videos about Mass Effect (Art of Mass Effect, Interactive Storytelling of Mass Effect)

Mass Effect is due out on the 23rd of November, 2007.