Mass Effect 3 Operation Shieldwall

Mass Effect 3 fans are getting bored of its multiplayer or 3 million Banshees are simply too much to deal with in one weekend. Either way, for the first time since the game launched in May and BioWare began running bi-weekly N7 Bounty Weekend multiplayer events, the community failed to accomplish the challenge presented by Operation Silencer.

As fans of the Mass Effect 3 trilogy know too well, there are always consequences and since we didn't eliminate the Banshee threat, they're back for this weekend's Operation Shieldwall.

This weekend's simple objectives are less about killing and more about progressing and by that we mean, all we have to do is play for experience and max out characters.

Goals:

  • Allied Goal: Promote 50,000 characters.
  • Squad Goal: Promote 3 characters.

 Rewards:

  • Successful completion of the allied goal will grant all players a Victory Pack.
  • Successful completion of the squad goal will grant all squadmates a Commendation Pack.

Special Circumstance:

  • Due to the failure of Operation Silencer, more banshees will spawn with Reaper enemies and might also spawn with other enemies!

We know the community numbers have understandably dropped big time since the Mass Effect 3 buzz has died down over the last month as we enjoy new games and new controversies (see: Diablo III) and since Mass Effect 3's multiplayer consists of only one rather simple mode, the long-term replayability is not there. Just look back at one of the earlier event weekends where Operation Raptor had the community attempting to promote 150,000 characters - they actually were able to recruit 350,000 and yet this weekend's goal is only 50,000 despite a larger individual goal of promoting three. The numbers highlight how much the community has shrunk in the last two months.

What's interesting about this particular challenge however, is that by asking players to recruit characters into the game, they're asking them to reset characters to the starting level of one. This is conveniently timed with the imminent multiplayer DLC which BioWare hinted at with their description of Operation Silencer and was accidentally confirmed by Sony. So, expect to see Vorcha characters joining the game in the coming weeks with the Mass Effect 3: Rebellion DLC.

A lot of us at Game Rant missed out on Operation Silencer but we may jump back into it this weekend. If you're interested as well, the event starts Friday, May 25 at 6PM PST and runs until Monday, May 28 at 5AM PST. This Operation will be playable on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

Mass Effect 3 is now available for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

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Follow Rob on Twitter @rob_keyes.