The second game in Bioware's planned Mass Effect trilogy makes a special appearance at GDC in March, where the company will present a panel discussing the Iterative Level Design Process of Mass Effect 2.
While we won't call it an official announcement - we've long known that Mass Effect was only part one of a three-part series - we might be getting our first glimpse at the second chapter at the Game Developers Conference in March. In a 60 minute lecture titled "The Iterative Level Design Process of Bioware's Mass Effect 2", Bioware project manager Corey Andruko and lead technical designer Dusty Everman will discuss lessons learned from crafting the first game, and how they've been applied to level design in the sequel. They'll talk about the team's new level creation process, which strives to maximize iteration while minimizing reworking and cost. It sounds amazingly exciting. So exciting that I nearly fell asleep writing that last bit.
Game developers eat this sort of stuff up though, and since it is the Game Developers Conference, I'm sure it will go over splendidly. We're just hoping that the panel comes with some new information on the follow up to the original game, and that we don't snore too loudly.
The Iterative Level Design Process of Bioware's MASS EFFECT 2 [Game Developers Conference 2009 - Thanks Danny!]