

Mass Effect universe 'as rich as Lord of the Rings, Star Wars' - film screenwriter

Mark Protosevich explains why Mass Effect's a perfect fit for the big screen

Games don't have a great history of being translated to the big screen, but Mass Effect movie screenwriter Mark Protosevich says the depth of the franchise's universe makes it an ideal candidate for the movie treatment.


Speaking at a Mass Effect ComicCon panel (which you can watch in the movie below), Protosevich said it's easy to be "seduced" by the visual strength and exciting gameplay of games, but that those elements can mask a lack of depth.

"I've been offered various games over the years and initially they can be very attractive, like a very attractive girl, but when you then sit down and talk with them, you might not necessarily find a lot of depth of character there.

"In the early days, there was this attraction to the idea of let's try to recreate this experience of it looks like this, it feels like this in a game, instead of really pausing and asking is this a good story? and is this an interesting world? Does it have interesting themes and all the aspects that make a really good film? I think most games would fail that litmus test, but this one doesn't. This game, I think, is incredibly unique."

Protosevich added: "The great thing about Mass Effect is, this is a really rich world and what [executive producer] Casey [Hudson] and his team have done is really create this amazing universe that's as rich as Star Wars, as rich as Lord of the Rings. There are so many different offshoots and different characters and so it's a challenge to condense that into one feature length film. We're solely concentrating on the first game right now, but we are following and honouring that [wider] story."

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BioWare said earlier this week that it has added its own "secret sauce" to Epic's Unreal Engine in order to improve the disparity between cinematics and gameplay in Mass Effect 3.