It’s officially back; the iconic Mass Effect gaming series is back. After a disastrous 4th entry, Bioware brings the Mass Effect trilogy back with a slew of upgrades in the Mass Effect Legendary Edition. While this title was announced a few months back, today, the company provided a release date of May 12th, 2021, a gameplay trailer, and various bits of info on the title.
And as a fellow Mass Effect fan, I’m excited. I mean, really excited. Sure, I haven’t played the games in a while, but I have fond memories of playing these games in my younger years. Rest assured, once this is released, I’ll be playing through all of these games, and I won’t be playing like the nice guy this time around.
https://youtu.be/T7K7gMYLp2E
As mentioned, the Mass Effect Legendary Edition will be released in May 2021 and will be available for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC (Steam and Origin), but no mention of a Switch version. Nor will there be a next-gen version for the PS5 or Xbox Series X|S, but those consoles will be able to play the game via backward compatibility. It will include all three original games and all of the existing DLC on an updated game engine (but still Unreal Engine 3). This 4K remaster will benefit from visual and gameplay upgrades and HDR Support. For you PC gamers, we’re getting official controller support like myself. Something that wasn’t in the original games, and we had to use mods to get that working was terrible. So happy about this!
However, the Mass Effect Legendary Edition will not include any multiplayer, which is a bit of a bummer. Getting back to the DLC, of the span of three games, Bioware released a lot of content for Mass Effect, so expect to play this remastered trilogy for at least 60+ hours, maybe even longer.
As you can imagine, remastering one game, let alone three of them, is a huge task. Thankfully Bioware has handled this like a champ is ready to reintroduce Mass Effect to the gaming world. Just looking over several of the previews I’ve seen of the game, it’s looking good. Thus far, all the hands-on reception has been positive. This sounds like a win for Bioware, and honestly, the company could do for one of those.
Lastly, I want to touch on that Bioware is also improving the character creation system, and I’m also happy. Let’s be honest, it was “ok” when the games were released, but times have changed, and there’s a lot of creation systems out there that are limited. Bioware adds more hairstyles, skin tones, among other things, to allow players to craft a character that’s either similar to themselves or something opposite. Diversity is key, and I’m looking forward to seeing how this works out once the game is released.
I can’t wait to get my hands on this, not only because I loved this series. But because it will give me something to mess with while Bioware is at work on the next Mass Effect title.
Will you be playing the remaster? Let us know in the comments below!
