Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is a love letter to fans of the series. From the most diehard to casual fans, the remaster aims to recapture the feelings of adventure players felt back in the PS3/Xbox 360 era. As a testament to that, BioWare has included the use of face codes to allow players to recreate the version of Shephard they had when playing the original games.
Face codes are simple, sharable codes that instantly write a face in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. If a player wanted to completely remake their Shephard from their original playthroughs, they can. The codes can also be shared among fans so that if someone made a face that others wanted to use in their game, they could have it instantly. Recreating old faces is relatively simple, but it requires dusting off and hooking up old consoles.
How to Use Face Codes
Finding old face codes from the original Mass Effect trilogy is, unfortunately, not possible if a player can't track down their old save files. If they can, however, they'll need to make sure their character exists in either Mass Effect 2 or Mass Effect 3. If a character wasn't used in either of the sequels, they'll need to be transitioned over as the original Mass Effect didn't use the codes and cannot generate them. After booting up either Mass Effect 2 or 3, the face code can be found in the "squad" menu on the left-hand side towards the top of the screen. It isn't called a face code in the originals, it's called the "identity code." The code is a long one, so make sure it's written down before moving on to Mass Effect: Legendary Edition.
After obtaining the 36 character code, startup Mass Effect: Legendary Edition and choose whichever game is the desired starting point. When starting the game, choose "Enter New ID," and select whichever gender was used in the original file. After entering a name and choosing a backstory and character class, select "change appearance." There should be a section at the bottom of the character creator menu that says "code." Enter in the 36 characters from the original Mass Effect 2 or 3 squad menu and the face should be reconstructed.
It's worth noting that not every face will come out exactly as it was before as the new character models in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition look slightly different. Additionally, the only thing recreated with the face code is the face itself. This means that no class abilities, choices, items or other stats will be brought over.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.