That’s right, everyone. The wait is nearly over. BioWare has announced today that its highly anticipated sequel sequel, Mass Effect 3, has finally gone gold.

Casey Hudson revealed on Twitter, “After an awesome effort by our team, I’m proud to announce Mass Effect is officially gold.” Hudson also went on to tease fans by saying, “Many surprises await you–this week and beyond.”

The demo officially releases tomorrow for Xbox 360, PC, and PlayStation 3. Mass Effect 3 hits stores this March.

10: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Last time a Counter-Strike game was released was almost 8 years ago, back in 2004. Despite its age, a lot of gamers still play Counter-Strike, it’s one of the purest shooters on the market today, and even the decade old Counter Strike 1.6 has an avid player base. This year, we’re getting the long awaited sequel, called Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which will hit all major platforms: PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Mac OS X. Release date: May.

9: Max Payne 3

No other games have been able to pull off the neo-noir style like Max Payne and Max Payne 2. Max Payne 3 will bring many changes, chief of which is the setting: Max Payne has left New York and, as Rockstar puts it, has “drifted from bad to worse”. Release date: March.

8: Mass Effect 3

Mass Effect 3 is the final game in the BioWare’s sci-fi series, and as expected, continues from where Mass Effect 2 left off. Mass Effect 3 will feature refined combat, and will offer a multiplayer co-op mode as well. Release date: March.

7: Mario Party 9

The Mario Party series spans 14 games, and 2012 will see the 15th entry in the franchise — a franchise that has sold over 50 million units worldwide. Mario Party 9 for the Wii brings back the usual cast of Mario, Luigi, and some 30 other playable characters. On top of that, Mario Party 9 will feature 30 mini games as well. Release date: March.

6: Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is set between Metal Gear Solid 2 and MGS 4, and follows Raiden, a Katana-wielding cyborg ninja. Let’s repeat that again: you’ll be playing as a Katana-wielding cyborg ninja. What else is there to say? Release date: November.

5: Hitman Absolution

We haven’t seen much from the Hitman series for over half a decade since Hitman: Blood Money was released. The new game is called Hitman Absolution, but details of the story and setting are vague at this point. All we know is that it’s built using a brand new engine, and that Agent 47 is finally back in action. Release date: July.

4: Halo 4

Halo 4 is the first Halo game not developed by Bungie, which means the pressure on developer 343 Industries is immense. Halo 4 is set right after Halo 3, and marks the return of Master Chief as the main protagonist. Release date: September.

3: BioShock Infinite

The prequel to what’s arguably one of the best games of the 2000s, BioShock Infinite takes place several decades before BioShock, and centers around the floating city of Columbia. Release date: September.

2: Diablo 3

It’s been over a decade since we’ve last seen anything from the Diablo franchise. Diablo 3 will follow in the footsteps of its predecessors, and focus on dungeon crawling and hack and slash gameplay. With five different character classes, tons of dungeons, and PVP combat as well, Diablo 3 is the most anticipated RPG of the year.
Release date: July.

1: Grand Theft Auto V

There are popular game franchises, and then there are popular game franchises. And then there’s Grand Theft Auto, a series that has sold over 120 million copies to date. Grand Theft Auto 5 returns to Los Angeles, or rather “Los Santos”, as the fictional city is called. Expect tons of missions, cars, weapons, and may, just maybe, a bowling mini-game. Release date: October.

BioWare has been a big name in the video game industry with several different titles that have turned heads. However, time and time again towards the helm of BioWare’s portfolio is none other than the Mass Effect franchise. This franchise currently includes two different titles appropriately dubbed Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. However, it’s been known for quite some time that BioWare would get around to releasing the third iteration but when exactly we haven’t known.

Luckily during this year’s E3, which is still ongoing, BioWare has come forth to announce that Mass Effect 3 will in fact be dropping for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 on March 6th, 2012. During the conference there were some murmurs that the game may be making its way to the newly announced Wii U but we’ve yet to hear anything official in terms of this. We’ll keep you posted.

The Mass Effect franchise has shown us time and time again that BioWare is onto a winning formula. Due to the success that the first two games have seen it’s been known for quite some time that BioWare would be going on to release a third entry into the series appropriately dubbed Mass Effect 3. While we’ve heard a lot about the game thus far it has yet to hit the streets as it’s release date has been slated for  later this year. However, if you have already taken off work in anticipation for the release of Mass Effect 3 you may want to reschedule.

BioWare has just let us know today that they will be delaying the release date of Mass Effect 3 from later this year to Q1 2012. Not that big of a delay but it’s sure to be an annoyance to those highly anticipating the game.

BioWare’s Mass Effect series has been quite popular ever since it first hit store shelves back in 2007. Now that the original game’s sequel has been on the market for some time and has proven itself to be successful, it’s time to start thinking towards the future. BioWare is way ahead of us and have already come forth to announce the next installment of the series appropriately named Mass Effect 3.

While the game won’t be launching until the 2011  holiday season, we do have official confirmation that Mass Effect 3 will be hitting the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC at the same time. This is gerat news as gamers will not have to wait for a port as they did with the previous titles.

We’ll keep you posted as more news regarding Mass Effect 3 is made known.

Press release included after the break.

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Mass Effect 2 has seen some tremedous reception from pretty much everything. Hopefully, the same can be said about Mass Effect 3 — It was just announced by Epic‘s Vice President Mark Rein that BioWare will be returning to Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 for Mass Effect 3.

Rein comments:

BioWare chose UE3 for the Mass Effect trilogy because they wanted to make an immersive third-person perspective shooter game with sci-fi environments.

Let’s hope this means the game is going to be great.

via cvg

While everyone is gearing up for the upcoming Mass Effect 2 release — now less than a week away — BioWare has already confirmed the existence of the final piece in the trilogy, Mass Effect 3. The game was confirmed by series director Casey Hudon, in an interview with MCV. Expect a release in 2012, at the earliest.

Video games are in some ways are starting to resemble the auto industry. We’re hearing more and more details about future titles in a series that hasn’t even released a sequel yet. Eventually developers will leak details of sequels to games that have yet to hit the shelves. Regardless of how early this news is, it’s still interesting to hear. In the first trailers for Mass Effect 2 we saw little more than a robotic geth wearing the protagonists armor, leading many to assume that he’d died in the ambiguous ending of the original.

Later though it was revealed that he had survived and would be present for at least some of the sequel. Now BioWare’s Casey Hudson, the executive producer on the title has revealed that not only has Shepard survived to the sequel, he may even make it to the final chapter of the trilogy. I say ‘may’ however not out of any ambiguity on the part of the developer- the choice rests on the player. Mass Effect 2 will have certain events or differences based on choices you made in the original (assuming you played it and still have your save file). As you’ve probably heard, depending on your actions characters can die in this game. Hopefully it won’t simply be due to the rigors of everyday combat, because in the original I generally found myself the only one standing at the end of nearly every encounter. Not only can your teammates die, but Shepard himself can be offed.

Of course if you fail to keep him alive, he’ll be replaced by a stand-in character in Mass Effect 3 so as to not force the developers to create two different plotlines, but if you play your cards right the hero can survive the supposed suicide mission he embarks on in #2 and head out for another attempt at defeating overwhelming odds.