GDC 09 hosting Mass Effect 2's debut @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on January 08, 2009

News: BioWare's next big RPG will make an appearance at this year's Game Developer's Conference.

We knew that BioWare was hard at work on Mass Effect 2. Now we know when the company plans to show the game off to the public for the first time. At this year's Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco (March 23-27), BioWare's Project Manager Corey Andruko and Lead Technical Designer Dusty Everman will lead a talk on the "Iterative Level Design Process" behind the game.

This session examines the BioWare Mass Effect team's new level-creation process, which is focused on maximizing iteration for quality while minimizing rework and cost. This approach to building levels strives to integrate the Design, Art, and Production teams such that the highest-risk level-creation issues are addressed early in the development cycle. Lessons learned from Mass Effect lead to a detailed description of the new level-creation process, and graphical examples of a level illustrate its progression through the necessary phases. The discussion also examines how BioWare is currently implementing this process using elements of Scrum and Lean Development.

If you're attending the GDC, this might be an interesting lecture to look into.