Earlier this week, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition had its highly anticipated proper reveal. Coming out on May 14, 2021, the collection of remasters for the Mass Effect trilogy (which means Mass Effect: Andromeda is not included) has a slew of upgrades. It’s going to be wonderful for many longtime fans to re-experience one of the most important series in gaming, and for new fans to see why it’s such a beloved franchise.
Mac Walters, the Project Director of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, has taken to Twitter to gradually reveal some additional features that you won’t find in press releases. Here are the details you might’ve missed and that Walters has announced in his responses to fans:
- There will be controller support on the PC version. This does not currently exist for the original Mass Effect games you can buy on Steam and EA Origin.
- Many legacy bugs, such as the music bug in a Mass Effect 2 scene of Samara and Morinth, have been fixed.
- The iconic Mass Effect 3 version of Female Shepard has been added to Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 in the remasters — we already knew that. But what we didn’t know is that the “plain Jane Shepard” from Mass Effect has been added as an option, as well. So you’ll be able to use her for Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 in the Legendary Edition if you wish. Pictures of the original preset will be coming soon.
- Legendary Edition will have HDR (High-Dynamic Range) support on PC and console. High-dynamic range TVs offer brighter highlights and a wider range of color detail for better images overall.
- The elevator conversations are still in Mass Effect, but there is an optional skip button now. You should chill with your squad in the elevator to listen to their conversations and other news updates, though.
- Mass Effect: Legendary Edition will be a totally new and separate installation on PC, so it won’t affect your other Mass Effect games — so you don’t need to worry, especially if they’re modded.
- The team really wanted to add the Mass Effect: Pinnacle Station DLC, but it’s been forever lost, so it was not doable.
- The Mass Effect: Genesis DLC, a downloadable interactive backstory comic produced by Dark Horse Comics for the PlayStation 3 release of Mass Effect 2, is optional. You’ll be prompted to skip it if you want to and just start playing the game.
- In regards to importing the appearance of your past Commander Shepard into the Legendary Edition: the team is working to make it as compatible as possible, even adding the code importer to the first Mass Effect. But due to improvements to the character creator and new options, some codes currently work better than others.
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- Overheat instead of the Thermal Clip mechanic is in Mass Effect. Core mechanics were maintained, while the HUD has been totally updated and many aspects have been much improved.
- New sound effects have been added, and old ones have been changed and enhanced.
- You can skip the first Mass Effect and dive right into Mass Effect 2 if you wish. Though I, the writer of this article, strongly don’t recommend it. It’ll by far be the most updated game in the collection, for one. But it’s just a great foundation for one of the best sci-fi stories out there! It’s got good vibes.
- The infamous black blob glitch on Noveria and Ilos in Mass Effect has been fixed.
- The team has taken some steps to make the morality checks in Mass Effect 2 less strict and frustrating.
- The team has been in touch with a few members of the modding community to learn how to best update everyone on the changes that will impact existing mods, as well as to set the community up for success going forward. More details will be discussed by launch.
- The squad in Mass Effect hasn’t really been tweaked to look more like their Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 models. “We often started with ME3 characters, as they were the highest fidelity,” tweets Walters. “Then we improved further before bringing them back into ME1/2. But… we were very careful to adapt for likeness. So, for example, ME1 Liara still looks like ME1 Liara, only better.”
- Uniforms for Mass Effect have been updated.
- The new Mass Effect HUD was modeled after the best elements from the Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 HUDs. This was done to make all three games feel more cohesive as a trilogy. What we’ve seen was still being polished when it was captured, but the final result will be very close to what has been shown.
- The Hardcore and Insanity difficulty levels in the original trilogy were restricted; those restrictions have been removed now.
And that’s it for now, but we’ll be sure to keep an eye out for all that’s to come. Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is slated for release on May 14 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
