Major Shepard had a couple of love scenes in the previous game. The bar has now been raised and the game will have more passionate scenes done in the right way. Bioware has promised that the animations this time will be much more fluid. For the first game Shepard had about 25 animations but for the sequel that number has been increased to 200.​

The storyline is so intertwined with the first Mass Effect that Project Director for BioWare, Casey Hudson, has confirmed that we should keep our save files from Mass Effect. Apparently, our character creations and the decisions we have made from the first adventure will continue to influence our story in the sequel – unlucky for those who decided to kill Wrex in the first part.​

Shepard’s combat capabilities are also more refined. The concept of overheating weapons has been scrapped, replaced by a more intuitive ammo clip appearing under your crosshair (not circular) reticle. The supply of bullets for most weapons is still infinite – you just need to reload when your clip empties instead of managing the overheat meter. These enhancements alone could pacify many players who complained about the first game’s gunplay, providing that BioWare backs up the changes with environments that take full advantage of their potential.​