As most of you have no doubt heard there is a slight problem with the latest instalment of the Mass Effect franchise. Basically, if you’re not a consumer who is buying the collector’s edition of the game, then you will not be receiving what some are calling one of the most important discoveries in the Mass Effect universe, a living Prothean. This has been so controversial that major commentators, such as a Total Biscuit, have even gone as far as to state that they are boycotting the game for good unless EA/BioWare does something about the DLC release.

I for one however, will not be boycotting the game. The cutting of content from any game just so one can produce a profit is unethical and brings down the entire artistic merit of any project, but I for one have accepted the situation that we are in and believe that we only have ourselves to blame. Let me attempt to explain why. First I assess the importance of this DLC and then I examine the more general question, when should we boycott games?

If there is anything I have learnt from my years of gaming it is that DLC very rarely adds anything to any storyline. Of course there is the exception here and there, but for the most part games stand alone as good stories/experiences without the DLC and if they don’t, then one has to question whether or not they were a good game to begin with. I believe that this trend will continue here. I know that finding a Prothean sounds like it is a shattering experience for the Mass Effect universe but I really have to question if it is as important as people are making out.

At the moment, everyone is only able to speculate about the game and the story. If I may also speculate, I imagine the Prothean will be nothing more than an interesting side note in the overall story. I may have a misguided belief in BioWare but so far they have been good story tellers in my opinion and I don’t believe that they would remove something that has actual importance to the overall progression of the plot. I would speculate that the Prothean will turn out to be one of two things.

The first possibility would be that the Prothean acts as some form of exposition fairy, something that adds nothing new to the lore of the universe, spending their time regurgitating what we already knew from the countless datalogues and history we have already been privy too. In this respect someone like this can be very beneficial for the player, giving reminders with added dramatics about how they saw comrades and family die at the hands of the enemy and we will receive lots of comments that are teeming with both woe and vengeance. It could also have the nice twist of finding out that the Prothean’s aren’t actually a nice race of people at all, and actually hate humans, like all the other races in the ME universe.

The second possibility would be that they are insane/have amnesia. They will serve as nothing more than a mystery and occasionally have flashbacks to when they were fighting to survive, probably having to kill their team mates to do so. This will also allow the player to feel empathy towards Proheans’ and humanise them instead of them just being a race who got wiped out. What I am trying to illustrate here is that this has the potential to be nothing more than a few extra missions adding nothing of significance to the plot other than it expanding the experience.

This really wouldn’t be an issue if the character they had added wasn’t Prothean. No one would care if the character was another human, yeah it would be annoying to say the least that they had released day one DLC that we have to pay for, but it would not have caused as much of an uproar and what I have tried to show is that it is very possible that people are getting a little over zealous about how much experience this will add.

I for one would actually be annoyed if they were anything more than what I have stated. Throughout the ME experience the player-controlled commander has been the most important person, we have been made to feel like the world is resting on us, that we alone, obviously with the help of the Normandy crew, would be the ones to stop what seems like inevitable genocide across the known universe. If this Prothean showed up and things shifted to him being the main driving force in fighting back, I think I would feel a little annoyed and as a result would actually prefer not to have the DLC.