The hardest part about any game trilogy is attract new players when you're already so far into the story. Case in point, Mass Effect 3 which is supposedly the end of Commander Shepherd's story. The Mass Effect story is a great one, but unfortunately not everyone has been able to experience it from the beginning.
For newer players, they may have no idea who Commander Shepherd is, let alone the entire Mass Effect story. There is no easy answer to the problem. Do developers ignore it and only cater to followers of the trilogy, hoping new players will pick up the game? Or do they find a way to somehow catch new players up to speed?
BioWare is doing the latter with Mass Effect 3, but it's easier said and done. And BioWare will be the first to tell you they failed to do so with Mass Effect 2.
"In all honesty, we didn't do a really good job of new player orientation," admitted Mass Effect 3 Product Marketer Nick Clifford in an interview with IGN. "If you didn't play the first game then 2 was pretty jarring for the first half hour."
BioWare is now working on a way for players to "pick up from the get go" and enjoy the Mass Effect 3 experience. This includes new character interactions with Shepherd, depending on whether it's your first time with a Mass Effect game, or loaded a save from Mass Effect 2.
"If I'm a new player and some guy walks up to me and is like 'Ohhhh Shepard! Remember that one time?' I would be like 'No. I don't remember that one time,'" Clifford said. "So we wanted to make sure that there aren't those moments that the player is like, 'Who is this? What's going on? What are they talking about?'"
Although Clifford was vague, he did mention that a "story so far narrative" would be included within the game. What that entails is still unknown, but we should find out more soon.
