If you played Mass Effect 2, you might recall that the choices you made throughout the game were…less than critical. Deciding to release Grunt, deciding to activate Legion…I mean, up until the end, nothing you DO is really critical to the story, unlike in Mass Effect 1. Choose to kill Wrex or not? Which crew member do you sacrifice? Do you save the Council or betray it? Stuff that actually made a DIFFERENCE to the ultimate story.
Mass Effect 3 will be different. "… this is really the opportunity to do whatever we want with the reminder of the story – which means players can do whatever they want with the remainder of the story. Your decision can have much bigger consequences, things that you’ve done earlier can have much bigger consequences," said Casey Hudson to Destructoid.
"…we can really throw around a lot of big impacts from your decisions, from prior games and from decision you’ll make in Mass Effect 3. It’s really astronomical. The number of different ways that you can play it, the combinations of different decisions that you can make, and then all the different ways that the story can end up depending on what you’re doing.”
Sounds to me like Bioware is returning to the roots of what made Mass Effect 1 the best game in the franchise yet, in my opinion, of course! Lets hope they'll implement the dropped RPG mechanics of the first game, as well. Mass Effect 2 was far too simplified for my tastes.
Thanks, VG24/7!
