Universe of Mass Effect
The Mass Effect media franchise, developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts, is set in the distant future where various extraterrestrial species coexist with humanity. The developers created extensive background lore for the universe of Mass Effect and its alien species, with detailed explanations documenting the complex relationships between the universe's various factions and the setting's phenomena from a scientific perspective. The developers were inspired and influenced by numerous fantasy and science fiction works, as well as real world cultural and scientific concepts. Dark energy, a form of energy theorized to massively affect the universe, forms a key part of the franchise's concept and background.
The first three main series games is set in the Milky Way galaxy and follows Commander Shepard, a human special forces soldier who discovers an imminent threat to the galactic community from the Reapers, an ancient collective of sentient synthetic starships which harvest all spaceflight-era organic civilizations as part of a repeating cycle that span millennia in length. The fourth main series game is a standalone sequel about a group of settlers who are members of the Andromeda Initiative colonizing the Andromeda Galaxy. The original trilogy have overall been both commercially successful and critically acclaimed, and the Mass Effect setting has been praised by critics for the believability and depth of its design, lore and narrative themes. The Mass Effect brand has since expanded into a franchise which encompasses a series of novels, comic books, mobile games, an animated film, and a 3D theme park ride, all of which are centered on other characters as protagonists.
Concept and design
The Bioware team was inspired by early space exploration games such as Starflight and Star Control, according to Bioware founder Ray Muzyka. Writer Mike Laidlaw explained that Star Control II heavily influenced the worldbuilding of the Mass Effect series, especially its exploration sequences. Mass Effect was also influenced by diverse and eclectic visual references, from the work of Spanish neo-futurist architect Santiago Calatrava to electron microscope imagery of insects. Artwork by American illustrator Syd Mead in particular represents a significant visual influence for the architecture and living conditions of intergalactic society for the Mass Effect setting, such as the Citadel space station.The “geography” of the Mass Effect universe is a blend of fictional concepts and realism. The imagery for the setting's astronomical objects is inspired by real-life photographs like wide field Hubble Space Telescope images or shots taken from space shuttles, and real-life locations were included wherever possible to ground the setting as an extension of astronomy. As the Mass Effect universe was inspired by the procedurally generated galaxy of Star Control II, project director Casey Hudson created a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel that could generate planetary data, including its name, surface temperature, distance from a star, and other statistical information. The developmental team used the generated information to compile lists of viable planets that could be used in the video games, and incorporated the information by adding a predetermined number of planets from the lists into each individual star system on the galactic map, which are mapped out using a proprietary tool within the game engine. Lore for the individual planets was delegated to the writing team, who would seed information throughout the setting. According to game director Mac Walters, the sheer volume of information generated is difficult to follow even for the developmental team, but the "little bits of mystery" also serves to make the world "seem so much deeper and richer", with the potential for some of it to be utilized for possible future stories.
Newcomers to the galactic community, humanity's iteration in the Mass Effect series is meant to be only fairly far in the future enough to be new but not unrecognizable. Through standardizing the different concept art for their clothing, a "common visual language" was found for the human characters. The standard look for all attire for members of the Cerberus organization is derived from the designs for the armor and clothing of Jacob Taylor, a companion character in Mass Effect 2. Some involved fully armored looks, while others had only cloth, or a mix of cloth and armor. During the development of the original trilogy, which was released during the seventh generation of video game consoles, all component armor pieces for a character model had to be fixed onto a single piece of geometry as the developers only had a limited number of polygons to work with. As a result of technological advancements during the development cycle for Mass Effect Andromeda, the developers could place underarmor closer to the body with interchangeable armor pieces that sit on top of it, and were able to limit the amount of stretching to avoid the "pajama armor" effect.
