When you finish one video game in a series and begin the next, you’re basically forced to start from scratch without carrying over any of your accomplishments from the previous game.
But the popular “Mass Effect” sci-fi action trilogy aims to change that — by allowing players to complete one game and transfer their character to the next one in the series. It is an ambitious project that involves nearly 35,000 lines of dialogue.
“We wanted to create the biggest story we could tell,” said Casey Hudson, BioWare’s project director for “Mass Effect 2″ and executive producer of the “Mass Effect” franchise.
The just-released “Mass Effect 2″ picks up the story as the lead character, named Shepard, has been brought back to life after a devastating attack by an invading race of machines bent on eliminating organic life. The action takes place shortly after the events of the first “Mass Effect,” which was set in the year 2183 in the Milky Way galaxy.
In a rare twist, players who played the first “Mass Effect” game are being given the opportunity to import their characters into the new game along with all their rewards, romances and consequences.
Hudson said his team tried to create a fictional universe that players could explore over long periods of time to “have an epic experience.”
By carrying over the data from the original “Mass Effect,” Hudson’s team tried to show the consequences of characters’ choices. But by accounting for so many variables in the first games, Bioware was faced with a daunting task going forward.

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