[Update: Check out the Mass Effect 3: Rebellion trailer!]
Yesterday we shared the details for this weekend’s N7 Bounty multiplayer event (Operation Shieldwall), one that’s rather easy, but one that highlights how the online community for Mass Effect 3 has dwindled considerably in the last month or so.
In our discussion of the event we expected that it was partially designed to prepare players for the next batch of multiplayer DLC: content that was rumored, then teased by BioWare, then accidentally confirmed by a Sony website. Today, Mass Effect 3: Rebellion is official and what it adds is awesome, but not too surprising.
The Rebellion DLC was reportedly going to add six characters, two maps, three weapons and a few other things and now it’s official. It also adds a new objective and a new gear slot for what appears to be a passive ability (one that doesn’t expire after on mission like the weapon/armor power-ups). The six new Mass Effect 3 multiplayer characters include a pair of Vorcha in similar roles to the Batarians added with the Resurgence DLC, male versions of the two Quarian classes and more humans in the form of ex-Cerberus agents.
Vorcha Soldier
- Thanks to their unique physiology and their Bloodlust ability, the Vorcha are joining the fight and are perfectly suited for the utilitarian soldier kit.
Vorcha Sentinel
- The innate aggressiveness found within the Vorcha make them shockingly durable combatants, and when coupled with their Flamer skill, the Vorcha sentinel is a force to be reckoned with.
Male Quarian Engineer
- Quarians have spent centuries at perpetual salvage and ship repair; the survival of their species depends on this technical expertise. When bringing the new Arc Grenade to the fray, the Quarians prove their prowess as effective engineers on the battlefield.
Male Quarian Infiltrator
- The Male Quarian Infiltrator must actively rely on stealth while in the heat of battle, and when they make use of their Tactical Scan ability, they quickly prove their mettle while continuously dishing out the pain.
Ex-Cerberus Vanguard
- When the Illusive Man turned to indoctrination in order to ensure the loyalty of his troops, many Cerberus operatives defected and joined the Alliance in order to stop the Reapers. Now that we’re on the same team, Ex-Cerberus Vanguards (along with their new Lash attack) are quickly proving their worth.
Ex-Cerberus Adept
- A result of the Illusive Man’s early experiments in enhanced human physiology, Ex-Cerberus subjects are highly skilled combat and biotics specialists. As a result, Ex-Cerberus Adepts can lay waste to the enemy with their Smash and Singularity powers.
Three new weapons including, one assault rifle, one sniper rifle and one shotgun:
- Cerberus Harrier Assault Rifle – These Cerberus-modified Mattock rifles are fully automatic. Cerberus gunsmiths reined in the recoil issues, resulting in a gun that stay on target, but delivers slightly less punch per round than a standard Mattock. As such, the weapon is typically utilized by Cerberus’ elite troopers, who train constantly to make every burst count.
- Reegar Carbine Shotgun – This electrical weapon improves upon the arc pistol’s design by generating a sustained current on its target. This weapon is named for the Quarian Reegar family, whose marines have served valiantly against the Geth.
- Krysae Sniper Rifle – This Turian antimaterial rifle is modified to kill Reaper enemies. The Krysae’s scope uses a rangefinder that adjusts to keep the target in proper proportion to the shooter, which comes in useful when the sniper is forced into close range. Its specialized ammunition is both armor-piercing and explosive. In a desperate move, the Turians released its specifications over the extranet so that nearly anyone with a fabricator could manufacture this weapon to help the war effort.
Two new maps include Firebase Jade and Firebase Goddess:
- Firebase Jade – Surrounded by huge waterfalls, Firebase Jade overlooks an ancient reservoir built by the salarians centuries ago. Set up strategic chokepoints inside the base’s main buildings to get the jump on your enemy, and work with your team to meticulously clear each room to achieve victory.
- Firebase Goddess – Nestled in the epicenter of a Thessian metropolis, Firebase Goddess is one of the last strongholds of asari resistance against the Reapers. With its circular layout, Firebase Goddess is a tough location to control. This arena combines heavy cover and elevated firing positions, so stay light on your feet.
Two new game features:
- New In-Mission Objective – Randomly occurring during waves 3, 6 and 10, this new objective will demand that teams retrieve a high priority package and securely escort it to a designated extraction zone on each map.
- New Gear Slot – A new slot will be available on the equipment screen, offering players a persistent gameplay bonus that will not expire after the end of a match. These new items will vary from weapon upgrades to character enhancements and will be available through reinforcement packs.
