Mass Effect Lead Gameplay Designer Leaving BioWare Before Mass Effect 3 Is Finished

Christina Norman, lead gameplay designer for the Mass Effect series, confirmed today that she is, in fact, leaving BioWare.  The rumor of her departure leaked earlier this week when “Evil” Chris Priestly, BioWare’s community manager, posted this update.

I removed Christina Norman from the Twitter information section as Christina has left BioWare (she recently got married and she and her husband moved away from Edmonton). You are still welcome to follow Christina if you want (she is a very interesting person and a lot of fun on Twitter), but she isn’t part of the Mass Effect or BioWare teams anymore, so I removed her info.

Norman confirmed this news on her twitter feed the next day:

I go on vacation for a couple days with limited Internet access and the news I am leaving BioWare got out!

She claimed that she was unable to share any of the details of her departure, but assured her followers that Mass Effect 3 was “fine” and that it would be “way better than ME2.” Norman was responsible for many of the combat changes between Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, which many fans criticized during the game’s development.  Earlier this year, Norman retweeted posts regarding fans’ hesitance towards Ashley William’s re-design for Mass Effect 3, chastising fans for their fear of change. Preston Watamaniuk is replacing Norman as lead gameplay designer for Mass Effect 3.

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