News broke earlier this week that the first piece of DLC for Mass Effect 3 is called From Ashes, BioWare have since confirmed that it will be available on the same day as the games release, March 6. It will cost $10 to download but free to anyone who has the Mass Effect 3 Collector’s Edition.
Naturally, this has caused outrage amongst fans as they struggle to comprehend the concept of selling DLC on the same day as the game launches because it begs the question – if the DLC was finished, why was it not included in the full game and how can a publisher justify charging extra for it?
Warning: The following contains spoilers about the nature of Mass Effect 3‘s DLC.
The reason behind as to why this particular DLC has caused such a storm is that it contains critical plot content that could influence the way in which the main story is played out. It features a party member from the Prothean race, which, according to Mass Effect teachings, has been extinct for thousands of years.
“EA and BioWare should know this is an unacceptable practice to cut out such a vital part of the story and lore of a game and resell it as DLC,” writes Reddit user Shushplz. “I Will not be buying Mass Effect 3 whatsoever and have already cancelled my Star Wars: The Old Republic subscription because of it. Sad that it had to come to this but the price of the added DLC is not worth what little dignity I have left.”
Mass Effect executive producer Casey Hudson took to Twitter to defend the company’s decision.
“It takes about 3 months from ‘content complete’ to bug-fix, certify, manufacture, and ship game discs,” he tweeted. “In that time we work on DLC… On Mass Effect 3, content creators completed the game in January and moved onto the From Ashes DLC, free with the Collector’s Edition or you can buy separately.”
Michael Gamble also spoke up, posting on the BioWare official forums to explain the situation to fans:
“The Prothean is optional content that is certainly designed to appeal to long-time fans, which is why he is part of the CE offering,” he said. “Mass Effect 3 is a complete –- and a huge game — right out of the box. The content in From Ashes was developed by a separate team (after the core game was finished) and not completed until well after the main game went into certification. The Collector’s Edition has been sold out in most places for some time now, and is becoming very hard to find (many players prefer not to purchase the digital version). As such, we wanted to make this content available so that Standard Edition buyers could also incorporate the Prothean into their game.”
I really have no problem with the way this was released as I have been preparing for this edition for over a year and actually preordered the collectors edition and took 3 or 4 months to pay it off prior to release. Bottom line here is that if you want the good stuff you need to think ahead and prepare for it.