The Mass Effect Remastered Trilogyis looking more likely than ever. For fans who have been waiting since a BioWare employee hinted at a remaster on the NeoGaf forums as far back as 2014, the remaster has seemed like a distant hope, especially after the release ofMass Effect: Andromeda.
Between EA’s planned “HD Title” due before the end of the fiscal year, aMass Effectart book due for release at the start of 2021, and rumors that the remaster could be announced on June 24, 2025, AKA N7 Day, it looks like 2020 might finally be the year fans have been waiting for. Here are some predictions and hopes forThe Mass Effect Remastered Trilogywhen it finally releases.
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Prediction: Improved Combat
Mass Effect 1’s combat pales in comparison toMass Effect 2’s, whereBioWarereally figured out how to make the game feel like an action sci-fi, while maintaining its tight writing. TheMass Effect Remastered Trilogyshould bring the games’ combat up to the same standard across all three games.
ThoughMass Effect 2is a classicand considered the height of the series in terms of writing, BioWare should really look toMass Effect 3’s combat and some of the subtle improvements made to cooldown times and weapon control, as well as a faster pace for combat in the third game. It will be important that players who want to play as close to the original games as they remember be able to switch to the combat systems of the original games. It is likely, however, that BioWare will not be able to resist making combat in the first game more elegant in a remaster.
Wish: Improved Morality System
Mass Effect’s Renegade/Paragon morality system is a very simple way to break down decisions. The trouble is that, as a result of the way it does so, the vastmajority of players only pick the Paragon options inMass Effect. This was a big reason that the system was removed forAndromeda.
There are certain interactions like resolving squadmate conflicts later inMass Effect 2which can only be done if the player has only 100% committed to eitherParagon or Renegade, which removes a lot of roleplaying freedom in the game. It prevents players from making in-character decisions. When trying to find Archangel inMass Effect 2, for example, the choice to stun-gun a mercenary with his back turned in a Renegade option, even though a player who is roleplaying as a merciful Shepherd might be hoping to spare the man from the upcoming gunfight.
In any case, the remaster should make the Renegade/Paragon system optional or find some way to make choosing mixed decisions a more worthwhile path through theoriginalMass Effecttrilogy. This allows for some less black and white roleplaying decisions to be made, and could make a replay of the remaster an even more compelling story than the original games. Depending on the extent of the remaster, this isn’t the most likely thing to happen, but it would be a welcome change.
Prediction: More Freedom
Mass Effect 2’s missions were originally planned to be able to be done in almost any order, with players able to pick up all of the dossiers at once fromthe Illusive Manat the start of the game and compile their squad from there. This was not included in the final game and the dossier missions were divided into a few key acts because the game had to be split up onto two separate disks for the Xbox 360. As a result, some characters like Legion cannot be added to the squad until quite late in the game.
This makes some of the decisions the player has to make as Shepherd inMass Effect 2less impactful. Few players would choose Legion overTali’Zorain their argument on the Normandy, for example, simple because Tali had been a squadmate sinceMass Effect 1, while Legion had barely had enough time inMass Effect 2to explain their unique worldview to the player.
It seems likely, therefore, that the remaster could reintroduce some of the elements of freedom planned in the original games that the hardware of the time prohibited, especially things like the dossiers that were planned to be open-ended until very late in the development cycle. It is unclear where this would affect the other two games in particular, but there are very likely areas where they could also be made less linear by taking advantage of thecurrent hardware.
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Wish: More Companion Interactions
The real stars of theMass Effectseries are the squadmates the player meets along the way, as companions likeGarrus and Taliare among the most beloved in gaming. The BioWare team should add some extra interactions with them in the remaster that helps unobtrusively develop their characters within the story while allowing the player to spend more time with some of their favorite characters.
More dialog options with certain characters could be added at particular times if they are part of the squad, for example, or the games could take advantage of all of the original voice acting already being recorded to record more specific reactions to the events and choices that Shepherd can make across the series. This could make the players’ decisions andromances inMass Effectfeel even more impactful, making the game feel far more immersive.
BioWare’s ownCitadel add-on forMass Effect 3showed just how well moments with the squad can be inserted into the establishedMass Effecttimeline without undermining the events around them, including events in the classic original trilogy. Hopefully, BioWare will let fans spend even more time with the bestMass Effectsquadmates the second time around.
Prediction: No Fixed Ending
Unfortunately, it is very unlikely that aMass Effect remaster would make significant alterations to the infamousending ofMass Effect 3, which essentially boiled the trilogy down to the choice between 3 separate paths while not taking into account all of the decisions made by the player so far. Even the “fix” didn’t fix much post-launch.
The ending was released in 2012, and Citadel was partially released as DLC to help give fans the proper goodbye they felt they were denied by the retail release. However, it is unlikely BioWare would go as far as to make any big story alterations to the original game. Nonetheless, theMass Effect Remastered Trilogyis likely to be a huge hit for BioWare, and manyMass Effectfans will be eagerly looking forward toN7 Day 2020in the hopes that the remaster, and some of its specific details, will finally be unveiled.
TheMass Effect Trilogy Remasteris reportedly in development.
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