Drew Karpyshyn Interview

Recently, teamxbox posted an interview with Mass Effect Lead Writer, Drew Karpyshyn where they had him talk about writing for the game and the challenges involved, as well as writing the novel, and seeing himself in David Anderson.

So, one of the things we tried to do is, we kind of tried to think in these…I started calling them “theme bubbles.” We’d say, we want to explore this theme—the theme of morality…is it okay to do the right thing for the wrong reason or the wrong thing for the right reason? Does the end justify the means? If we keep that mind and interweave it through our plots and through a particular experience, we can say, here’s the theme we’re exploring…and there’s multiple answers. The player gets to decide, “How am I going to treat this particular situation? Am I going to reject this notion ? Am I going to embrace it?”

Based on that, we can still create compelling narrative, compelling interaction with these characters, but allow players the freedom to kind of do what they want—and sort of keep them on the same thematic track toward an ending that will resonate with them, and actually have powerful impact and feel like it emerged from the story…that it’s not just something tacked on at the end.

Mass Effect: Bioware’s Drew Karpyshyn Interview