Why writing a Mass Effect screenplay is so difficult

Adapting Mass Effect for the silver screen was so difficult that it will probably be the last video game adaption Mark Protosevich tries, the screenwriter told Badass Digest.

Protosevich, whose credits include I Am Legend and Thor, found adapting the first game in the trilogy too difficult because of the science fiction universe’s very nature.

“It was the first game adaptation I did and it will probably be the only one,” Protosevich said. “They’re hard. I will freely admit it was hard. Because — especially with Mass Effect — there’s just so much material. Narratively, with the game, you’re talking about nine, 10 hours of narrative you’re jamming into two hours.”

Protosevich said he wrote “a couple of drafts” before Legendary Pictures brought in a new screenwriter. Last year, Legendary announced that it hired Morgan Davis Foehl to write an adaptation of BioWare’s role-playing game franchise based on an original story.