By Kieron Gillen on September 2nd, 2010 at 8:00 pm.
Catching up with the gaming news from my latest bout of travelling too much, I discover from VG247 that Bioware have released a trailer for the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC out on September 7th. It’s basically continuing Asari Liara’s adventures involving that most shadowy of brokers, the Shadow Broker. It also promises to allow you to continue a relationship with her, which probably means do her. It costs 800 Bioware points, which translates as some money. And here’s the trailer!
The interesting thing – as several people who wrote to RPS have expressed concern about – is that it’s actually continuing the arc of a character from the first game in DLC, and wondering how that affects ME3 for people who don’t buy the DLC. Good questions. Good answers for those questions? Another good question. Did I ever tell you had beautiful eyes? Have I opened up a romance option? Woo! This is like being Quinns.
02/09/2010 at 20:05 Serenegoose says:
Slightly concerned, given the length of previous ME2 DLC, that this won’t do any sort of justice to a Liara reunion, never mind dealing with the Shadow Broker, who they’ve been building up as an unstoppable enigma for 2 games now. If they deal with this over the course of an hour…. Well, it’ll be pretty tragic, really.
02/09/2010 at 20:11 Vinraith says:
My concerns exactly. Both Liara and the Shadow Broker likely deserve better than they’re going to get with this one. Then again, maybe we’ll be proven wrong and it’ll actually be a well executed, meaty, lengthy addition to the game. That’d make it the first Bioware DLC I actually bought.
02/09/2010 at 20:22 Freud says:
In the end, ME2 as a whole was thin on story (but not automatically thin on storytelling) . It is hard to imagine any DLC being an important piece when all is said and done.
The shadow broker is an interesting concept, but I can’t say I am itching to play as her. In fact, I thought it was a bit boring we found out who it was in ME2.
02/09/2010 at 20:40 DJ Phantoon says:
We… did? When did this happen?
02/09/2010 at 20:45 Fergus says:
Having never romanced Liara in any of my ME1 playthroughs (probably says something about my character that I can’t resist the hard-arse sassy chick over the goody-two shoes blue one), I’m probably just going to use this as an excuse to have a ME1+ME2 playthrough.
02/09/2010 at 21:10 Vinraith says:
@DJ Phantoon
You aren’t the only one who apparently missed that. I thought I’d done all of Liara’s SB-related subquests, have I forgotten something?
02/09/2010 at 21:25 Freud says:
My bad. We didn’t find out who it was. We just found out who the shadow broker agent was.
02/09/2010 at 21:37 Zogtee says:
Well, maybe the Shadow Broker thing wont be resolved in this DLC. It could be the start of a DLC series (cue strokes and madness all over RPS).
02/09/2010 at 22:07 StingingVelvet says:
Bioware devs have said this is their biggest DLC ever, so perhaps it will be a good 5 hours or so long and offer real answers and depth? One can hope.
Overlord was fairly awesome despite only being a couple hours I thought.
03/09/2010 at 01:40 Vinraith says:
@StingingVelvet
Let’s hope so. I’d love some more content for ME2, so long as it’s actually substantial and worth the price.
02/09/2010 at 20:07 Tei says:
What happened with la señorita Shepard? who is this dude?
Also, looks like a very interesting thing, better than average :-D
02/09/2010 at 21:23 Pani says:
My thoughts exactly. It took me a minute to remember that some people chose the “other” Shepherd. It’s just not right, that fella getting called Shepherd.
03/09/2010 at 09:25 Rich says:
You guys are weird.
03/09/2010 at 12:03 Andy says:
Anyone who hasn’t played as the female Shepherd is seriously missing out. Jennifer Hale’s voice acting is immensely superior to Mark Meer’s.
Plus there can be lesbians and stuff….
04/09/2010 at 18:17 Klaus says:
True. Only played with Male Shepard, maybe twice. FemShep all the way.
Since Liara, technically, isn’t a female. No lesbians. D:
02/09/2010 at 20:08 Fred Wester, CEO of Paradox says:
I am Fred Wester, CEO of Paradox, and I approve of blue alien sex.
02/09/2010 at 20:14 Fred Wester, CEO of Paradox says:
This man stole my identity (I agree with his statement though)
03/09/2010 at 09:28 Rich says:
Is this a running joke that’s been going while I’ve been away for a month?
