It appears Bioware is planning to releaseMass Effect 2as a two-disc game.
“Why (two) discs,” Bioware community manager Chris Priestly asks in anofficial message board threadabout the game spanning two discs, “Answer: because you cannot fit this much awesome on one disc.”
Priestly doesn’t reveal the true reason for the need of two discs, but we’re willing to assume that it has to do with the sheer size of the content.Forza 3developer Turn 10 had to break their gameinto two discsearlier this year because of the amount of content coupled with the restrictive size of DVDs.
The firstForza 3disc is the main game disc. The second disc is something of a content dump which can be downloaded onto an HDD or popped in the tray as needed.
But disc swapping will be unavoidable for owners of the Xbox 360 version ofME2.
“The Xbox 360 (version) does not have an install and does require disc swapping during play,” writes Priestly in the same post.
“Even though there is a disc swap, it occurs at a carefully planned place in the game (that does not interefere with gameplay) and is done once. You do not swap back and forth. (One) swap and then done.”
The PC version ofME2won’t require users to swap discs. LikeForza 3, owners will be able to download the content of the second disc and forget about it.
Mass Effect 2ships for the PC and Xbox 360 on January 26th, 2010. The three-disc Collectors Edition hits the same day, but don’t panic: the third disc is bonus DVD-style (behind-the-scenes, bonus footage) content.
