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The Mass Effect 3 Citadel DLC is largely considered the most popular DLC in the trilogy, and both actors who play Commander Shepard understand why.
Actors Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer sat down with us to chat for Mass Effect N7 day, and when the topic of the Citadel DLC was broached, they had a lot to say about it.
Hale calls the Citadel DLC a “love letter to the fans” and also gives BioWare credit for making such a touching bit of content. “To me, that also goes back to the nature of the company making this, like the heart of BioWare. It’s just so beautiful. It’s so responsive and so open-minded and open-hearted and inclusive and connected, and it’s really about what it’s about. It’s about the game and the material, and it’s not about anything else and it’s incredible,” Hale insists.
“For me, personally, it was essentially the last thing we did, this is the capstone to the entire trilogy, to these years of work, working with all these people,” Meer says. “I really have to give credit to Cathleen Rootsaert, one of the writers at BioWare she was one of the ones who championed ‘we gotta have the big party on the Citadel, we gotta get all these folks back together. That gave you the opportunity to see characters, NPCs, interact that never interacted before. You got to have Wrex and Grunt in the same room, and oh Zaeed is here as well, and you get to see the conversation between them.”
The Citadel DLC famously gives the Normandy crew a bit of shore leave, and they have something of a rager in Captain Anderson’s apartment. Jack dances on a table, Commander Shepard dances awkwardly, you can play fetch with a vorcha, and a lot of characters get pretty damn drunk. There are so many hilarious moments in it that are incredibly sentimental for players who know the ending of the trilogy, and it’s a great send-off for fans. “Beyond the party, there was all, let’s face it, fan service,” Meer says. “There was lots of fan service in the Citadel and lots of in-jokes and it was just so celebratory, and that’s what made it really special.”
We’d have to agree.
This conversation was just a part of a larger interview celebrating Mass Effect N7 day.
Alyssa Mercante is an editor and features writer at GamesRadar based out of Brooklyn, NY. Prior to entering the industry, she got her Masters’s degree in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Newcastle University with a dissertation focusing on contemporary indie games. She spends most of her time playing competitive shooters and in-depth RPGs and was recently on a PAX Panel about the best bars in video games. In her spare time Alyssa rescues cats, practices her Italian, and plays soccer.
