Mass Effect Legendary Edition remaster trilogy

[Flying Dutchman]

I was literally joking

Truth x2.

 

[Bara]

Can't you just buy the old games cheap?

Not if they go beamdog on us and de-list the originals and the only way to get them legally is to buy the new verions to get access to the digital extras to download the originals.

 

[Aarwolf]

Any chance the old games won’t get removed when this thing drops?

None.

 

[alyvain]

Do we know whether they will rearrange something in the game or just use better textures and stuff?

 

[vortex]

Do we know whether they will rearrange something in the game or just use better textures and stuff?

I think they said only better textures and support from new widescreen resolutions. But it's unknown until we see it.

 

[Flying Dutchman]

I wonder if EA, releasing their Star Wars cash "cow" was vanishing to other, actual developers suddenly put the screws on Bioware to make money fast vs. burning it by making new games or fixing Anthem.

 

[samuraigaiden]

I don't have high hopes for Bioware going forward. The EA CEO is Andrew Wilson, former FIFA Executive Producer and EA Sports Executive Vice-President who has declared publicly that he believes all EA games should have a similar feature set to FIFA (online multiplayer, pay to win microtransactions, etc.). Under this light, you suddenly understand how Bioware went from making Mass Effect to making Anthem.

It's impossible to make a good traditional RPG under this kind of leadership and in this environment.

 

[Flying Dutchman]

I don't have high hopes for Bioware going forward. The EA CEO is Andrew Wilson, former FIFA Executive Producer and EA Sports Executive Vice-President who has declared publicly that he believes all EA games should have a similar feature set to FIFA (online multiplayer, pay to win microtransactions, etc.). Under this light, you suddenly understand how Bioware went from making Mass Effect to making Anthem.

It's impossible to make a good traditional RPG under this kind of leadership and in this environment.

While this contributes. I refuse to let internal Bioware development off the hook.

I agree part of the problem is EA (because they probably have deadlines, which Bioware seems allergic to), but the other part is definitely Bioware - for me, it was symptomatic in DA2, then MEA, and Anthem was just a nail in the coffin.

 

[Devastator]

I only played Mass Effect 1 and 2 when they were launched. I basically don't even remember them at all, other than something about reapers. However, I do have some lingering PTSD about a dialogue wheel and some mechanic that involves scanning planets or something. Maybe I should just stay away?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

if this is true then why isn't it out yet?

 

[TheDiceMustRoll]

Why do people pretend that Bioware isn't also greedy? You guys realize they wanted to make both anthem and TOR, right? They aren't misunderstood hyper-artists, they're as greedy if not more than their bosses. If Bioware was like "we just kind of want to release 1 AAA rpg every three years" EA would probably be fine with it. Studio heads likely get incentives for pushing this shit.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Why do people pretend that Bioware isn't also greedy? You guys realize they wanted to make both anthem and TOR, right? They aren't misunderstood hyper-artists, they're as greedy if not more than their bosses. If Bioware was like "we just kind of want to release 1 AAA rpg every three years" EA would probably be fine with it. Studio heads likely get incentives for pushing this shit.

TOR agent storyline is better written than 99% of cRPGs on the market.

 

[Flying Dutchman]

Why do people pretend that Bioware isn't also greedy? You guys realize they wanted to make both anthem and TOR, right? They aren't misunderstood hyper-artists, they're as greedy if not more than their bosses. If Bioware was like "we just kind of want to release 1 AAA rpg every three years" EA would probably be fine with it. Studio heads likely get incentives for pushing this shit.

"Sure we agree to it. 1 AAA RPG every 3 years is fine."

:: Looks at Activision model for Call of Duty, looks at numbers ::

"...er, except do it once every 2 years, and here's your sister studio, Underbelly Entertainment, that'll develop Mass Effect: Cassiopeia while you do the 'real' thread of the series. You won't become irrelevant, I promise on your mother's grave."

