A Krogan walks into a casino: Mysterious Mass Effect 3 screenshots hint at new DLC

Earlier today, Mass Effect 3 executive producer Casey Hudson tweeted an image alongside the phrase “Looks like a nice place for some R&R…” You can see the picture Hudson presented in part at the top of this post (and in full at the bottom), but the major takeaway here is that it is a picture of nothing we’ve seen in Mass Effect 3 to date.

Shortly after Hudson’s tweet, Mass Effect 3 producer Michael Gamble followed suit with a mystery image of his own. You’ll find that one below, and while Gamble’s picture is of a Krogan swinging a huge club, it’s as foreign as Hudson’s picture of a neon-drenched cityscape. As for helpful text, Gamble says only, “Does not look like a guy you’d want to mess with…”

To further compound the mystery, after Gamble and Hudson offered up their screenshots, the official Mass Effect Facebook page was updated with a short post which reads, “Casey Hudson and Mike Gamble both tweeted some strange images this morning. What do you make of it?”

BioWare isn’t giving fans much to go on but we do have a few clues to work with. First, the cityscape seen in Hudson’s image looks very much like the Citadel. It would have to be a new area of the Citadel that players have not seen before, but the Citadel is utterly massive and could certainly house all kinds of things that players have not yet encountered in the three vanilla Mass Effect titles. Second, that’s quite obviously a casino, and years of playing role-playing games of all stripes have taught us that whenever a casino is present in a game of that genre, it means that players will be given the chance to gamble their in-game cash for more cash – or more likely, special items that can’t be found elsewhere.

Gamble’s image is more difficult to figure out. It’s obviously a picture of a Krogan in battle, but that does little to narrow down the possibilities. “In battle” is the default state for all members of the Krogan species. Thanks to that nondescript armor the Krogan is wearing we don’t even really know if it’s a male or female, despite Gamble’s use of the word “guy” in the picture’s description. That club is the most notable part of Gamble’s image, but with our lack of knowledge on what might be included in this hypothetical DLC pack we aren’t able to glean anything useful from it either.

It’s doubtful that EA and BioWare would give Hudson and Gamble the greenlight to share these images if the companies weren’t close to announcing what they indicate, so expect official word on this artwork shortly. It’s most likely to be a teaser for an as-yet-unannounced DLC pack, but there’s no solid evidence to support that idea. But it seems like a good bet.