The best part about the Mass Effect 3: Rebellion DLC is that it’s free, just as we predicted, since BioWare makes money off in-game microtransactions for players who wish to quickly unlock content. Like the Resurgence pack, the maps will be available right from the get-go when the DLC releases Tuesday, May 29 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, but the characters and weapons will need to be unlocked via reinforcement packs. Which character do you want to unlock first?
With BioWare getting creative in how they add more characters to the existing six classes, we’re not sure where they can go from here in terms of multiplayer DLC outside of adding more modes and features like the gear slot and object – something we love and really want to see more of. What do you think BioWare could do to keep players playing Mass Effect 3 online?
Mass Effect 3 is now available for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.
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Follow Rob on Twitter @rob_keyes.
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“What do I think BioWare can do to keep players interested in ME3 Multiplayer?”
What they should have done from the begining:
Better capitalize on the Galactic Readiness Percentage. Imagine this: What if by increasing your Galactic Readiness in multiplayer, it were to ‘unlock’ new Single Player Content – New Missions and Objectives.This could be used four times (or more).
65% Galactic Readiness
75% GR
85% GR
100% GR
If players new of this possibility, everyone who has purchased ME3 would play multiplayer to unlock new singleplayer content.And how much more money would BioWare be making off of this franchise right now.
Mass Effect is known for it’s single player story. People were livid initially when multiplayer was announced. We already have to play MP to get the best ending. Could you imagine how enraged fans would be if they were told that inorder to unlock single player missions you are forced to play a tedious and repetitive MP.
When I say that I’m done, THEY KEEP PULLING ME BACK IN!
Those Ex-Cerberus Classes look pretty awesome, and I want to see how the Vorcha work.
Too bad I still haven’t gotten everything from the LAST DLC YET. This practice of locking downloaded content in randomized packs is only acceptable because the DLC is free. Otherwise, not so much.
Did you guys get my email about my experience playing the new objective? It was definitely something!
It still needs to be more than 10 waves of combat. All of it is just variations on the same theme.
I absolutely love it! There are still characters that they could add though: hanar, elcor, Yahg, protheans, rachni. To be honest though, I would rather have them make it paid dlc and make us pay 10 bucks to get everything at once instead of making us unlock it over weeks and months.
Wouldn’t Mind Playing As A Volus
Yes! Volus! Thank you! I knew I forgot one!
For me, I only play with the goal of unlocking stuff. If I just had it all, I’d have no goals since the gameplay is just the same 11 waves of stuff over and over and over and over… see what I mean?
Ok, I see where you are comming from. So let me amend my previous statement. I wish we had the “option” to just buy the DLC
Gentlemen, this is what I require:
A Healer class or skill that specializes in party longevity and protection.
New Enemies:
Not everyone believes the Reapers should, or can, be resisted, and now their protests have turned violent. I want to fight waves of Turians, Asari, Krogen, and Rachni.
I want to battle Blue Sun, Blood Pact, and Eclipse
I want to be able to steal an Atlas mech.
I want a class the regenerates ammo instead of health.
I want an ex-Cerberus engineer class that can set up those damned turrets..and upgrade them!
I want each class to provide the party with a passive buff, similar to how it worked in ME2.
I want single-player content to unlock multiplayer content and vice versa.
I want a happy meal.
I want a mode where 16 people stand against the onslaught of galactic destruction.
I want the best squads of online players to become war assets to be found in the actual game.
Finally, I am kind of curious to see what it would be like to play AS the enemy (Reapers, Geth, Cerberus. Which make me want to invade Earth, Thessia, Tchanka, and Palaven, and the Citadel.
This should keep them chewing for a while…
Yes! I had that same thought! Battle some of the gangs like the Blue Sun’s and the other’s! Glad someone had the same idea. And now you make me hungry for a Happy Meal.
I also think they should add the collectors as an enemy. Just because the base was destroyed doesn’t mean that all of them were destroyed. Look at the geth. In mass effect 2 you could destroy the geth base, but low and behold, they returned in mass effect 3. I also wish that they would release the new weapons for single player via dlc. I thunk that they actually will release it though. I bet they plan on doing one more MP dlc and then they will bundle the weapons from all three dlc and sell it as single player dlc for $10. I hate paying for dlc but I have never really minded paying for mass effect dlc because it is all so good.
