Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Is Officially Winding Down [Updated]

It is with regret that I must inform you that there will not be any more Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Weekend events. Most of us already guessed/assumed that this was the case when Operation: Lodestar went live a couple weeks back but I know a lot of other people were holding out hope, that there might just be a chance the developers would change their minds. Well in an official BioWare announcement today, it was confirmed unequivocally that there won't be any further organised weekend challenges but the post did go on to say that the multiplayer itself would continue as normal. The messages are mostly clear cut but I do provide my own personal mini analysis of it at the end of this article, if you're interested in my thoughts.

The image that I've displayed was released by BioWare last week, I was planning to discuss it in a special article on my time playing ME3 MP but at the moment I'm not sure when I'll be able to get started on that. In any case I think it suits this article very well, it's actually quite interesting to see the numbers that have been divulged and in some cases rather surprising, I never realised the mission fail rate was soo high! Anyway it's all in the picture, so there's no need for me to repeat any of the figures, just be sure to click on it to get the enlarged version.

Hi Everyone,

My name is Jonathan Warner; I’m the Senior Producer on the Mass Effect franchise. I joined the Mass Effect Team when we launched ME3 and our Multiplayer Service and it has been a wonderful, wild ride!

It has been our pleasure to run and support this service for over a year now and provide the maps, kits, gear, and weapons that we all love. I wanted to thank everyone who played Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer, and participated in our challenges and events. You have made working on it a real pleasure.

After a solid year of dedicated service, we are now turning our attention to new projects and endeavors, but Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer will live on. Our challenge system and N7 HQ will be maintained and looked after.

Thank you again and we look forward to seeing you online!

Jonathan

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It was always really exciting to see how the message boards reacted to every new drop of information released, or any change in the game we introduced. Working on the live environment and all of the DLC for the multiplayer was a blast, in large part to the community. I’m still ecstatic over how much content we got to deliver in the last year.

David Crooks

For the most part these are just generic 'thanks and goodbye' messages from the guys in charge but there's a couple things to note here and there. The main point to take away is that the challenge score system will remain in place, so there's no immediate rush to get the all the challenges done and you can continue to earn the banners as and when. The second thing that caught my attention was the reference of "new projects and endeavours", these could be anything of course but a part of me would like to think it's because production of Mass Effect 4 is now in full flow. Who knows, maybe this time next year...

The other point that I noticed or rather noticed a lack of, was the mention of balance changes, will these still be rolling out every other week or are they also finished completely? If they are done entirely, I'll be glad that there won't be new nerfs to get my blood boiling but at the same time, I'm sort of sad that some of the stuff that needs a buff, won't ever get one (don't even get me started on the things that should be un-nerfed). I guess we'll find out in a couple Tuesdays time and as always, if I think it's significant, I'll let you guys know about it :)

Update: A BioWare developer has officially confirmed that will be no more balance changes, you can read the full details in this article.

Source of quote and image.