Bonus Content Disc/Technology: Human Weapons

The following are transcriptions of the artists' comments for the design gallery "The Technology of Mass Effect: Human Weapons" found on the bonus content disc of Mass Effect released in 2007.

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Derek Watts: This is a human turret that we did up. This is actually the drone. There was a geth version and then there was a human version of this one. What these would do is sit down like a tripod, and when the enemy came, they would pull up, the wings would close up together and fold up behind it and it would fly after you. So, it was kind of a cool idea for an enemy in this game. This incorporates some of our arcs, our 45-degree angles, a bit of type on there too, which helps out with the style, and the double barrels which we incorporated into a lot of the weapons.

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Derek Watts: One of the weapons you have in the game is a grenade. We wanted to be able to throw a lot of these. Instead of throwing it and lobbing it like a regular grenade where it would bounce around, we wanted to throw it more like a frisbee or a disc. So, these are two versions of it. The top one was almost something that would collapse flat and it would open up a bit, and throw it. The bottom one is more of a disc with just a section cut out of it. You'd fling it, and there would maybe be a light around it so you could actually see it going through the air.

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Derek Watts: This is the final design for the grenade. Not much time spent on this one, it's pretty small. It's something very tiny on the player, so a quick concept was all that was needed. And then of course the blue section around it would have a light rotating around it, so when it stuck to the wall you would actually see the light moving around so you knew where the grenade was.

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Derek Watts: This is a human ball turret, a large vehicle enemy that would take place in the levels. Those legs that stuck out, we could maybe move those around for uneven terrain. Again, it's got the double barrels. We had to modify this one a bit. Those legs caused a problem with collisions, so we ended up having to square up the bottom quite a bit. This was used a lot in Uncharted Worlds. Very good for mercenary camps and so on where you would drive up in a rover and you'd have to destroy these to get into the camps.

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Derek Watts: So, one thing we knew we needed in this game being a shooter is we needed weapons. We needed a pistol, we needed an assault rifle, we needed a sniper rifle and we needed a shotgun. This is some early attempts at doing a pistol. This was kind of a different design; the way the trigger guard works around the trigger and the stock, those four capsules at the back... At this point in the design, we were thinking these would be where the X-Mods actually plugged in. We called them X-Mods at this time, I'm not sure what they're actually called now. As you work through the game, you'd plug these into the back and you could get different ones to plug in. This is when we start to really kind of work with the design of the double barrels. If you go back to the design gallery and look at the early concept for Eden Prime, there's a guy shooting two handguns and he's got double barrels. That's where we got the idea of incorporating that into all our guns. So, this thing would actually unfold as you held it and it collapsed up and fold up so it sits very small on the hip of the player.

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Derek Watts: This is another pistol design we came up with. It has a small little flashlight on the front. Kind of a bit of a different stock and trigger guard on it. This one didn't have the double barrel so this one was done before we were thinking of doing that.

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Derek Watts: This is the final handgun design. It's got the two barrels, it's got that nice curved element through it, clean 45-degree angles, a bit of a different trigger guard on there, and we do a front and side view so the modeler can build it quite easily. It collapses as the barrels just squeeze on top of each other and that trigger guard all moves up underneath the gun so it gets fairly small on your hip. It's still a massive handgun. If you ever look at it in the player's hand, it's quite the hand cannon.

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Derek Watts: This is a first attempt at the assault rifle. One thing about drawing guns in a game--I mean, it's a big part of the concepting period--you really find out who in your office is a gun collector. They seem to come out of the woodwork, have ideas about guns and then you find out they actually have either a collection of them or a collection of magazines. They have a real love affair with weapons. So, you know who to avoid if you don't want to make those guys angry. (laughs) So, this is a version of the assault rifle. It's almost like a skeleton around the barrels. So, the main body of the weapon would almost brace around the barrels. The way the trigger guard and trigger was at the front of the weapons. Some of the machine guns have this, it's a different way of shooting. And then those three little cells at the back, with the mods that you can plug in to modify your ammo.

