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Mass Effect Author Blog
Updated November 5, 2007

By Stephen Stratton

Ah, Mass Effect. One of the most brilliant games I’ve ever had the pleasure of crafting a guide for. Also one of the most daunting and challenging projects of my 7-year career as a Prima author. Thankfully, the task wasn’t mine alone: working alongside two esteemed colleagues, and having a ton of support from Microsoft and BioWare, the task was made manageable. Not easy, mind you … but manageable.

So, what’s it like writing a book that covers a game as deep as Mass Effect? In a word: tough. The first step is the fun part, though. Get all nice and comfy, play through the game a bit, and have a look at what you’re up against. It’s at this stage that we begin to formulate ideas on how the guide should flow — while at the same time trying not to freak out that we actually have to write a functional, organized guide for something like Mass Effect. It didn’t take long for the freakout stage to kick in: after just a few hours of play, it became clear that Mass Effect is incredibly huge — or, as one might say, massive. (Heh… sorry.) The game boasts seven major plot worlds, along with dozens of smaller, uncharted planets you may opt to land on and explore. The entire galaxy is packed with hundreds of alien individuals for you to chat and interact with, many offering side-quests and the like — great ways to advance your character and uncover neat bits of story you’d otherwise miss. And as if all this wasn’t enough, nearly every deed and decision you make in Mass Effect carries some sort of repercussion — for instance, there are multiple ways to complete some of the missions, resulting in a variety of potential paths and outcomes. The game’s replayability factor is extremely high, and projects like this one are some of the most challenging a guide author can undertake. So, yeah … a bit of freaking out was certainly involved in the early stages!

The first time you arrive at the Citadel — the most gigantic and densely-populated space station in the Mass Effect universe — you start to gain a real sense of how epic the game is. You could easily spend over 10 hours just puttering about this immense outpost — and it’s only the second world you’ve visited by this point. Stores and NPCs are everywhere, creating a believable vibe that this is indeed a living, breathing space station full of alien life and activity. Side-quests abound, but if you’re in a rush to get out there and chart the stars, you can wrap up your primary duties on the Citadel in about an hour or so. I like this aspect of the game; it lets those who just want to enjoy a sweeping space adventure tear through and do just that, while the more hardcore fans are free to check out every nook and cranny of the universe at their own pace.

Since the game makes such a clear distinction between critical-path missions and optional assignments, we decided to mimic this approach in our guide. We piled all of the critical-path information into one big walkthrough, and stashed all of the side-quests and optional assignments into a completely separate section of the book. This allows you to find fast answers when stuck on a mission, without having to wade through pages of optional assignments that you may have little interest in exploring. To minimize page-flipping, the walkthrough always points out the availability of each side mission as they become available, steering you straight to the appropriate pages of the side-quest chapter, where the in-depth coverage is.

As one might expect, there’s also a great deal of math and such going on in the background throughout Mass Effect. Character advancement, skill pairing and usage, the vast array of weapons and equipment, combat actions and mechanics — all of this vital information is conveniently showcased in the front chapters of the guide. Microsoft and BioWare were kind enough to provide us with massive amounts of design documentation, including all manner of statistical charts and values. While sifting through the hundreds of pages of design materials wasn’t exactly easy, we wanted to ensure that the hard-stat junkie would be able to find all the info they needed. Think of it as the nuts and bolts of the game hammered down into a pair of thorough training chapters. You won’t find this exclusive info anywhere else!

Breaking down the enormity of Mass Effect into book format was a trying experience, but it was all done with one goal in mind: creating an invaluable guide to help both the casual and hardcore gamer alike get the most out of their time in the Mass Effect universe. We think we’ve succeeded in this effort, and we hope you’ll find the guide to be as great a help for your gameplay as its source material is an achievement for videogames. Have fun out there!