PAX East 2012: Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut to provide no new endings, but ‘closure’

As most of you know by now, BioWare plans on releasing Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut, free DLC designed to provide "closure" to the sharply criticized ending of Mass Effect 3.

Although they announced this DLC a few days before PAX, BioWare braved the Boston cold and the fan heat in a panel where they answered fan questions and addressed plenty of Mass Effect 3 issues – primarily, the ending.

Currently in development, Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut is being heavily worked on by both the cinematic and writing team.

The end goal is to give players a sense of "personalization with the endings", BioWare said at the panel.  Extended Cut will not be a re-imagining of the endings or a new ending.  Instead, it will provide "closure" to the ending.

"When you see the ending of Mass Effect, you now have the information and the context to feel satisfied," BioWare said of the Extended Cut which will contain a "considerable amount" of cinematic scenes that will hopefully clarify a few questions fans have.

BioWare wanted to "answer the questions" fans posted via Twitter, Facebook, etc.  In fact, they even put a list together of the unknowns they wanted to address.  To do so, they are "going to put the time and effort it takes" and are not going to "rush" it.

When asked why that content wasn't included in the game at launch, the dev team stood by the release in the core product.

"We're very proud of it," they said.  "It was important though, for us to listen to the community, and community feedback obviously didn't come until the game came out.  We couldn't have included it in the game because we didn't know there was a huge demand for it."

"We always welcome constructive criticism; there are always a few in the entire lot that are not as constructive as possible, but we don't let it make us jaded. We understand that there is a lot of valuable feedback to be provided."

The team encouraged fans to continue posting feedback.

"Whether it's support, love or anger, rage, whatever it is — we get it from you fans because you care about the game."

"When we get the feedback, the dev team is listening; it matters to us and it helps us make better games and DLC"

During the panel, they couldn't comment whether the Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut would be just more cut-scenes, or if it will also be DLC, but they did say: "Keep giving us feedback."  The Extended Cut is expected to release this Summer for free.

In other news, BioWare also revealed today Mass Effect 3 Resurgence, some more free DLC scheduled to arrive on April 10th that will provide 6 new classes, 2 new maps, and 3 new weapons.