 

[IThinkTheWorldShouldBurn.]

Is this considered incline?

I don't like the series after the first one, I have no wish to revisit the game though.

 

[TheDiceMustRoll]

Why do people pretend that Bioware isn't also greedy? You guys realize they wanted to make both anthem and TOR, right? They aren't misunderstood hyper-artists, they're as greedy if not more than their bosses. If Bioware was like "we just kind of want to release 1 AAA rpg every three years" EA would probably be fine with it. Studio heads likely get incentives for pushing this shit.

"Sure we agree to it. 1 AAA RPG every 3 years is fine."

:: Looks at Activision model for Call of Duty, looks at numbers ::

"...er, except do it once every 2 years, and here's your sister studio, Underbelly Entertainment, that'll develop Mass Effect: Cassiopeia while you do the 'real' thread of the series. You won't become irrelevant, I promise on your mother's grave."

"Sure we agree to it. 1 AAA RPG every 3 years is fine.. Although if you compromise everything and whip out a "Dragon Age II" in 9 months, you'll get another 10k shares added to each of your studio accounts. Same if you can pound out mass effect by the first quarter."
"Well that sounds great. We'll make sure to put out TOR in late 2012 too, okay?"
"excellent, we'll give you a fat bonus, and even more shares. Can your employees handle it?"
"Do they have a choice?"
"Fair enough, but what about your "artistic integrity"?"
"I dunno, it's worth about as much as beverly hills mansion."

*both parties laugh and laugh and laugh*

Ya'll assume that EA is booting to the neck of these studios and not just offering a few hundred k in stock options for successful delivery of products on time. Bioware has flat out admitted they wanted to pump out DAII as fast as possible, same with grunting out mass effect 3 in a year. Same with the frostbite engine being picked for all future games.

"It's EA! It's EA! It's EA!" Jesus christ guys

 

[Chippy]

Can't you just buy the old games cheap?

I never bought ME3 because of the ending and mostly because it was on Origin. Then you had the DLC shit - I think to get the "best" ending, you had to accumulate a certain number of points, across all the DLC, and even a mobile game if I remember corectly.

Almost like communist China got their points-based system for their citizenry from Bioware/Ea from back in the day. I suppose this remake is still on Origin? You have to give EA credit for going full retard if it is; they just refused to release the third one on Steam, or the originals on GOG after all these years.

-Well, I just checked and they released the third one on Steam this July. Still requires Origin. Wow.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

3 is better than 2. Citadel DLC is easily the best part of the entire series due to them recognizing how bad they fucked up the ending. Few video game series ever get a sendoff anything like Citadel.
And it's not like 2 has a good ending either. Giant mecha shepard out of fucking nowhere. 2 has very good DLCs though. Shadow Broker is top-tier

 

[alyvain]

I never bought ME3 because of the ending and mostly because it was on Origin. Then you had the DLC shit - I think to get the "best" ending, you had to accumulate a certain number of points, across all the DLC, and even a mobile game if I remember corectly.

It was the other way round. The first DLC, which also customized the endings, drastically lowered the amount of points needed to get the "best" one, and it was free. If I remember correctly, in the base game it wasn't possible to get this ending without imported saves from the previous games, or maybe it was only possible if you opt to maximize the progress points, but the latter may be bullshit. I think there also was a weird multiplier if you participate in co-op, which could double your points.

BTW, the "best" ending that we talk about consists of one additional shot, which implies that Shepard lives. Apart from that, all three endings were obtainable in the base game without DLCs, although one of them (the green one, I think?) was somewhat difficult to get.

 

[Togukawa]

True, moving the mouse over the "I want the green ending" option could be described as "somewhat difficult".

 

[Terra]

Problem with ME3's dlcs was that they fucked up the ending of 3 so badly I never touched/purchased any of the post launch DLC and I doubt I'm alone in that. Citadel could be the best "send off" DLC ever and I wouldn't (and didn't) give a shit because they fucked up the ending to such an extent, why would I want to funnel more money their way after they pissed away 3 games worth of my time in the last few minutes? Even with the enhanced ending freebie dlc or whatever it was, I still wasn't interested.

