14 DAY TRIAL // Mass Effect will be the first installment of a planned trilogy under the BioWare label and tailored exclusively for the Xbox 360. The game takes place in the year 2183, with the player taking the role of an elite human soldier going by the name of Commander Shepard. The story revolves around an ancient alien prophecy stating that, every fifty thousand years, machines come to the galaxy to harvest all organic life. Right now, the time of their return is near again. Shepard's mission is to defeat armies of a legendary agent gone rogue, leading an elite team across hostile alien worlds and discovering that the true threat is far greater than anyone had imagined.
Now, in an interview with Team Box, joint CEO Dr. Ray Muzyka made an impressive comment regarding the upcoming title's length of quest play: "I think it's going to be about 40 hours or so for the main story, so it's going to be a good-sized BioWare RPG just for the core part," said Muzyka. "Off the beaten path, there's probably another 20 or 30 hours or so of stuff, or more, depending on how much you do and what order you do it in and all of that."
Any gamer that knows their RPG would have gone bananas hearing this. A total 70 hours of quest? Of course, Microsoft felt they should clarify the facts abut the game's length so there wouldn't be any surprises: "There are so many interesting choices..." bla, bla, bla. "One play through, just one permutation of the critical path, would be about 20-30 hours and the extra stuff you could do, including exploration of uncharted worlds and post-release content, would add another 20 or more hours depending on what you do and in what order."
So, keeping in mind BioWare's statement about the length of Mass Effect's main quest, it seems they might have exaggerated a little (10 hour difference between the two statements). It still sounds like there will be about 50 hours of play so that's gotta count for something. Besides the plans for a trilogy, which Bioware claims "will cover the Xbox 360's five-plus year cycle," there are plans for an episodic content to be uploaded to Xbox Live that fills in the story between each game. Don't worry; they won't be crucial for the game's understanding.