The Mass Effect trilogy is one of gaming’s greatest achievements. Developed by BioWare, the first game in the trilogy, Mass Effect, debuted in 2007 to widespread acclaim as an Xbox 360 exclusive.
Previously, BioWare had released one of the greatest-ever Star Wars licensed games in the form of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in 2003. In 2005, the company unveiled Jade Empire, a complex and engaging role-playing game based on Chinese mythology.
Following those two major critical and commercial successes was never going to be easy for BioWare. However, with a new console (the 360) to use as a sandbox for game creation after making games for the original Xbox, many of the major players behind KOTOR and Jade Empire returned to craft a new original project called Mass Effect.
The rest is history. The detailed and elaborate sci-fi epic became a phenomenon, especially once the peerless second game in the series was released and won a bevy of year-end awards. It remains one of the highest-rated games of all time.
According to ratings aggregator Metacritic, Mass Effect 2’s original Xbox 360 release is the 34th-greatest game of all time, ahead of some incredible landmark releases such as Half-Life, Resident Evil 4, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Halo 2.
Now, as with any immensely popular gaming series, a remastered version of the entire trilogy is on the horizon with a release date set for spring 2021, according to reporting from Polygon.
With that in mind, it’s worth exploring a few things about the original trilogy that might need some extra attention from the developers during the remastering process. Read on to explore three things the remaster must fix from the original trilogy.
(Disclaimer: This writer actually adores the Mako-driving planetary explorations sections of the first Mass Effect game, so they will not be featured herein. Oh, also expect vague spoilers for this trilogy that first released 13 years ago.)
Combat in Mass Effect 1
While the final two games in the trilogy took much more of an Action/Adventure approach to combat, the first Mass Effect was, without doubt, a hardcore role-playing game in which character build and statistics had a huge impact on how combat action occurred for the player.
With that being said, the combat in the first game… was immensely flawed. Movement and aiming during combat can be only be described as slippery, and it was also unclear and disorienting where fire was coming from at times.
The game is ostensibly a cover-based shooter, but that element of the first Mass Effect game is not well fleshed-out, and it’s usually much easier to just run-and-gun, shooting from the hip with a heavily modded shotgun, assault rifle or pistol. There was no real heft to the guns or the shooting, which certainly has aged the game in the intervening 13 years since its release.
For the remasters, though probably a big ask, it would be best for consistency and gameplay throughout the series for the original to adapt the much more substantive, slick and impactful combat of the final two games, in which combat truly felt like a high stakes, death-defying affair on higher difficulties.
Interior Environments in Mass Effect 1
This might be the thing most likely to change in the remasters due to the fact that it is a mostly cosmetic change.
Because of the sheer scope of the first Mass Effect, many of the environments found in lesser settings – such as the myriad minor planets you can traverse – feature the exact same buildings with the exact same layouts with the exact same interiors; the only things that change are the enemies within as well as some of the “interior decorating” (aka the number of crates sitting around).
A meaningful change in the remaster would be to beef up some of those random planets’ interiors so that visiting these planets actually feels like exploring new places instead of side-quest drudgery.
(Disclaimer: This writer actually enjoyed the blank canvas that many of the tertiary planets provided, as the emptiness of the various biospheres was actually quite representative of uncharted worlds.)
The Ending of Mass Effect 3
This is also probably an unlikely request, but perhaps the single biggest complaint that Mass Effect fans – and anyone that played the game, seemingly – had was that the ending of the final game in the series, Mass Effect 3, had an extremely unsatisfying and frustrating ending.
The entire series builds up to the ultimate battle with the Reapers, and just when you think something spectacular is going to happen, the player is treated to three choices, none of which are particularly satisfying.
After pouring hundreds of hours into a story-based game series, players felt betrayed and the backlash to Mass Effect 3’s original ending caused the team to go back and actually rework it to offer players another option.
Seeing as that is the case, perhaps the remastering team will go back and add even more options to the ending to placate hardcore fans of the trilogy.
The Mass Effect remasters are sure to be big hits on the nostalgia circuit, and hopefully, they will also introduce the series to those that never played it the first time around.
Despite its flaws, the entire trilogy is a staggering feat of storytelling and game design, and the remaster is sure to underline that truth with all the trappings that modern gaming can provide. Embrace eternity!
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