Eurogamer has added some strength to the rumour the next Mass Effect would ship with some form of multiplayer, speaking with BioWare co-founder, Dr Ray Muzyka.

"We haven't talked at all about multiplayer in the Mass Effect franchise," he told the site. "But we're exploring multiplayer in all of our games and all of our franchises. It's always an idea we're interested in."

Another report from CVG, who claim to have information from an undisclosed source close to EA, suggests any such MP addition would be in the vein of a horde mode, not at all dissimilar to that found in EA's other space-faring franchise, Dead Space.

"Mainstream penetration is a major goal for Mass Effect 3 and those high up feel online co-op is the answer they're looking for," the site's source said. "EA's keen to push the multiplayer side of the game to help spread word of mouth - so it's not just going to rehash stuff from the campaign. It's going all out."

Both CVG and Eurogamer claim the purported multiplayer will feature "competitive elements" and would "not compromise" the single-player portion of the game. While CVG says the multiplayer itself would be built around "original missions made for online". Much of this makes sense given that EA officially said the Mass Effect 3 delay from November 2011 to March 2012 was to "address a far larger market opportunity".

How do you feel about the potential inclusion of multiplayer in Mass Effect 3?