User:The Millionth One/Mass Effect 3: Citadel

Mass Effect 3: Citadel is a downloadable content pack developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts for the action role-playing video game Mass Effect 3. It was released worldwide on March 5, 2013 on the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. The PlayStation 3 version was released outside of Europe on March, 5; the European release occured on March, 6.

Citadel adds new missions where Commander Shepard, an elite human soldier and player character, is given Admiral Anderson's old apartment on the Citadel while they and their squad are on shore leave. However, the Commander is targeted by a conspiracy, disrupting the leave. After the main missions are over, the player may interact with different squad members that have appeared over the course of the series, providing they are still alive and their part in 3 is completed.

Citadel is Mass Effect 3's final DLC, and was first announced on February 21, 2013. It received positive reviews, with the Xbox 360 version scoring a Metacritic average of 84 out of 100.

Gameplay
Mass Effect 3 is an action role-playing game in which the player controls Commander Shepard. Shepard's gender, appearance, history and character class are determined by the player before the game begins. The game features a variety of quests, or "missions", that the player must complete in order to progress. These missions usually involve the player interacting with characters and fighting enemies in combat missions. During the missions, Shepard is assisted by two AI squad members that the player can indirectly control through orders—though in Citadel's second mission, the Commander is initially on their own until meeting up with them. Combat takes place in real-time, but the player can pause the action at any time to calmly target enemies and select different powers for the squad members to use. ... If a sufficient amount of experience is obtained, the player can develop powers for both Shepard and the members of the squad.

Citadel adds 17 new missions to the game, of varying lengths, as well as the "Armax Arsenal Arena". Each of the squadmates from previous games become available within the arena, with Wrex also joining the player's squad throughout the DLC's missions.

Development and release
Citadel was developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts. BioWare had earlier stated that downloadable content was becoming a fundamental part of the company's overall philosophy, during the development of Mass Effect 2. Prior to the title's announcement, designer Jos Hendriks had posted that a team of roughly eight writers were penning the script for the next DLC, including Patrick Weekes and John Dombrow. It was also confirmed through Twitter tweets that Sam Hulick would be returning as a composer, and that Seth Green (the voice of Joker) and Raphael Sbarge (Kaidan Alenko) would be returning as voice actors. Developers would also later tweet two promotional images for the DLC: one of a krogan, and another of a casino featured in the DLC.

Citadel was formally announced on February 21, 2013, and was set to be the final single-player DLC. The release date was set worldwide for March, 5 except in Europe on PlayStation 3, and the price was set for 1,200 Microsoft Points on the Xbox 360, 1,200 BioWare Points on the PC and US$ 14.99 for the PlayStation 3 version. The game was released on European PlayStation 3s on March, 6. A day before the worldwide release, a trailer for Citadel was revealed. Due to the 2GB size limit of Xbox Live, the DLC was split into two separate files; one was free, but both files were needed to successfully download the DLC. Unlike the previous DLC, Omega, it was made by BioWare Edmonton rather than BioWare Montreal. In addition to Hulick, Cris Velasco and Sascha Dikiciyan worked on the pack's soundtrack; the soundtrack totalled 20 tracks and was made free to download for those with Origin accounts.

Although Mass Effect 3 is available for the Wii U, BioWare has stated they have no plans of porting the DLC to the console.