Not all celebrate the idea of a Mass Effect series. One of the former story writers of Bioware extremely his concerns.
A few days ago, it became known that Amazon is apparently in the final steps to get a deal for a series around the Mass Effect universe. At the fans, that’s good, but there are also concerns. The idea of pouring the games in a series makes one of the former story writers of Bioware Cringe.
What was said? David Glider reported on Twitter to the plans of a Mass Effect series. Glider was responsible for a long time one of the lead writer at Bioware and then especially for Dragon Age. In a Tweet he explained that he makes the opportunity [a series implementation] a little.
The same idea also applies to the possibility that then Dragon Age could eventually get a series.
Why Glider thinks so? Glider leads more closely what he means. From his point of view, the story of Mass Effect, in terms of the games, is not so easy to implement in a series. This is mainly because Commander Shepard is basically a blank paper.
Players form their Shepard in the story — decide whether he is a man or a woman or which decisions he meets. No matter how you want to implement this in a series — you always push people in front of your head, which made for Shepard completely different decisions.
The whole game world and the experience was tailored by the many decisions on each individual player. It would be almost impossible to satisfy the long-standing fans with a series that Shepard and his companions has a focus.
Mass Effect has to fulfill too much at the same time
Think about how much the story depends on the companions. They are the cipher, by giving players most emotional experiences [in the game]. Tensioned are the protagonists of Mass Effect and Dragon Age… Well, pretty boring. That will not sell.
He will continue this:
Debt to these companions. Remember how much the fans hang on these characters. Now consider the fact that there is absolutely no way that a single story treats them all the same. Think of the outcry of the wrath, if companion X only gets a small Cameo appearance… or does not occur at all.
However, Faerie does not believe that the series is absolutely convicted to fail. It is excited that an implementation is planned and just hopes that Amazon will succeed to avoid all the stumbling blocks and possible mistakes.
Because the risk of making only another 08/15-SCIFI series from the Mass Effect universe, which in the end can not delight the fans of the game nor new spectators, is monster.
In many ways it would be wiser not to adapt the history of games. But consider the perspective of those who make this TV series. They do not just do that for the fans who already know the whole story and that it would be okay if it develops in a different direction.
The much larger audience are those who do not know anything about Mass Effect or Dragon Age.
In some way, the series must provide an answer to this: What is Mass Effect? And that means you have to create something that is immediately recognized as Mass Effect. This means to make already known in a way, as the fans do not need, and they will most likely react negative. Maybe. I guess we will already see it.
Are you sharing the concerns of Glider? Or are you first optimistic and believes that Mass Effect can function as a series — both for long-standing fans and a completely new target group?
Other series have lately pretended that games implementations can be perfect — such as the World’s Success Arcane.