I vaguely remember someone claiming to be Fred Wester around the release of Victoria II.
02/09/2010 at 20:12 Freud says:
My interest in this is 600 Freud points.
02/09/2010 at 20:19 Deston says:
Less DLC, more ME3.
02/09/2010 at 20:22 imirk says:
So I got it on with the blue chick in true Captain Kirk style , only to find out that in ME 2 I would not have a little blue bastard child, which I so wanted.
03/09/2010 at 02:04 Corporate Dog says:
That’s not Captain Kirk style.
Captain Kirk style would be to do it with the blue alien chick in ME1 AND THEN do it with the armor-suited alien chick in ME2.
(Potentially doing it with the blue alien chick AGAIN in the ME2 DLC, and then doing it with the Rachni Queen in ME3.)
02/09/2010 at 20:29 Jimbo says:
“It also promises to allow you to continue a relationship with her, which probably means do her.”
What else would it mean?
Also, the Keepers are the Shadow Broker. Think about it.
02/09/2010 at 21:11 fearian says:
I know this is a joke but I can’t help but- no, no! wrong! the keepers where created by the reapers to maintain the citeadel as a secret mass relay beacon without alerting any advanced specie to its true nature and after the protheans used the conduit to backdoor into the citadel and remove reaper control of its functions the keepers are nothing more than mindless automatons.
phew. I feel so much more nerdy for having said that, but for some reason, a little more relaxed.
02/09/2010 at 21:50 Jimbo says:
*Or are they?!*
They have access to all the information going through the Citadel, and the Shadow Broker always seems to keep the powers in balance (apparently), almost as if they don’t want a war to break out and risk the Citadel!
So the Reapers can’t directly control them anymore, but maybe they’re just predisposed to Shadow Brokering and nobody figured it out yet.
02/09/2010 at 22:06 perilisk says:
The keepers seem somewhat limited in their faculties. The geth aren’t a bad option, though, since ME2 showed that they were monitoring all communications and occasionally hacked in to mess with people.
Anyway, aren’t they also doing a Dragon Age DLC to finish up Morrigan’s story? I know they had one for Leliana, but it might have been a side thing.
03/09/2010 at 11:33 FhnuZoag says:
And here I thought you meant the Keepers from Thief.
02/09/2010 at 21:06 Elyvern says:
“that effects ME3 for people who don’t buy the DLC”
Please. it’s “affects”, not “effects”. Effect is a noun.
02/09/2010 at 22:21 DarkNoghri says:
Effects IS actually a verb. “To effect a change.” Etc.
That doesn’t change the fact that he (most likely. I’m an engineer, not a grammarmatician) used it wrong, though.
03/09/2010 at 06:07 panther says:
grammar nazi fail
02/09/2010 at 21:25 ExplosiveCoot says:
I do have to say this is the most bad-ass DLC trailer I’ve seen – it makes this look like a proper-length episode (or what I’ve been hoping DLC would be since it started.) It is going to be a little more expensive than the previously released stuff, so hopefully that’ll mean that it’s of a decent length and quality.
02/09/2010 at 22:19 0mar says:
I look forward to slapping those alien titties one last time.
02/09/2010 at 22:37 Dlarit says:
800points to do an alien woman! wow why have human women not adopted this strategy!
03/09/2010 at 01:31 Thants says:
I have good news and bad news.
03/09/2010 at 02:36 Ignorant Texan says:
Thants -
Bravo! Well played, sir, well played. Too bad it is all too true.
02/09/2010 at 23:40 Frosty says:
So, when I was originally pissed off with a poor Liara implementation was that because they ran out of time or because they planned to do this all along?
Also, this feels vaguely like prostitution.
03/09/2010 at 02:17 Corporate Dog says:
There was a Mass Effect comic book miniseries which actually filled in a whole bunch of Liara’s backstory, between Shepherd’s death and where the game picks up with her.
In essence, she’s pissed with the Shadow Broker, because he was assisting the Collectors in obtaining Shepherd’s corpse; a plot she foiled with the help of a Drell operative who was working for Cerberus.
She came to consider the Drell a good friend, but he was forced to (presumably) sacrifice himself, so that Liara could escape the Shadow Broker’s compound with Shepherd’s body.
That pretty much explains why she’s so driven to out-Shadow Broker the Shadow Broker in ME2.