Much like with DA2, if your base game is shit, I'm done with it, all Bioware accomplished was instilling in me a policy of disinterest in the Mass Effect series, starting from ME3 and continuing unerringly to this day. And for reference, this was playing on a JTAG'd 360, where I could acquire and install any & all dlcs for free, and I still wasn't interested. Course, if you came to ME3 now as a latecomer you could maybe get a more 'complete' experience, I dunno, maybe it'd feel like less of a letdown than it did back then.

 

[alyvain]

True, moving the mouse over the "I want the green ending" option could be described as "somewhat difficult".

I meant the amount of points needed to use a green filter for the final cinematic.

Problem with ME3's dlcs was that they fucked up the ending of 3 so badly I never touched/purchased any of the post launch DLC and I doubt I'm alone in that

Was it really that much worse than the game itself? Just some fake 'deepness', which urged some people to propose ALTERNATIVE THEORIES, and a very poorly-executed "yes, this is a happy ending for the galaxy but not for you", but it never irritated me that much. It was a low-point of the game, I guess, but it's not like you couldn't see something like it coming.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

Previews: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...re-talks-trilogy-tweaks-and-franchise-revival

Mass Effect returns: BioWare talks trilogy tweaks and franchise revival
Legendary Edition due May, extensive ME1 work revealed.

Mass Effect's back. The Legendary Edition of BioWare's beloved trilogy launches on 14th May and Shepard's aging space adventures have never looked better. We have plenty of detail on all the upgrades this remaster brings to Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3 below.

But, of course, there's more to this impending revival than all that. Sitting down with BioWare to discuss the changes and look to the future, the fact Mass Effect is back on the schedule at all seems like something worth celebrating, considering where the franchise seemed to have been left a few years ago. For fans, there's been an anxious wait for news on whether Mass Effect would continue, until the twin announcements late last year - of the remastered trilogy and a brand new (still very far-off) continuation of the series - let fans once again breathe easy. We talk to BioWare about all that below as well.
First, some specifics. The Mass Effect trilogy's Legendary Edition includes 4K support and HDR compatibility, plus 60 FPS on PC and consoles from PS4 Pro/Xbox One Series X forwards. On PC, it adds support for controllers and 21:9 widescreen displays. As expected, all three games and all single-player DLCs are included. There's no multiplayer mode, no additional story elements, and no version (yet) for Nintendo Switch.

Mass Effect 1, by far the most dated-looking of the trilogy, has undergone a particularly extensive rework, with dramatic improvements to some of its environments. The results on planets such as Eden Prime, Ilos and Feros look on first impression far closer to a full remake. ME1 has also seen other tweaks, including fan-requested improvements to the Mako vehicle's often wildly-erratic driving experience, various combat changes and much faster Citadel lifts (thank goodness).

Differences across the whole trilogy include remastered character models, an expanded universal character creator and the option to use ME3's default female Shepard model throughout. There are noticeable improvements to Shepard's range of available skin tones, hairstyles and makeup options, for a more diverse range of possibilities. Overall, BioWare says there are "tens of thousands" of updated textures, shaders, visual effects and lighting changes, plus a new bokeh-style depth of field.

Work on the Legendary Edition began in early 2019, when a small team within BioWare finally got the green light. There had been tentative talks within the studio for half a decade to get a trilogy remaster off the ground - some of which got further than others - but it was the return of studio boss Casey Hudson, a Mass Effect veteran, who finally pushed the project into being.

"Are we going to do it?', 'how about now?'"

