“However, I wasn't always like that.” He recounts how he originally aimed for more subjective changes, coming around to authenticity in the last years of the Priority: Earth Overhaul mod. "If not, are there any indications of how the content is supposed to play out?"."Are there examples of how this type of content was implemented by the developers earlier in the game?"."Was this content actually meant to be in the game?".Whenever he had to decide on creating or restoring a piece of content, Orikon relied on three core questions: Finding a balance between what to restore, add, or abandon became the central focus of Orikon’s work. Unfortunately, cracks began to show while he dug through the files.Īfter three years of reading through the game’s code, finding leftover developer notes, Orikon honed his instinct for matching BioWare’s final vision. On paper, that sounds great, right?” In a way, Priority: Earth at one point sounds much more like Mass Effect 2’s famous Suicide Mission finale. “For instance, during Priority: Earth, you were originally supposed to be able to assign War Assets to various operations around the planet. “More like a cutting room ocean,” as he puts it. What he found was more than scraps on the cutting room floor. Orikon’ work began in earnest in Fall of 2017. The idea was declined, but I was determined to make at least some changes to the mission, as minor as they might be. “Eventually I suggested that we could include changes to Priority: Earth as part of the mod. Expanding the journey wasn’t enough for Orikon. Yet expanding the journey wasn’t enough for Orikon. Under EGM’s lead modder Kinkojiro, Orikon contributed not only with localization but also aided with elements such as War Assets and recordings of Thessia’s fall. Where fans had been left feeling Mass Effect 3 fell short, EGM picked up the slack. For many like Orikon, the efforts of code-savvy fans opened the door to finally fixing what many felt had been left unfinished.ĭespite his lack of a technical background, Orikon’s journey into the modding scene began in 2017 as a translator and QA tester for the Expanded Galaxy Mod (EGM).ĮGM remains one of the largest modifications ever made for a BioWare game, incorporating everything from additional reactive story elements to new playable missions. However, Mass Effect’s fanbase were not deterred, developing their own evolving, reverse-engineered suite that continues to be expanded on to this day. Not since Dragon Age: Origins has there been an official modding toolset offered for a BioWare game. There’s no dedicated toolset offered by the developers, only a finished, compiled game. Modding the Mass Effect games isn’t the same as working with Half-Life or Minecraft. While searching for answers about Mass Effect 3’s troubled dev-cycle, he discovered the Mass Effect modding scene. Once he arrived at the fateful finale of Mass Effect 3, Priority: Earth, Orikon felt the same disappointment many had. The characters, worldbuilding, story, gameplay, etc. Just a teen gamer at the time, Mass Effect proved a revelation to Orikon: “When you're young, worlds like Mass Effect make much more of an impact and impression on you. While he was late to the Mass Effect saga, the modder known as Orikon remains one of the last paragons still finishing the work started by BioWare over a decade prior. He was just then starting on the series, having picked up Mass Effect 2 during a Steam sale. That was, except, for the man who would later restore much of that final mission years later. The controversial final act landed on 7th-gen systems with a thunderous applause, followed by a surge of frustrated fans at its derided endings. For many players, 2012 was the year the Mass Effect trilogy would come to an end.
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