03/09/2010 at 02:20 Corporate Dog says:
And now that I’ve seen the trailer, it looks very much like the DLC continues the story that the comic book started.
I’m assuming that was Liara’s friend, the Drell operative, in the Shadow Broker’s torture chair.
02/09/2010 at 23:46 Bluebreaker says:
So they are fixing the massive plot holes in me2 with random bandages?
03/09/2010 at 00:16 Hadi says:
I never would have thought that this actually would happen…
http://xkcd.com/326/
03/09/2010 at 03:25 bleeters says:
<"It also promises to allow you to continue a relationship with her, which probably means do her."
I can see it now.
“Oh Shepard, finally we can be as one again!”
“Yeeeeeeah, listen, is now a good time to mention I hooked up with Tali?”
03/09/2010 at 03:28 Christina norman says:
Christina from bioware here
All our DLC is cannon. If you go to ME3 without playing DLC the events may still be reflected in ME3, much like ME1 events were referred to in ME2 even if you didn’t import.
In the case of shadow broker, this DLC has a big impact on the mass effect universe so it will affect ME3 for sure.
03/09/2010 at 03:53 Karthik says:
1. The shadowbroker is an AI.
There has been enough hinting in this aspect. (Perfectly neutral, amoral, always sells to the highest bidder, extent of influence and numbers unknown, etc)
Fits with the Gibson-esque vibe to the other ME2 DLCs as well.
2. Liara looks different.
3. I wish people wouldn’t make such a big deal of the whole bedding-the-alien thing. It’s naff; can we move on?
4. Bioware have used a vanguard shepard in all DLC trailers.
I purchased both the Kasumi and the Overlord DLC, and I liked the former. I trusted the reviews of Overlord and was burned.
The problem is that
(i) There’s no continuity to it. Bioware knows that everyone who’ll be buying this has finished the game by now. Unless the DLC acknowledges this, I don’t see much point to it. (Anyone else notice how the Normandy was all banged up at the end of ME2 but back to sparkling new if you chose to continue?)
(ii) There’s an eerie absence of input from other teammates; this was jarring in the game, felt worse in the overlord DLC.
Whether I buy this depends on how long and involved it is, and I can’t even trust the reviews this time around.
03/09/2010 at 04:24 Ignorant Texan says:
Karthik -
What, wait,,,, are you actually suggesting reviewers from Blowjob Media(TM), Hand-Job Publications(C) and Blowing Smoke(R) might be biased by advertising revenue?!?
03/09/2010 at 04:35 JKjoker says:
oh yes a this DLC will have a huge impact, im sure, looking at ME’s impact over ME2… about a single line of dialogue or an email in ME3, completely world breaking and devastating impact….
anyway, Bioware realized both in DA and ME that they have too much baggage and they need to lose some or all of it, i was expecting it (although i thought they would just “forget” about most of it, they are too lazy even to keep doing the email crap from ME2)
03/09/2010 at 04:59 Karthik says:
I think she meant this DLC in particular would have a big impact. As for the rest, there’s no exaggeration going on: “ME1 events were referred to in ME2″.
03/09/2010 at 05:44 JKjoker says:
she said impact in the mass effect universe, it sounds to me its supposed to transcend the DLC, but maybe im reading it wrong
and yeah most ME events get referenced in ME2, about the same way sources get referenced in technical books, one line in the back of the book in small font that only ppl that are looking for them read, a few special ones got … one line of dialogue and a VERY special 2 or 3 got … a few lines of dialogue, it never goes beyond the “reference”, none had any impact in the universe or mattered in the slightest, not even the big ending choice or the “sadistic” choice
look, i know it was impossible for all of them to actually change much because of the amount of content required but if you are going to advertise the mindbogglingly “impact” of the previous choices im expecting at least a handful to actually change gameplay, stop promising things you cant deliver, im only asking for that, i would have been just fine with just 2 or 3 choices carrying over and leaving it at that as long as they actually mattered
03/09/2010 at 06:29 Karthik says:
Let me rephrase that:
I think she meant this DLC in particular would have a big impact on the events of ME3. As for the rest, there’s no exaggeration going on: “ME1 events were referred to in ME2″.