"I was probably in half a dozen meetings over probably almost as many years asking 'are we going to do it?', 'how about now?'," recalls Mac Walters, Mass Effect's long-time writer, producer and now project director of the Legendary Edition. "If anything, I would say having Casey Hudson back in the studio at the time, he was obviously very passionate about the trilogy for obvious reasons and he was very supportive of it. I think that really helped get it over that initial inertia, [where you just] need to kind of get something moving and then you're doing it. And it just seemed to click this time and away we went."

Where to start with such an enormous project? BioWare quickly decided against creating new content or adding anything back in previously left on the cutting room floor in order to preserve the experience people remember. The studio also discussed with Epic Games the possibility of moving the entire trilogy onto Unreal Engine 4, though discarded that idea after realising many of the game's systems would no longer be compatible. Walters compared the project's early months of work to starting restoration on a classic car - then discovering "that car was buried in cement, and every time you tried to dig it out you were worried about dinging the paint or ripping off a mirror".

Spoiler

By the spring of 2020, work on the Legendary Edition was at a "baseline" state where everything worked and BioWare's first round of improvements were in. Mass Effect's famous cast of characters had been a particular focus, with improvements to models, eye shaders and lighting, alongside new visual techniques such as tone-mapping, ambient occlusion and subsurface scattering. The team had spent time discussing the need to keep improvements to character designs consistent across the trilogy, though also reflect the changes each character goes through. A look at an updated model for ME1's Liara, for example, shows her doe-eyedness tuned down a notch, a change which better reflects the direction of her character arc and model across the three games.

The Legendary Edition was also now content complete, with a new single launcher to wrap all three games in one, plus all respective DLCs and other items unlocked. It's worth taking a moment to note the list of included additions here is nothing less than the full single-player package, from simple mission packs to full-blown expansions like Lair of the Shadow Broker, from individual promotional weapons to squadmate costume packs and collector's edition bonuses. If it's relevant at all to the trilogy's single-player, it's included. Even the catch-up Genesis comics are there.

Gameplay changes to ME2 and ME3 sound relatively minimal, though there's a whole list of differences to remove "friction" from ME1. Aim assist adds adhesion to keep you locked onto enemies, while a "zoom snap" will flick your focus onto a target when aiming. Each ME1 gun has been balanced and given an individual feel similar to those found in later games. The Mako has been given a speed boost and updated physics, while the game's hidden loading screens in lifts have been drastically cut down in length. Comparison footage of a ride up to the Citadel's Presidium level lasts just 14 seconds in the Legendary Edition, down from 52 seconds in the original.

But even with the baseline changes across the trilogy, it seems clear Mass Effect 1 still lagged behind the visuals of the other two games. Did its levels need a full remake instead, in order to live up to the rest of the trilogy, or was there a middle ground to be found? "We didn't want to throw them out and start new," environment and character director Kevin Meek explained, recalling how for him, the layout of the original areas was an integral part of the experience when first playing the game, before he joined BioWare more recently to work on Anthem. So the team called in Derek Watts, art director on the original Mass Effect, to paint over images of ME1 as they stood with new details and effects, then went about creating those. Eden Prime, for example, now has new lighting to show off its fuller skybox and upressed textures, along with extra effects like smoke, ground fog, burning ashes and scattered debris.

A list of other ME1 improvements mentions enemy and squad AI changes, the removal of class-based weapon restrictions (though only some allow for training to higher levels), an XP rebalance so you can hit the game's cap without New Game Plus, more consistent autosave points, boss encounter improvements, reduced cooldown for first aid, a reduction in mini-games, and a modernised HUD.

"Opening up editors and looking at the content the way it was, I realised just how impressive - certainly when you look at Mass Effect 1 - what we were able to achieve there [was]," Walters recalls, when I ask him what it's like to be back working on the franchise again after a bumpy few years. "I remembered how innovative and kind of scrappy we were... This feels it's kind of got that indie vibe to it, that we're sort of scrappy, and we're gonna make this work. Everyone's wearing different hats, and we're solving problems all the time, it reminds me of the development back then.

