Mass Effect for the PC Pushed Back to New Date

Not Polish as in "country of origin = Poland" but rather polish as "the action where you repeatedly pass a rag over a shiny surface to make it even more shiny, until you drop dead from exhaustion." In a post dated April 7 on the game forums, Chris Priestly, who is Community Coordinator for Bioware, has announced that the game will ship on May 28 in North America and on June 6 in Europe.

The original release date for the highly anticipated PC version of Mass Effect, a game that is already a Xbox 360 hit, was May 6, conformed only for North America. So it seems like the waiting game has been the only game in town for about a month as the game got the polish treatment from Demiurge games, the studio that is handling the PC port, and Bioware.

Apparently, the move is part of Electronic Arts', the new owner of Bioware, strategy to deliver more quality to its customers. Gamers have long complained that EA titles developed by major studios tend to be rushed, with little quality control and playtesting, which means that the games have glaring bugs in them and patches are a necessity for a good gaming experience. In part because of the lower-than-expected rating for its games, Electronic Arts has decided to take the time needed to make the best of every title in its portfolio, and that apparently includes Mass Effect for the PC.

Chris Priestly stated that: "The team here at BioWare, working closely with the good folks at Demiurge Studios, has decided that a few more weeks in the studio will ensure we deliver the quality that our fans deserve. The additional time will allow us to incorporate more play-testing feedback, add extra polish and tune the additional features so that Mass Effect is a natural and outstanding PC gaming experience."

There's some speculation that the release of the game has been postponed in order to integrate the Bring Down the Sky DLC pack that has recently appeared on the Xbox 360 directly into the PC version of the game, but Bioware and Electronic Arts have not made any official announcement regarding this issue.