

Mass Effect 2 released four months before Alpha Protocol and featured snappy, responsive combat with reactive enemies and satisfying feedback accompanying each shot. But then, of course, they did Mass Effect 2.” It wasn't our guide, because Mass Effect actually came out pretty late in Alpha Protocol’s development, but when we saw Mass Effect’s combat, we're like, ‘Hey, they did the same thing’. Mass Effect (2007) had combat similar to Alpha Protocol. “They were paying Obsidian to make an RPG. “Sega’s feeling was that if you did that, people would think it was an action game and not an RPG,” Mills remembers, before explaining that it was a valid concern from the publisher at the time.

People don’t just immediately drop dead when you shoot them in an RPG - at least, they didn’t in the early 2000s. You see, it had commissioned Obsidian to make an RPG. The team wanted to apply this same logic to Alpha Protocol, but publisher Sega had different plans. You have a certain expectation of what happens when you hit someone with a bullet.” And that's why most shooters feel like that these days, because it actually feels good. “You shoot them once or twice, and they go down. “In an action movie, you never have to shoot a guy six times before they go down,” Mills says.