"This feels it's kind of got that indie vibe to it, that we're sort of scrappy, and we're gonna make this work."

"When I was on Jade Empire and Mass Effect 1, we often [did that]. I was a writer but I was working with the music team, the cinematic team. We often sort of dipped our toes in multiple things. I love that and getting into problem solving. And that's what this felt like again. I was excited about doing it. I wasn't necessarily excited about being brought face to face with content that I had made back in the day, because all you see are the flaws, but overall, it's actually been way more positive than any negative."

On Switch, Walters doesn't rule out Legendary Edition for Nintendo's console down the road (perhaps when it has more powerful hardware to help show off the trilogy's new visuals?) but said the remaster project had got off the ground on PC and existing consoles, and it was BioWare's mission to get these working first. "Personally, I'd love it," he said. "But ultimately, I think we had a path set and it was like, let's finish that, then let's see sort of where we're at."

The next new Mass Effect game is still a long way off - further away than Dragon Age 4, which itself isn't coming before 2022 - but with the trilogy's Legendary Edition on the horizon and the franchise's future seemingly assured once again, I wanted to know how it felt to have the series back on a solid footing after years in the wilderness. Did Walters ever think Mass Effect might have just run its course?

"You get to come back and obviously have some fresher eyes, and you're not burnt out from whatever the last project might have been."

"I try and go to a lot of the conventions when I can," he says in response, "and if there's one thing I know it's this: there's a passion for this franchise to continue both within the studio and with our fans. I never had any doubt that the franchise would continue to live on in some form or fashion. I'm pretty excited."

"The momentum of the IP is not something that's just going to stop," Meek adds, "BioWare has these large IPs, fairly well-known brands. But sometimes I think people think we're bigger than we maybe are. And if we have a handful of projects on the go, and we need the team to jump on to one project, maybe one of the IPs sits idle for a year or two. But as developers, that time just flies by because you're busy working on something and then you've had that little bit of a break away from it, you get to come back and obviously have some fresher eyes, and you're not burnt out from whatever the last project might have been. Those are the types of things I think people should be you kind of expecting every once in a while, right? And it's not the end of the world."

So, what about the future of the Mass Effect, I ask? Will there be hints to it in the Legendary Edition, even just the odd note left lying around pointing to a future plotline? No, is the short answer. "I think it's easier for the future of the franchise to look back and take from that," Walters concludes, "than for us to try to set a course for something that needs time to ideate, and flourish on its own."

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Where to start with such an enormous project? BioWare quickly decided against creating new content or adding anything back in previously left on the cutting room floor in order to preserve the experience people remember.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/mass-effect-legendary-edition-all-the-new-details-and-everything-we-know/

Mass Effect Legendary Edition: release date, all the new details, and everything we know
Bioware's certainly offering a lot of Mass for the money.

(Image credit: EA / Bioware.)

Bioware has revealed more on the imminent Mass Effect Legendary Edition, which was announced in November for a 2021 release on PC. Several of the project's leads recently gave a livestreamed presentation showing the game, discussing new features, visual improvements, and the reasons behind certain decisions about the remaster.

What's the Mass Effect Legendary Edition release date?
Mass Effect Legendary Edition will launch on May 14, 2021 on both Origin and Steam.

What's in the Legendary Edition?
Mass Effect Legendary Edition will include the original trilogy remastered plus "over 40 DLC including all story content, promo weapons, armors and packs available from the start." The game has a unified front-end, which is to say a menu screen where you choose between the three games, and of course your progress and decisions carry over into the sequels as they always did.

The three games are visually remastered for 4K, HDR, and DX11, with "tens of thousands" of up-ressed textures, enhanced models, lighting, shaders and VFX. It will support high refresh rate and ultra-wide (21:9) displays on PC. There are also improvements to depth-of-field, anti-aliasing, and an "unleashed"—which one presumes means unlocked—framerate on PC.

