Mass Effect DLC pulls into orbit

Today, BioWare unveiled the first downloadable content update for its popular sci-fi role-playing game Mass Effect. Even before the Xbox 360-exclusive game was released last fall, the Canada-based EA subsidiary had promised that it would release a series of updates for the game, which has already sold over 1 million copies worldwide.

Titled Bring Down the Sky, the update will include a new uncharted world and the introduction of the Batarians, the scheming alien race who clashed with humanity in the prequel novel Mass Effect: Revelation. The aliens have hijacked a mobile asteroid station in the Asgard region and set the ship on a collision course with nearby colony planet Terra Nova. Naturally, Commander Shepard is dispatched to foil the plot.

But while Bring Down the Sky is relatively cheap at just 400 Microsoft points (£3.40 or$5), it is also fairly short, adding only around 90 minutes of extra gameplay. Available on Xbox Live on March 10 at 2 a.m. PST, the game will also add an extra, as-yet-unnamed achievement worth 50 Gamerscore points.