Over the weekend, a copy of the Mass Effect 3 demo which is presumed to be launching early next year leaked to those participating in Microsoft’s Xbox Live Dashboard preview. The demo, which showcased brief snippets of both the single and multiplayer in Mass Effect 3, has since been taken down, but nonetheless BioWare wanted to come out to say a few words about what was inadvertently released.
First and foremost, BioWare stressed that the product that was made available is in a very early state and is in no way indicative of the final product. This should come as a huge relief to those who got their hands on the demo as it was filled with more than its fair share of glitches and bugs.
They also added that the mistake occurred on Microsoft's end, which is most likely why it appeared to those previewing this month’s Xbox Live Dashboard update. Aside from that BioWare wasn’t willing to comment on any part of the demo’s content, however some footage of the demo (14 minutes in fact) has appeared online to show just what BioWare might be preparing for gamers.
While the gameplay and cutscenes featured in the demo are filled with spoilers for what is surely the early parts of the game, there are some elements pre-demo that are particularly interesting. Those elements in question are three modes dubbed ‘RPG,’ ‘action,’ and ‘story’ which appear to alter the gameplay of Mass Effect 3 to fit a variety of play styles.
For example, ‘story mode’ puts an emphasis on the character interactions in Mass Effect 3 and tones down the combat to an easier difficulty. ‘Action mode,’ on the other hand, puts combat at its normal difficulty, but automatic replies during conversations. And finally ‘RPG mode’ delivers the best of both worlds, and the more traditional Mass Effect experience, by allowing the player to experience combat in its normal difficulty, and to choose how to respond to NPCs.
Check the footage out below:
[HTML1]
BioWare, as part of their released statement, was unwilling to comment on these three modes, but said that they are something the developer is currently testing out. Clearly, as indicated by a couple of the menus that precede the demo, BioWare is allowing a significantly greater amount of tweaking.
Clearly we’ll know more about these gameplay elements when the Mass Effect 3/Battlefield 3 promotional demo releases, but for now there’s a few more interesting new features to consider.
What do you think of these new gameplay modes briefly hinted at in the leaked demo? Do you think that BioWare is trying to cover all of their bases for this last entry in the Commander Shepard trilogy?
Mass Effect 3 releases March 6, 2012 for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.