Watch Mass Effect Devs Talk About Making Good Characters, While Awkwardly Playing Cards

BioWare has released a video of Dragon Age creative director Mike Laidlaw and Mass Effect writer Patrick Weekes discussing what makes a good character. And for some reason they're doing it in a dark room while playing cards.

Weird lighting and card handling aside, the video is actually very interesting. The duo talk about how they creating distinct, important characters without taking agency away from player.

Weekes, who is accredited with creating beloved Mass Effect character Mordin Solus, says a real sense of agency requires developers to have supporting characters that are as involved in important events as the player is.

The two also reflect on giving players the option to kill off Mordin in Mass Effect 3, and emphasise that the strength of Mass Effect's decision making is that it places the focus on choosing between characters instead of causes. There's also an extended section devoted to looking back on Mordin as a character, which is excellent.

But Mass Effect isn't the only BioWare series to be discussed in the video. Laidlaw and Weekes also talk about Solas from Dragon Age: Inquisition, and how he was crafted to be a Harry Potter-like figure.

Mass Effect: Andromeda, which is set some time after the original trilogy, will be released in early 2017 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC, after being delayed from its original 2016 release date.

Mass Effect: Andromeda was featured very briefly during EA Play at E3 2016 event. Very little gameplay was shown, and GameSpot asked Flynn about this in a Mass Effect: Andromeda interview following the press conference.