I remember Bioware saying that the decisions in ME would carry over to ME2. I don’t remember them ever saying anything to the effect that ME decisions would have a “mindboggling impact” on the events of ME2, with the exception of this DLC in Bioware’s comment above.
I’m not saying they could (or could not) have done better; just that there was no false advertising. Personally, I was pleasantly surprised by all the small references to earlier events in ME2.
Maybe I have a selective memory, I don’t know.
03/09/2010 at 08:31 Dominic White says:
I’d just like to point out the BLATANTLY OBVIOUS, because apparently it needs repeating:
Mass Effect 2 was the middle game in a triilogy. If you have massive, earthshattering changes in the middle game, then any plot branches of into the third game would require effectively developing a half-dozen different sequels worth of content.
As ME3 is going to be the end of the story, they can have choices (either from ME1 or ME2) have big, irreversible effects. Until then, they’re pretty limited in how much they can change without turning the plot-flowchart into a fractal nightmare.
03/09/2010 at 10:01 Chris says:
I’ve played through ME2 with and without importing a character, and was shocked at how much it did change. Everything was wrong: Human council, Udina, no Wrex, alien races treating you like an asshole. Like you say, it would be impossible to do much more without developing several different games. I do think you’re underplaying it with “just a few emails” though.
03/09/2010 at 13:14 Mana_Garmr says:
@Chris
But having the human council made no real difference in the game. There were 3 possible situations the councli could be in after ME1 (discounting the Anderson/Udina choice, I never sided with Udina so I can’t speak to his parts), the results of which were
i} You meet with Anderson, the rest of the council show up as holograms. You get no help with your mission.
ii) You meet with Anderson, the new council members make no appearance. You get no help with your mission.
iii) You meet with Anderson. The other members of the human council make no appearance. You get no help with your mission.
There’s also a mention of the current status of the council fleet in the Galactic News stories which has no impact on your game.
No matter how you chose to end the first game you still get the whole, “The rest of the Council are determined to blame everything on Saren and the Geth, no-one accepts that the Reapers are real”, line from Anderson.
Wrex is replaced by another Krogan chief who, while having different ideas about what the Krogan should be doing, leads you to exactly the same events you get when Wrex is there.
The aliens either treat you like a jerk or a hero, but after the first few lines they revert to the same stance for whatever quest they’re related to.
Sure these things might be carried into to ME3 and have a bigger impact there, but there was nothing in ME2 that made me feel like any choice I made in the first game was at all meaningful to the world.
03/09/2010 at 08:21 Zinic says:
Hm… couple of points in the trailer that strike my interest.
For example the “driving sequence”. Anyone else think this might be a player controlled car chase through one of the major cities in the universe using one of those flying cars? Probably just using quick time events though.
I doubt we’ll get to keep Liara as a party member even after this DLC, not that we really need her anymore. Would be interesting to find out more about the Shadow Broker though.
Dunno why, but I have this strange feeling that the second blue chick is the shadow broker, you join up and she backstabs you when you get close.
03/09/2010 at 11:24 JustOneWay says:
I find those driving bits quite exciting. I look forward to finding out what they will actually turn out like.
I remember arriving in Illium and seeing those streams of aircars in the distance and wanting to be be able to fly about in one.
Perhaps we will be able to.
A bit.
03/09/2010 at 14:20 Selendor says:
So the thing I find annoying about this DLC is that my Sheppard import from ME1 was with Liara and then as ME2 progressed and I realised she had become distant with quite a minor part in the game. So I decided to switch ‘allegiance’ to a different party member. At the time I noticed that a lot of players felt that way about Liara in ME2.
If I’d have known they would come back to the Liara relationship before ME3 I would probably have kept the relationship going. I feel a little cheated about this to be honest as I’m not now going to replay the whole game just to put Sheppard back on that relationship path.
03/09/2010 at 14:46 Joshua says:
As for me, I will just wait till they release an ‘All Inclusive’ DLC package. Then I will buy that. It’s easier.
04/09/2010 at 18:27 Klaus says:
Did I ever tell you had beautiful eyes? Have I opened up a romance option?
Yes.
I’m afraid I’m going to blueball you though. Sorry.
05/09/2010 at 17:19 Fred Wester, CEO of Paradox says:
How dare you imply that I, Fred Wester, CEO of Paradox, am a running joke!
07/09/2010 at 02:25 chickboom says:
LOL! No faith, eh?