Interviews// BioWare’s Dr. Ray Muzyka

BioWare has been creating Role Playing Games (RPGs) for many years now, but arguably their rise to mainstream fame arrived when the Canadian studio released Mass Effect on the Xbox 360. Playing like an interactive adventure book, gamers could experience a deep and engaging intergalactic story which seemed to fuse elements from Star Wars, Star Trek and Blade Runner together.

What set the game apart from other RPGs was, of course, in the unique paths you could choose, presented by dialogue options and alternative mission directives. That in turn led to the now infamous Fox News sex scene ‘scandal'. But otherwise, it was a positive example of how Western talent can dominate in a genre largely associated with Japanese developers.

Leading the creation process is BioWare’s General Manager, CEO and Co-Founder Dr. Ray Muzyka, who recently attended Electronic Arts’ Winter Showcase to talk about Mass Effect 2, the so-called Empire Strikes Back in the game’s planned trilogy. We chat to Ray about the new faces we’ll see in the sequel, the improvements made over the original Mass Effect and why Ray believes this game is the best that BioWare has ever made.


SPOnG: Mass Effect 2 is just round the corner now, but there are still people who haven’t played much of the original, like myself I’m ashamed to say. Will players need to experience the first Mass Effect before jumping in?

Ray Muzyka: That’s fine, you don’t need to have played the first one. We have a good entry point for whether you want to import a saved game from Mass Effect or start fresh, it’s good either way.


SPOnG: You’re also putting a much darker storyline into this sequel. Was this a reaction from the first game to draw a wider audience or is it all part of a planned saga?

Ray Muzyka: It fits into the story arc that we’ve planned right from the beginning, and we have plans for a Mass Effect 3 as well, so this is the dark ‘Second Act’ in the trilogy. It’s a bit like our Empire Strikes Back in the Mass Effect world.


SPOnG: There are plenty of alien species in the game. Some, like the Geth, have been seen before but Mass Effect 2 is also introducing the Legion. Could you explain a bit more about the new faces we’ll see?

Ray Muzyka: Well, it’s important to mention the older races too, because I should point out that in Mass Effect 2 you’ll get to learn a lot more about them. The Geth were in the first game, but here we delve a bit deeper into their culture and history and you get a different angle on them than you had seen before. So that’s an interesting development.

The same is true of many of the races - for example, we get to go to the home world of the Asari, whereas in Mass Effect 1 we just sort of alluded to it. There are other home worlds of species you have met in Mass Effect 1 that you can visit too, and that will reveal previously unknown knowledge on them.

We talked about The Collectors, who are kind of like the ‘arch-nemesis’ working behind the scenes. You keep meeting them every now and then, and they’re ultimately the force that’s driving a lot of the things that are happening. I’m not going to say much more about it than that, but they’re an integral part of the story, and they’ll be a force to be reckoned with.


SPOnG: You said earlier that you believe that Mass Effect 2 has the true potential to be the best game BioWare has ever made.

Ray Muzyka: That’s right, and I truly believe that. And a lot of that judgement is totally based on playing the game. I just finished a playthrough myself - I’m just jumping from place to place at the moment but generally I’ve cleared most of the content in the game, and it’s near its final form. We’re still polishing right now, and every day we’re adding new stuff as well.

But it blew me away. The pacing and the emotional intensity is something you’re always looking forward to in Mass Effect 2, I couldn’t stop thinking about it all when I had the controller in my hand. I just wanted to play it more every day. The shooter mechanics were a big part of that, which was really intense - but the exploration was also important, as well as some of the mini-games that you get to do as an optional mission on the other worlds, and the cinematic sequences... it’s a full package.