After months of speculation regarding a possible Mass Effect remaster, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition has been confirmed to be in development at BioWare. The remaster is set to tackle the entire original trilogy and is currently scheduled for release some time in 2021.
However, there are some aspects of the original trilogy that likely won’t age too well in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. Here are the top five features of the original Mass Effect trilogy that might feel particularly outdated in the coming remaster.
The Renegade-Paragon System
Though Mass Effect: Andromeda made a lot of wrong turns, removing the Renegade-Paragon morality system was not one of them. The Renegade-Paragon system used for the first three Mass Effect games incentivized players to dedicate themselves purely to one path or the other. There were some squadmate conflicts in Mass Effect 2, for example, which could only be resolved if the player had chosen a very high percentage of either Paragon or Renegade dialog options. The result was that the vast majority of Mass Effect players picked Paragon options almost all of the time. The “right” choice in a given situation was always obvious, because even if the consequences were bad it still made more sense to only choose one morality path throughout the game.
As a result, the original Mass Effect trilogy didn't give players a genuine opportunity to weigh the morality of their decisions. Not only that, but choosing the Paragon option almost always did lead to the most positive outcome, meaning the player rarely had to think practically or make tough sacrifices to do the right thing. Although it may not be a problem for many players who pick up the remaster to experience the exact same story they experienced the first time around, the Renegade-Paragon system is undoubtedly one of the aspects of the original Mass Effect trilogy that aged the poorest from a roleplaying point of view.
Repetitive Romance Structure
Many of the romanceable characters in the original Mass Effect trilogy are among the best written video game companions in the RPG genre. However, while the characters involved are well-written, often the actual structures of the romances themselves are fairly repetitive.
Most Mass Effect romances – excluding true gems like Garrus Vakarian – follow a very similar structure. The player has to talk to the companion several times, be generally sympathetic, complete their loyalty mission, and then the pair will share a night together before the final mission. For most options, romance has surprisingly little effect on interactions in missions or throughout the rest of the game.
Lack of Gay Romance Options
In the original Mass Effect trilogy, there are no gay romance options for Shepard until Mass Effect 3. The only partial exception is the ability of Fem Shep to romance Liara in Mass Effect 1. However, as an asari Liara isn’t technically a female, something used to deflect controversy at the time of the original game’s release.
In retrospect, by avoiding including gay romance options until the third game and by framing Liara’s romance as a loophole, the first game in the series feels like it has an outdated view that draws a clear distinction between male and female homosexuality. Granted, the controversy the original game drew for including sex scenes or the Liara romance at all only hints at what sort of controversy it might have attracted by including explicitly gay romance options at the time. However, in 2020, the lack of gay romance options and the way the first game dodges defining the relationship with Liara as such may strike some fans as outdated in the Legendary Edition.
Punching a Reporter
Khalisah al-Jilani is a returning character in each of the first three Mass Effect games. A reporter, she’ll antagonize Shepard with loaded questions and will twist almost any answer the player gives. Shepard is given one consistent option for dealing with the journalist every time she appears: punching her in the face.
There’s no getting around it: Renegade Shepard is supposed to be a jerk. However, the image of a high-ranking military official punching a journalist in the face after judging them to be dishonest definitely risks leaving a different taste in the player's mouth than it might have a decade ago. Though Renegade Shepard can do far worse throughout the trilogy, the option to punch Khalisah al-Jilani might hit a little closer to home for many players of the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition.
No Planned Ending
One of the biggest things many fans are likely to notice when playing through a remaster of the original trilogy is that the writers had no set plan for how Shepard’s story would end when they began it. Drew Karpyshyn was the lead writer on both Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, and has spoken about some of the ending ideas the team threw around while writing the first two games.
These ranged from Shepard finding out they were an alien - deemed too similar to Knights of the Old Republic - to an abandoned plotline involving Dark Energy and its different relationship with synthetics and organics. The result of this lack of planning came to a head with the infamous ending of Mass Effect 3, but it also has an impact on the experience of playing through the original trilogy as a whole.
The role of Dark Energy in Mass Effect's universe in particular was hinted at several times throughout Mass Effect 2 before the plotline was dropped entirely, which could leave many players wondering what could have been when they play through the trilogy in the remaster.
However, though some aspects of the original Mass Effect trilogy may not age as well as others, none of them were enough to stop players falling in love with the games the first time around. Even the best remastered video games will often have some outdated features and viewpoints, and many players would consider it worse for BioWare to make significant changes to the story of the original trilogy. How Mass Effect: Legendary Edition will be received is, ultimately, up to the fans.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is set to release in 2021 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.