User blog comment:Arbington/What Garrus in ME3 Means.../@comment-2174252-20110411182431

Before I expose my theory, let me give introduce some excerpts from the article to provide some context. Please bear with me:

GI Article: ".If everyone from the previous games returned as a permanent party member, introducing new characters would be difficult.and the character selection screen would be a mess. The trick is giving gamers a satisfying payoff to the relationships they've built while managing the roles that each character plays, from cameo to major player"

Casey Hudson: "It's the whole range, and it's different per character. Some characters are going to be absolutely core to the story. They are squad members. The whole structure of the story kind of pivots around them. Others will be conventional squad members that you can choose to have with or not.Some characters might be there for just a mission, but they're squad members for that mission. And some characters are might just have cameo appearances."

GI Article: "Don't worry that BioWare has forgotten about Legion, your romance with Ashley, or the fact that you didn't lose any allies during the attack on the Collector base. While the exact role these characters play may be unknown, they weren't introduced into the Mass Effect universe only to be swept under the rug. You can safely assume that you'll see all the major characters return in some capacity."

GI Article: "Characters that BioWare says will be playable to some extent: Liara Garrus (if he survived ME2) Ashley or Kaidan James Sanders"

My take is this:

You need a basic squad to start the game. Like in ME1 you had Ashley and Kaidan, and in ME2 you had Miranda and Jacob right of the bat. It looks like your basic squad to start ME3 will be Liara, Ashley/Kaidan, and James Sanders since as of the end of ME2 they were alive. I don't think Garrus will open the game as a squad mate because he could be dead. This also opens the possibility that the squad in ME3 is a four person squad composed of Shep and three squadies as in DA ".Some characters are going to be absolutely core to the story. They are squad members. The whole structure of the story kind of pivots around them." Casey Hudson.

Then, you'll fill in a limited number of slots.say four. for the rest of your squad. You will have the opportunity to choose amongst most of your squad mates from ME2 and maybe Anderson. This makes sense since in ME2 most people only used 4 - 5 of the available henchmen in missions. Why have 12 squad members when you are only going to use 5? ".Others will be conventional squad members that you can choose to have with or not." Casey Hudson.

Then you will have the one-time one-mission companions like Liara in LoTSB. I would envision Wrex as part of my squad on a mission in Tuchanka trying to acquire the krogan support when the fight between the Reaper and the Tresher Maw depicted in the article happens. The same could be said for Mordin and Legion. ".Some characters might be there for just a mission, but they're squad members for that mission." Casey Hudson.

One way or another I think we will see all of our favorite characters in ME3. OK, that's my theory but is makes sense form what Casey Hudson and the article reveals.