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The voice actress for female Shepard, Jennifer Hale, once described the Mass Effect 3 Citadel DLC as a "love letter to fans," and when playing through it, that description hits the mark. Mass Effect 3 is a dark game, but the DLC is whimsical in its plot and has absolutely no shortage of humor. After the plot is solved, Shepard's companions from across the series come together and throw a big party.
Throughout the DLC, there are many interactions between the characters that otherwise are not explored in the base game. From Zaeed flirting with Samara to Shepard taking a parental role when Grunt gets in trouble, the DLC is full of in-depth moments that look into Shepard and their companions. It shows that there is more to them than just their role in the emotional plot of saving the universe from a deadly machine race from dark space.
How Cross-Interaction Benefits Characters
One of the great strengths of BioWare's Dragon Age series had that Mass Effect never got was party banter. The banter between companions within Dragon Age would play out when passing certain points and would be randomized depending on the characters present. There is a ton of content in these little moments, revealing a ton about the characters the player wouldn't otherwise know. In Dragon Age: Inquisition alone, there is more than five hours' worth of voice-acted lines of party banter. Mass Effect tried to do this in the elevators in the base game, but the attempt was lackluster.
However, Dragon Age-like banter took center stage in the Citadel DLC. Characters were very chatty, both in and out of combat. Best of all, their unique personalities reacted to each other. Those separated by different titles were finally all together, with characters from Mass Effect 2 like Jack and Miranda interacting with characters from the first game, like Kaiden or Ashley.
Even within their own games, the characters did not get to interact much with each other, and that changed in the Citadel DLC. Fans got to see Garrus and Zaeed talk tactics, biotics ban together to argue with James Vega, and various companions hoping to teach Joker how to shoot guns. Fans got to see what topics these characters could find common ground in and what topics made them split apart.
When Characters Are Not Stressed
To have a one-dimensional character is to show only one side of them, so multi-dimensional characters are those that are shown to behave differently depending on the situation. The plot of Mass Effect 3 is stressful to the max for Shepard and their companions, and that stress influences their behavior to be mostly anxious, angry, depressed, and/or somber. The Citadel DLC showed a different side of all the characters, a side that is blowing off steam and gets to have fun.
What characters do for fun shows a ton about them and each one has a personal scene with Shepard with what they consider to be fun. For many fans and Shepard, these hobbies were a surprise since they never got to see the companions this laid back. Tali shares her favorite movie, Liara plays piano, Kaiden cooks, and Zaeed gets addicted to a child's game in an arcade. Some hobbies are a little less surprising, such as drinking with Ashley or having a pull-up contest against James Vega, but doing them still shows a lot about how the characters feel comfortable enough to share these activities with Commander Shepard.
The Social Roles Of A Party
Within parties both in real life and in fiction, there are tropes and roles that appear. There are the heavy drinkers, the wall-flowers, the dancers, and those that stand by the snacks all night. Anyone who has gone to a party or seen one on television tends to know these roles, and have been in one or two. In the Citadel DLC, these roles were dealt out among the characters as well.
Fans got to see that Joker was a bit of a wallflower that is a little too self-aware to dance at first. They saw that Grunt can get so drunk that he does not remember most of the night. Kasumi does her own thing by exploring the apartment. Jack dances on top of a table like she's the life of the party as well. After the party, the group is split between those that are wasted with a hangover and those that managed to keep it together the next morning. The party section of the DLC almost played out like an alternate universe fanfic, one that sought to show how the characters would behave in a party setting.
Mass Effect 4 is in development.