SPOnG: Where next for
Mass Effect and BioWare? Obviously you’re not going to tell us anything about a third game when the second isn’t even out the door yet, but in general terms how will you cope with
Mass Effect 3 if you spoke of
Mass Effect 2 being BioWare’s greatest BioWare game...
Ray Muzyka: The greatest BioWare game so far. (smiles) One of our goals is to have each game better than the last, so I’m really proud of the
Dragon Age team, who have just launched
Origins.
Mass Effect is coming out in the New Year, and I really feel that
Mass Effect has the potential to be seen as the best game from BioWare. But then beyond that we have
Star Wars: The Old Republic, and we talked about
Mass Effect being a trilogy so that’ll be the next step.
After all that, we might do some more work on
Dragon Age and more stuff that we haven’t even announced yet. At the end of the day, I feel really lucky because people enjoy the games we make and I wouldn’t change any of that. Each game has its own unique angle and appeal, and each has a team dedicated to providing the best experience yet.
SPOnG: And
Mass Effect in general has really taken off as a franchise beyond games too, with comics and figures coming soon. Are you planning on taking that further to become something of a mega-franchise? Well, you’re not going to say ‘no’ really are you?
Ray Muzyka: (Laughs) I’ll say, “Yes.” I mean, this is something we want to do with all our franchises, we’re always building products beyond the gaming medium. We’re interested in expanding that to linear media like novels and books. We’ve done books and comics so far, but we’d be interested in television and movie extensions in the future too. We don’t have any announcements to make on any of that stuff but we’re actively exploring all those things.
SPOnG: Ray Muzyka, it’s a pleasure to speak to you. Thanks for your time.
Ray Muzyka: Thank you very much.
Lance A. 23 Dec 2009 05:34