One of the burning questions being asked by fans of BioWare’s Mass Effect is how saved game files from the first game will be used by Mass Effect 2, which will be released exclusive to the Xbox 360 by Electronic Arts on January 26, 2010.

In a press tour hosted by BioWare at their Edmonton studio in November, executive producer Casey Hudson said that fans have been expressing on forums their concern that the feature would get dropped.

“But that is actually the key defining feature about the Mass Effect trilogy that you can’t get in any other game,” said Hudson. “The save game at the end of Mass Effect 1 can be loaded right into Mass Effect 2 and then you continue that game. Inside the game, all of the choices that you made affect other things that happen later, those things continue to exist in that world.”

It was a promise made by Hudson when the first game of the planned trilogy came out in the fall of 2007. But he doesn’t expect that they’ve set a trend because keeping that promise was difficult.

“It is completely ridiculous how complex it is,” he admitted. “It is almost impossible to manage, within one game, the choices and the way they cascade, is almost impossible. But then you take that and multiply it by what happens in the second game and all these things can affect it. I would be really surprised if anyone tried to do this. “

When you start the import process in Mass Effect 2 you’ll see an annotated list of all your completed play-throughs that are on the Xbox 360 hard drive. The data shown — your character name, your class, your alignment — will help you identify which play-through you want to import.

But only completed play-throughs, those saved files in which Mass Effect was beaten, can be imported. Lead designer Preston Watamaniuk said that was because players made so many decisions in the first game, and BioWare didn’t want to make those decisions for players who hadn’t finished the game. “We want to make sure you have full ownership of the choices in your play through so that they carry forward, and they are all yours.”

Some content, added Christina Norman, lead gameplay designer on the game, is only available to those who import a saved game. “You don’t get to make all those choices if you aren’t starting from there.”

Importing a saved game brings in your Commander Shepard character from Mass Effect 1. You’ll have a chance to make adjustments to physical features, and you’ll be given an opportunity to reselect the class for your specific Shepard.

That decision was made, Hudson said, because the improvements made to Mass Effect 2, which include a new combat system, have made the different classes play much differently. “Being a Vanguard in Mass Effect 1 is a radically different experience than being a Vanguard in Mass Effect 2,” said Norman.

You’ll also be able to import a Mass Effect 1 Shepard more than once, added Norman, so you can take your one favourite play-through and import it several times to create multiple Mass Effect 2 characters with different classes.

The new combat system also meant that level progression in Mass Effect 2 needed to start over, so high level characters from Mass Effect 1 do not keep their same level. But high level characters from Mass Effect 1 will get bonus experience at the beginning of Mass Effect 2. “If you’re level 60 you’ll get the most possible bonus experience towards your Mass Effect 2 play-through,” said Norman.

“Power gamers will want to reach level 60,” she advised.

Looking ahead to Mass Effect 3, which has not been announced but is easy to anticipate, BioWare’s promise still holds: your Mass Effect 2 saved game will be used by Mass Effect 3.

Hudson said he’s looking forward to developing that title. “It’ll be easier because we have to bring everything to fruition.” Managing the story in Mass Effect 2 was difficult because the BioWare storytellers had to deal with everything that happened in Mass Effect 1, and have those things affect the game, and have threads carry through so there is continuity with Mass Effect 3.

“So I think the next one will actually be easier and kind of a lot more fun for us,” said Hudson, “because things can blow up and people can die and that’s that. We can put the exclamation point on a lot more stuff.”

Cross-posted at the Georgia Straight