I agree on the point of adding the new g
weapons into the singleplayer. That will give me a better chance to test them out so I don’t have the horrible mp matches where I die constantly because im testing out new guns.
Good call. A few of us thought of that when the game first came out – we actually thought that would be one of the first DLC additions.
Why not add enemies like the ability to play as Cerberus against Alliance or maybe even vs Blue Suns, Blood Pack, and even play as refugee team? Epic thought or crapic thought?
Thank you Gamerant for being more thorough on this than the rest of the sites.
Most sites (IGN, Gamesradar, Gamespot, etc.) are reporting the most woefully incomplete info on this.
No one mentions the new Gear Type & Objective and those are the real story in my opinion.
Thanks Dante!
That’s what we’re all about
deathmatch? or go psat lvl twenty with new powers or armor unlocks would be cool
Best way to get people playing would be to have included a competitive MP mode. Without team deathmatch, MP feels rather bland.
The reason they didn’t add a tdm mode is because it just doesn’t make sence for the type of game mass effect is. Think about it; why would a galaxy that is fighting for survival try to kill each other off? Though I do think it could work in some ways, like aliance v Cerberus but it would probably get a little bland over time also. Imo an rpg like this shouldn’t have ever had mp, but they did do a rather decent job of it.
You know what would pull me back, some single player content. ME2 had 6dlc’s ? and all of them were awesome. I haven’t even heard word on any DLC that isn’t MP for me3. What a waste of money this game was. Terrible ending and all they seem to care about is MP DLC.
@Jeff: Actually ME2 had 7 DLC and 3 of them were free.
- Normandy Crash Site
- Project Firewalker
- Zaeed Masani
- Lair of the Shadow Broker
- Kasumi Goto
- Project Overlord
- Arrival
But I know what you mean and get how you feel about being sick and tired of hearing about ME3 MP Updates and Downloads at the expense of NEW ME3 singleplayer content.Some say that they don’t care about SP DLC until the ME3 Ending is fixed.That’s understandable as well.
@Bret: Well I don’t know about how “enraged” fans would get.But I like ME3 MP and what I suggested would be an AWESOME Reward for playing it
Adding 3 to 5 hours (or more) of content to the Singleplayer Campaign. At no additional cost to the player.That sounds like a good deal to me 
please gimme some ingame dlc, i want some single player dlc to expand the campaign!!
To make things interesting and bring people back they need to include actual pvp.
1. Place a 75% damage reduction on pvp combat. This will make battles last longer.
2. All crowd control type abilities, stun, freeze, singularity will have diminishing returns.
3. Maps would include free for all, 1 on 1, capture the flag style matches although they could add ME3 style to it
4. Allow people to play as monsters. You could switch between each monster using LB or RB.
i agree with everyone that wants more SP dlc which i will gladly pay for…but from what i understand and which i would figure is a logical assumption which rob keyes can correct me if im wrong but with 2 separate teams doing the MP and the SP content when the ext cut dlc was announced it would push back any SP dlc…i have no proof but tis what i think…:)
I think if they added new enemies such as eclipse or blue suns mercs. Maybe having diffrent game modes. Adding mulitiplyers for games like 10 more rounds, enemies have more health, explodes when thier heads are shot off, confettii, etc.
@new objective type: I somehow stumbled into a match that was running through this new type of objective. It is pretty interesting and more teamwork centric than any other objective type thus far. (running with the objective as a unshielded geth was a bad idea xD)
@malachi: I also want a happy meal.
But yeah, even though I’ve been playing the ME3 mp for quite a bit, it is feeling rather stale. The goodies in this new DLC does add some much needed spice, but I concur that more could be done, such as those suggested above.
Here are some of my suggestions, some of which were already mentioned:
-Equivalent to Gears ‘Beast’ mode where you are the OpFor Cerberus, Repears, and/or geth
-New game modes (though not a fan of pvp, more pvp and co-op modes would be nice) and extensions of the current MP (new enemies, especially)
-More story-like integration (aka making our mp efforts feel more involved, which is somewhat done with the current Operations, but could be expanded further)
-Random modifiers (more enemy health, exploding heads, more allies 8-12 at once, multiple enemy types like Cerberus and Reapers together, etc.)
Of course, new SP DLC would be nice, given that most of ME2′s was great.
I don’t care how simple it is, the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer is just amazing. It’s repetative but overly fun, I don’t know what it is but I love it. So keep the multiplayer DLC coming!