There's a universal character creator across the trilogy with "a lot" more customisation options, and unified settings options across the three titles on PC (for some reason, each entry in the original trilogy had different settings).

Probably the greatest relief in Bioware's demo was when a lift ride was shown on the PC version. This was in the Citadel, and ME: LE took 14 seconds to load the area where the original game took 52 seconds.

Is it a remake, or a remaster?
Erm... it's complicated. The original Mass Effect game has received a more substantial touching-up than Mass Effect 2 and 3, primarily around the combat system and UI. This makes sense, as the first game was more of an RPG and the sequels greatly improved the combat: so Mass Effect 1 is receiving something of a rework.

The game's UI and various interfaces have been overhauled, and combat and exploration brought in-line with the sequels' improvements: better aiming, squad controls, team AI, and camera positioning. On the last point, for example, you'd commonly take cover in that game and get a brief view of the interior of Shepard's skull: no more. Finally, and perhaps most-wanted of all, the handling of the Tonka-like Mako surface vehicle has been overhauled. I always hated the way this thing drove, so good news.

That aside, there will be no big changes to the adventure itself. At one point there were discussions about pursuing a more ambitious route, technologically speaking, but that would have put Bioware in a position where, essentially, the games were being rebuilt from scratch.

"One of the first questions is, if we're remastering this, what does that look like, and what does it mean to us," says Mac Walters, Mass Effect Legendary Edition's project director and a longtime Bioware developer. "It quickly became this archaelogical discovery, pulling things out [...] one of the jokes I'd make, we'd talk about restoring a beautiful beloved car, but then it quickly turned into sure, if that car was buried in cement, and every time you tried to clear off some of the cement you were worried about dinging the paint or ripping off a mirror..."

"Quite early we spoke to people and Epic and asked what would this look like if we took it into Unreal Engine 4, and it quickly became clear that that jump would really change fundamentally what the trilogy was, and how it felt, how it played. An example would be the Unreal Engine 3 scripting language Kismet, there's no copy-paste equivalent to that, so every moment, every scene would essentially have to be redone from scratch and we'd take away the essence of what the trilogy was. So what this was about was fidelity, taking off some of the edges people would expect."

As for changes to the narrative and character interactions, Walters says "we considered things like story and character but that's so much a part of your experience and memory of this that we took that off the table pretty quick."

Spoiler

What about Mass Effect 3's multiplayer mode?
Nope. "We looked at what it would take to do that," says Mac Walters, project director. "What do we do with cross-play, what do we do with people playing multiplayer now, how do we honor that, bring them in, bridge that gap, and of course these aren't insurmountable challenges [...] but when you looked at the amount of effort that it was gonna take to do that, it was easily commensurate if not greater than for example uplifting all of ME1."

"And I think our focus really was on the singleplayer experience and at some point we had to just draw the line... there was a lot of, I love ME3 multiplayer, like I say people are still playing it today, but ultimately I think the product, the overall ME: LE is a better representation of the original trilogy because we're able to focus on those singleplayer elements."

What about cut content?
"No there isn't any [additional content]," says Walters. "Though at the same time when you look at all the work done [...] I feel that entire first game feels fresh and new."

"We had looked at whether there was stuff on the cutting room floor we could bring in, and a lot of times that isn't really in a state where you can just, y'know, resurrect it and use it. You're rebuilding it from scratch, and at that point you're diverting actual effort from the remastering of everything else... so decisions have to be made along those lines."

On that note, the ending of the trilogy will remain that of Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut, something of a controversial topic at the time: fan reaction to the 'original' ending was so vociferous that Bioware was seen by some as having capitulated to the mob by changing things.

"The Extended Cut will be the experience for everyone playing ME: LE," says Walters. "To me the Extended Cut was really that opportunity to add a little more love, a little more context around the ending, so to me that's canon."

