Now this is exactly why we hate DLCs, especially when their contents are cut from the actual game. Mass Effect 3’s producer Mike Gamble revealed today that the Omega DLC will be unleashed on November 27th and will be priced at 15$. According to Gamble, this will be the biggest DLC to date for Mass Effect 3 and will be twice the size of the largest Mass Effect 3 DLC so far.

However, we really feel the need to point out that this content was cut from the original game and is not brand new. Yes, BioWare may have polished, extended and tweaked it, but this content was – initially – planned to be included in Mass Effect 3.

A couple of months ago, ME3 fans recovered some information about this DLC from Mass Effect 3’s disc. In case you were unaware of, ME3 featured details about the conflict between Cerberus and Omega, the asteroid underworld run by Aria T’Loak. Here is the description that was uncovered back then from ME3 fans:

“A notorious Cerberus tactician orchestrating the Omega blockade crashes on a planet after being attacked by Aria’s raiders. Aria wants to grill the tactician and asks you to retrieve her before Cerberus does. Your shuttle down to the planet is rocked by a missile: Cerberus has had time to establish a defensive perimeter.

You are forced to make an emergency landing and must fight through patrols, traps and a deadly environment to get to the Cerberus ship. Once there, you are confronted by Zaeed: He’s signed on again with Cerberus as the tactician’s bodyguard, and is determined to fulfill his contract. After a fight you have a chance to either persuade the merc that he’s on the wrong side or finish off Zaeed. Either way, you take the tactician back to Omega.”

Fast forward a couple of months, and here we are today with the storyline behind the Omega DLC. According to BioWare, this expansion will see players team up with ousted Omega ruler Aria T’loak to retake the station from Cerberus control. Surprise surprise, does this sound familiar?

This whole thing reminded us of the Prothean DLC, a character that had some interesting information and was originally planned to be featured in the actual game. Yes, the Prothean class was never meant to be included as a DLC character. Well, that was before the game’s script was leaked which brings us to the question; was the script leaked intentionally in order to butcher the entire game and have an excuse for it… or not?

But forget about that. The big question now is whether we should justify BioWare and EA for cutting content, further polishing it, and releasing it for 1/3 of the game’s full price. According to Gamble, this will be the biggest DLC ever with new enemies, but the point is that there were already hints for it in the Mass Effect 3 disc, suggesting that this mission was meant to be featured in the ME3 game. It’s sad that we’ve come to this point, where developers and publishers are cutting content in order to milk their games. Naturally, some might defend BioWare for this and say that the content was cut to hit their deadline. In fact, this content was never promised and if the fans hadn’t dug up ME3’s disc, we wouldn’t even be aware of it. But this is an ethical dilemma here as BioWare is exploiting something that was initially featured in the game (and removed for whatever reason).

There was a time when expansion packs were coming out to our games. Those expansions featured lots of enemies, weapons and levels, and were priced at $20. And even though ME3’s DLCs may feature the same amount of content, they are offered at a higher – overall – price.

Lsat but not least, let us ask you this; would you prefer a DLC that was cut from the game or a DLC that continues the ending of Mass Effect 3, even from a completely different perspective? How about a story-driven DLC that provides information about other, unanswered questions of ME3? There is a lot of potential here and it saddens us that BioWare and EA decided to take the easy route and focus on this cut content.