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Derek Watts: This is a version of the assault rifle with the trigger at the front. We were playing around with that idea for a little while. The double barrels, a bit of type on there that really adds to the feel of Mass Effect. This one didn't have the arcs in it but it had a lot of the other elements; clean panel lines... It has also the four little cells on there where we can put the mods in there, the butt, more of a hole in there around the stock of the gun, and this one also had a scope. This would have been a bit harder to make collapse out because it's such a solid gun in the main body.

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Derek Watts: This is the final design for the assault rifle. I threw "M7" on there quite early on and it ended up sticking into the final game. I made the designers a bit upset because they had to come up with a whole class. "Why was it M7?" "Why are your players M7?" "Why is the gun M7?" It's also an American military, they have the M1 tanks and so on. So we decided just to put that on there. It just needed a bit of type for the style of the game. So, it has that large curved barrel at the top. There's a gun up there called the XM8 that looks a bit like this for sure. And then the four sections is where you put the X-Mods into that. The scope would collapse up, the barrels would all fold in; and this one got quite small in the back which was good for what we wanted. And then just a quick front and top view for the modeler to be able to do this. The modeler actually built this one in about five days and did a really good job on it. And then we would cut it up, make it collapse, and see how it worked from there.

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Derek Watts: We knew we needed a shotgun for the game. We weren't going to go with a full-size shotgun; it was almost like a sawed-off shotgun, just a little bit longer. This is an early version of that. It's got the double barrels. The blades on the top and bottom were supposed to collapse in around the barrels. Just a bit of a curved element in it. It got a bit chunky, and was kind of hard to figure out how this guy was going to shoot this, how would he brace his hand on the hand guard and so on.

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Derek Watts: It's another version of the shotgun. This one was starting to get fairly close. The problem with this one is right over top of the trigger, it got a little bit weak in the body of the gun, with the hoses and stuff. It didn't feel strong right there. It didn't really have the size and the look of the shotgun that we wanted. It's hard to figure out is that a scope on the top of it and it's a bit weak at the back.

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Derek Watts: This is actually a pretty good design; it's a large rectangular section, it's got that curved element we wanted in the gun. That top part almost had these rubber cushions as you held the hand guard and you shot the gun, that would absorb some of the impact.

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Derek Watts: This is the final version of the shotgun. It has that nice curved top, a lot like the assault rifle. The double barrels, you can see a bit more of them. Where that "T88" is, it was supposed to be a fin that moved back and forth when you shot the gun. I think that "T88" is still on there. I don't know what the designers have written for that. It was able to collapse up really small. We can move all the barrels back and fold it all up nicely to fit, just in the middle of the lower back.

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Derek Watts: We also need a sniper rifle. These things... mostly a sniper rifle, you just need really long barrels. It has double barrels, these were quite long. Large scope, that's really what people associate with a sniper rifle. We looked at a lot of military weapons for this, actual modern-day weapons. We also looked at some of the weapons from Final Fantasy: Spirits Within. Looked at a lot of Appleseed weapons, they have some amazing guns in that. This again has the elements of the arc. It gets a little bit weak over where the trigger is, and the handle. The butt doesn't incorporate in too good with that one. We did a few versions of these.

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Derek Watts: This is another version of the sniper rifle. Very long rectangular body of it, very long barrels, huge scope. It was just kind of hard to figure out how this would collapse up. It also felt very heavy; if you tried to hold this, it would feel like it would pull you right over forward.

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Derek Watts: This is getting pretty close to the final design. It's got that nice arc through there. It just gets a little bit weak around the double barrels, like what holds the lower barrel on it? It doesn't feel that great. And then the butt and stock at the back isn't looking that good also. So, we had to just modify a few of those.

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Derek Watts: This is the final design for the sniper rifle. You can see how that curved section holds the barrels and can move back into the main body. The barrels would collapse. It has a nice muzzle on it, a nice big area that kind of looks like a sniper rifle. It has a large scope incorporated in the body, the butt, the stock... We put a few holes in it to make it feel a bit lighter. When we actually built this model, it was really long. When we held it in the player, it was just so massive and long it felt really odd. So, we ended up having to short it up quite a bit.