How much better-looking are we talking?
The development of Mass Effect Legendary Edition's look began with AI upscaling before the art team then began to look at the assets and add the human touch. "We knew we wanted to increase the resolution on all the textures across the trilogy," says Kevin Meek, environment and character director, "so like all the VFX, UI, environment art, character art, every single texture, we hit right away with two main changes: first we increased the caps that engine places on the texture sizes, second we ran all of the original uncompressed source art through an AI up-res program, along with some custom batch tools [...] resolutions increased at least to four times if not 16 times, potentially, if they had been previously authored at a higher resolution."

After this the team began targeting improvements manually, using the blindingly simple tactic of making artists play through the levels normally (as opposed to using an editor), and made the call as to what was important to focus on in any given area.

Meek showed what he called a 'baseline' video that had previously been used as an internal presentation, demonstrating realtime reflections, much-improved surfaces on things like eyes, the enormous improvements to NPC textures, and so on. Unfortunately these 4K textures were being demonstrated on a 1080p stream but, that caveat aside, the differences between the older Garrus model, for example, and the shiny new one leap out: the lines on his face are deeper, the damage to his armour craters more into the material, his holo-eye's reflections are more 'realistic.'

The game being on UE3 precludes tech like ray-tracing, but what was that about realtime reflections? "Sticking with Unreal 3 there's a whole different branch of opportunity because it's such an old engine," says Meek. "It's called forward rendering rather than deferred rendering, it opens up this opportunity for us where we can actually just render the scene twice, and what we've done is if in ME1, 2 or 3 if there's a really reflective surface and the performance supports it we can actually add a second camera to the world, and render a texture reflection on surfaces, so you will see realtime dynamic reflections [...] it does everything we need it to do quality-wise without us having to deep-down fundamentally change rendering threads and stuff like that."

Meek went on to discuss getting deep into rock textures, which I'll spare you. One last tidbit is that, once the team had made basic improvements, the art director of the original trilogy, Derek Watts, was roped-in to help reach the LE's final look.

Character customisation
Kevin Meek spoke briefly about one of the trilogy's missteps, the late introduction of a default or what Bioware calls the 'iconic' look for female Shepard in Mass Effect 3 (players who had created their own FemShep in the first two games were given the option to continue with that, or change to the new look). The LE introduces this default FemShep from the start of the trilogy, should players wish to use that model, alongside a raft of improvements to the character model's details.

In addition, the character customisation options have been expanded with more hair, makeup and skin tone options, and persist across all three titles. Perhaps most useful is that it retains the character code functionality of the original trilogy, so players can look up pre-built characters easily.

Bioware calls it a 'passion project'
Ever since the double-whammy of Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, some have lost faith in Bioware. People openly say that the studio isn't what it once was, with too many key players having long-since moved on.

That kind of context seemed to underlie some of this presentation, with the various Bioware developers ensuring their bona-fides were clear. "I've been at Bioware since we were shipping KOTOR back in the day," began Mac Walters. "I didn't do much on there but I did go on to work on Jade Empire, but then in 2005 moved onto Mass Effect and honestly, except for a short stint at the beginning of Anthem and the end of Anthem, I have been all Mass Effect all the time since 2005."

"Fans have been asking for a remaster for some time. This is as exciting for someone like me as it is for our fans, when we develop a game there's always this moment of letting go," continues Walters. "The unique thing about the franchise was we could take all that developer angst and put it in the next game, then the next game [and] the opportunity now to go back with all of those lessons learned, and all the advancements and stuff we saw in the trilogy... first of all it's a dream, but ultimately it's just been a huge passion project as well. You don't get the chance to revisit a lot of these things."

https://www.pcgamer.com/in-mass-eff...s-a-partial-remake-the-sequels-are-remasters/

In Mass Effect: Legendary Edition the first game is a partial remake, the sequels are remasters
And the Mako handling's been overhauled.

