When the Mass Effect Legendary Edition launched earlier this year, it provided fans an opportunity to revisit the hugely popular sci-fi RPG trilogy again for the first time in years. It packaged all three initial Mass Effect games together with each game's DLC and extra content. However, there was one surprising omission. The Pinnacle Station DLC for the original Mass Effect wasn't included, with BioWare saying the source had been corrupted. Where BioWare faltered, fans have come together, however. The Pinnacle Station is now available as a mode for the Mass Effect Legendary Edition.
The mod is named the Pinnacle Station DLC and is available to download on PC now. Developed by ME3Tweaks, the Pinnacle Station DLC mod delivers not just the content of the DLC originally released for Mass Effect, but an updated version bringing it in parallel to the visuals of Mass Effect Legendary Edition. It includes all of the content found in the original Mass Effect DLC.
While the Pinnacle Station DLC mod does bring over all of the original content from Mass Effect, it also makes several key changes improving on the DLC. For example, all of the levels within the Pinnacle Station DLC now how an additional music track raising the intensity of the experience as the level progresses. Several fixes have also been made, including issues with collision, texture pop-in, bugged enemy spawn locations, and other problems that BioWare was never able to solve in 2009.
Pinnacle Station, for those unfamiliar, was Mass Effect's second of two DLC packs. It launched two years after the original game and delivered a range of challenging content for Mass Effect adepts to take on. It added eight virtual reality combat scenarios, including Capture the Flag and Deathmatch modes. It lacked story content, which likely made it easier for BioWare to drop from the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, but was valuable to Mass Effect players at the time.
BioWare was unable to include the Pinnacle Station DLC in the Mass Effect Legendary Edition for two reasons. First, the original source code had been corrupted. Second, BioWare would have to completely redo the DLC from the ground up, an endeavor of six months that the studio didn't have time for. Pinnacle Station was just one of over 40 Mass Effect DLCs in the bundle, after all.
Where BioWare didn't have the time, the Mass Effect modding community has delivered. BioWare said it would take six months for the studio to remake Pinnacle Station; it took modders just over seven. While it's unfortunate that Mass Effect Legendary Edition users on other platforms can't access the mod, perhaps BioWare can work out an arrangement just for the sake of preserving Mass Effect's legacy.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Source: NexusMods