Why is Mass Effect 3 engaging?

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes (ish)

Mass Effect 3 was a critically acclaimed blockbuster game from Bioware studios. It was the final instalment of the Mass Effect trilogy and the conclusion of the Commander Shepard’s fight against the Reapers.

Most fans make the decision to buy the game due to the fear of missing out. The momentum of the second game’s success and the marketing hype for mass effect 3 led to many pre-orders.

The story and the characters in the game are incredibly rich and compelling. The players make their own Commander Shepard by building up the avatar from scratch by choosing class and even gender. The player makes hundreds of meaningful narrative decisions throughout the trilogy that have massive consequences in the final game. Moreover the players can also choose to romance whomever they wish. All of these features generate a sense of ownership to the epic journey which in turn releases multiple jolts of endorphins throughout the experience.

During the singleplayer, Shepard can unlock powers through upgrading levels. Then he can buy weapons and modifications from vendors in the game. The more weapons he equip, the less frequent he can use his powers and vice versa. He can also combine his powers with his squadmates while fighting to produce powerful explosions. In other words, thousands of strategies can be used to fight the enemies in the game. This creates room for incredible creativity among the players to make the best and most destructive builds the game can offer. Experimentations lead to multiple playthroughs.

The most addictive part of the game by far is its multiplayer. 4 players team up against waves of enemies at different difficulties. The higher the difficulty, the more chaotic the matches become and the more skill each member is expected to have. Unlike in singleplayer where the only race one can play is human because Commander Shepard is a human, in multiplayer the player can choose multiple races. Some hilarious combinations can be seen in the multiplayer matches such as four pink warlike krogans wreaking havoc in a nuclear reactor by head-butting every enemy they see. Multiplayer is extremely difficult to play without proper communication and mutual understanding of how to combine powers with each other. Because of this human element, the fun never ends.

To unlock weapons, gear, powers and experience in multiplayer, the players must buy random packs which contain different kinds of cards. The most common ones are bronze cards followed by silver, gold and black. The black cards which contain the most powerful weapons in the game are extremely rare. The players can use in-game credits which they obtain from hours of gameplay or real money to buy these packs in order to unlock the cards. There were at least a thousand cards or more to unlock. The expectation of trying to unlock a black card is unbelievably addicting. This is because the packs are random. When one do unlock the ultra-rare black card, a massive wave of dopamine floods the nervous system which leads to players investing hundreds of hours or paying lots of real-life money to buy the packs. This effect is amplified when the developers release several ‘free’ new multiplayer content months after the game release. Once it is installed, new features are of course locked as ultra-rare black cards. Therefore, players race to buy hundreds of packs right after the release of the new content. These random packs are the reason why there are still some people playing the multiplayer to this day although the game was released 4 years ago.

This article only highlighted the most powerful game mechanics that kept the players inside Mass Effect 3 for a long time. There are a lot more acting in combination inside the game that adds to the experience.