(Image credit: EA / Bioware)

In a developer stream detailing the upcoming Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, BioWare went into some detail on the few changes that have been made to gameplay, and why. They all involve the first game in the series, which makes sense as the first Mass Effect was mostly an RPG, the action wasn't so slick, and the sequels focused on greatly improving the feel of combat.

So the first Mass Effect game in its Legendary Edition form has received substantial changes to the combat system and UI, with various interfaces overhauled, and things brought in-line with the sequels' improvements: better aiming, squad controls, team AI, and camera positioning. On the last point, for example, you'd commonly take cover in that game and get a brief view of the interior of Shepard's skull: no more. Finally, and perhaps most-wanted of all, the handling of the Tonka-like Mako surface vehicle has been overhauled. I always hated the way this thing drove, so good news.

These kinds of gameplay changes weren't necessary for the sequels, so they're more straightforward remasters, and there will be no big changes to how the adventure itself plays out. At one point there were discussions about pursuing a more ambitious route, technologically speaking, but that would have put BioWare in a position where, essentially, the games were being rebuilt from scratch.

"One of the first questions is if we're remastering this, what does that look like, and what does it mean to us," says Mac Walters, Mass Effect Legendary Edition's project director and a longtime BioWare developer. "It quickly became this archaelogical discovery, pulling things out [...] one of the jokes I'd make, we'd talk about restoring a beautiful beloved car, but then it quickly turned into sure, if that car was buried in cement, and every time you tried to clear off some of the cement you were worried about dinging the paint or ripping off a mirror..."

"Quite early we spoke to people and Epic and asked what would this look like if we took it into Unreal Engine 4, and it quickly became clear that that jump would really change fundamentally what the trilogy was, and how it felt, how it played. An example would be the Unreal Engine 3 scripting language Kismet, there's no copy-paste equivalent to that, so every moment, every scene would essentially have to be redone from scratch and we'd take away the essence of what the trilogy was. So what this was about was fidelity, taking off some of the edges people would expect."

As for changes to the narrative and character interactions, Walters says "we considered things like story and character but that's so much a part of your experience and memory of this that we took that off the table pretty quick."

https://www.pcgamer.com/mass-effect-legendary-edition-cuts-mass-effect-3-multiplayer-entirely/

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition cuts Mass Effect 3 multiplayer entirely
No co-op action in this galaxy.

(Image credit: EA)

BioWare has revealed more details on Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, and one of them is sure to disappoint series fans: Mass Effect 3's excellent multiplayer mode is no longer part of the experience. This is a particular bummer as ME3's multiplayer was woven into the campaign itself.

Well, straight from the horse's mouth, it's not in the Legendary Edition. "We looked at what it would take to do that," says Mac Walters, the game's project director. "What do we do with cross-play, what do we do with people playing multiplayer now, how do we honor that, bring them in, bridge that gap, and of course these aren't insurmountable challenges [...] but when you looked at the amount of effort that it was gonna take to do that, it was easily commensurate if not greater than for example uplifting all of Mass Effect 1."

In an age when many story-driven singleplayer games had bolted-on multiplayer (the lead designer of Spec Ops: The Line later said the game's multiplayer was "another game rammed onto the disk like a cancerous growth"), Mass Effect 3's multiplayer was a surprisingly good transplantation of its space-magic-hurling character classes into a wave-based mode against different enemy compositions. A progression system had you grinding for rarer tiers of loot boxes, which contained more powerful character and weapon variants. It was something you could easily put 20 hours into with friends.

"I think our focus really was on the singleplayer experience and at some point we had to just draw the line," added Walters. "I love ME3 multiplayer, like I say people are still playing it today, but ultimately I think the product, the overall ME: LE is a better representation of the original trilogy because we're able to focus on those singleplayer elements."

Walters is probably right that for the majority of the audience, this is mostly a singleplayer experience. But it does seem slightly disappointing that, in a world where Mass Effect 3 multiplayer is still alive and kicking, this remaster of Mass Effect 3 isn't including one of its best features.