Influences for the series' non-human characters range from real world flora and fauna to visual media like Hellboy or the 1927 film Metropolis. The team hoped to create a setting with the same sense of history as Star Control II, giving each alien race a compelling motivation that enriches the galaxy. The worldbuilding of Mass Effect references the Star Control series with the Krogan-Rachni war, the lost Prothean civilization, and the sentience-harvesting Reapers. The Reapers and their progenitors, the Leviathans, were also inspired by the cosmic horror and Cthulhu Mythos deities from the literary works of H.P. Lovecraft. The salarians are intended to be Mass Effects answer to the "gray alien" trope, the archetypal image of intelligent extraterrestrial life. The geth are meant to represent an example of the dangers of artificial intelligence within the context of the conflict between organic and synthetic intelligence, a central overarching theme in the Mass Effect franchise.
Prior to the commencement of the concept phase for an alien species, the art and design team would look to the writing team for direction. They would ask for a short written paragraph containing a description of the species, their background, and specific but concise details on what they require for the creature. Phase one begins when the paragraph description is given to the concept artists, who are given a lot of freedom to explore ideas about the subject alien species. Once a few concepts have been completed, the team would attempt to move on from phase one by honing on a few ideas, and start working through multiple phases which may increase depending on the idea's complexity. The goal for the artists was to keep honing in and defining the final design, until they come up with something that feels interesting and unique yet grounded and believable.
Once the concept of a particular species is finalized, creation of the character model would begin, where a lot of "back and forth" took place in order to refine character models with high polygon counts. According to Watts, "doing a concept is a piece of art itself, but also building a character is a piece of art", as he recalled that some ideas that worked on paper ended up not working well on a 3-D model. The character model would next be textured and prepared for inclusion into the game. The animation team gets involved early in the process to make sure everything works correctly. Most aliens had to fit into a humanoid skeleton for animation purposes; for example, the batarian's appearance is originally based on a previous design intended for something else, and had "flaps" on the side of their heads; however, in order to wear equipment they had to be changed to a human shape. Similarly, more "outrageous" designs for species like the elcor were made, although modelling and animation constraints would go on to effect their final design. Plans to include a non-humanoid party member never materialized as significant developmental costs would be incurred otherwise.
For many of the races, there was some difficulty in making the characters appear more visually distinct; though team members could add a bit of a visual variation, the faces would be alien enough that these nuances would not be as noticeable to the human eye. To overcome this, art director Derek Watts came up with the idea of different face paints and tattoos for many of the races as additional features. BioWare realized they would be unable to make both male and female versions of all the races due to budgetary concerns, which in part led to the development of the asari as a mono-gendered species. The salarians are intentionally designed to be an androgynous in terms of appearance, while female character models for the krogan and turians were only introduced by Mass Effect 3.
Mass Effect was envisioned as a trilogy from the very beginning as part of the developers' efforts to create a memorable story. Early versions of the first game's plot involved a conflict between humanity and the batarians, originally conceived as a "warmongering" group of "small bat-like creatures". Led by the villainous Saren, the batarians intended to steal the technology of the "Nazari", which was at that point the name of the extinct race that preceded the contemporary races and created most of the technology. Humanity were to be depicted with an inherent ability to access and use the technology of the Nazari, in spite of their lack of technological knowledge; this makes them an important race, drawing much attention from the other species. It would then turn out that humanity were in fact originally a slave race to these Nazari, which explains their innate affinity for the lost technology. This idea was later discarded, with the focus of the narrative turned to the tension between synthetic and organic life and the batarians were replaced with the geth as antagonists to strengthen the human versus machine conflict. The batarians were later redesigned as a four-eyed humanoid species and repurposed as the villains of Bring Down the Sky, a piece of downloadable content for the first Mass Effect.
For the development of subsequent sequels, the developers continued to reference fan reaction to well-received features such as loyalty missions or popular characters, whether from player feedback or from research into fan labor-driven activities. The geth were originally intended to be sidelined within the trilogy's overarching plot following the conclusion of the first Mass Effect; due to the very positive player feedback to the geth, BioWare continued to explore the geth's role for subsequent sequels in response. This had the side-effect of reducing focus on other concurrent plot lines, including that of the insectoid rachni. A proposed alien race's predicted potential for cosplay by the series' fandom based on their character designs was also taken into consideration whenever the final decision is to be made for inclusion.