New Project: Mass Effect Civilisations - Omega (Patreon)

It's hard to believe we've been developing Asari Civ for roughly a year and a half now! We've been constantly expanding it and reworking many of its aspects, sometimes multiple times, to deliver not just a collection of portraits and ships, but a complete experience that encompasses what we call a "civilisation", complete with traits, scripted mechanics and premade empires. Between Thessia and Illium, we believe we've captured a wide spectrum of diversity that makes up the Asari, and we will continue to expand it with narrative events, AI and more interactions and mechanics going forward, focusing on depth now that we're satisfied with the width.

But wait! Wasn't this supposed to be the announcement of a new project? Why are you talking about Asari Civ?

That's because the subject of today's announcement - Omega - was initially supposed to be another "asari civilisation" and we started working on it at around the same time as the Corporations of Illium update in May 2017. However, we very quickly realised that aside from Aria T'Loak, Omega had little to do with the Asari as a whole. And yet, it had so much potential and we kept coming up with ideas and mechanics and possible narratives. Its scope just kept growing and eventually it became a major project in its own right - The Omega Civilisation!

Even though we were not supposed to work on it until the Asari Megastructures were done, Omega kept finding its way into our timetable, wreaking havoc on priorities, disrespecting schedules and sequence and demanding our attention in between other projects. We like to say "all relays lead to Omega" and now you know why n_n

But finally the time has come for Omega to stop being a distraction and become the focus! As of now, it is in full production and our plans for it are as follows:

• Playable Omega! The Omega Nebula initialiser will feature unique starting conditions and Omega itself will have access to special buildings and mechanics to reflect its lore. The station will be upgradeable as the game progresses, giving the owner access to more tiles and new buildings.
• Eclectic Omega shipset! Consisting of a mishmash of ships from all around the galaxy, including repurposed civillian and military ships ranging from Turian, Quarian and Salarian to unique Omega designs, a ragtag fleet of pirates and mercenary companies that call Omega home.
• Interactive events! Little stories brought to Omega by various visitors from all over the place! Smugglers looking to sell precursor artefacts, turf wars between crime syndicates and much, much more! Will you let them happen? Put a stop to it? Demand a cut? What will you do when enigmatic visitors from beyond the Omega 4 relay come to make a strange request you have a bad feeling about?
• Apocalypse integration! The upcoming Apocalypse expansion is bringing a lot of things that fit Omega perfectly so you can totally expect us to take advantage of Marauders, raiding and other features of Cherryh and Apocalypse!

Mass Effect Civilisations - Omega is coming... in the future n_n We cannot give you an ETA at this point as we have only just started working on it in earnest. We'll release it when we feel it's playable and complete enough to successfully convey the experience we have in mind. But in the meantime we'll be keeping you up to date with regular news, previews and progress reports!

Stay tuned and remember the one rule of Omega ^^