Need To Know Details on Mass Effect Legendary Edition

Video Transcript

This is Lady Insanity, just call me Ashe. I've come back from the abyss to bring you the latest Mass Effect news — this time, regarding the trilogy remaster "Mass Effect Legendary Edition". The title is a bit of a doozy, so from here on out, I'm calling it MELE.

I imagine many of you listening in are veteran fans, so this time I am answering the most burning, need-to-know questions the community has been asking about the Legendary Edition. Timestamps are available below, so feel free to jump around to your topic of choice. But if you have any questions after watching, feel free to ask in the comment section below, and I'll answer as much as I can.

That all said, let's get to the hard part first.

Is there any new or changed content?

The answer to that, unfortunately, is no. Simply put: MELE is a remaster, not a remake. Recently, a lot of hopeful rumors and misinformation have spread in the gaming community, but I can tell you here, 100%: there is no change to any of the content in Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2, nor Mass Effect 3. The romances are exactly the same as they were in the original trilogy. An example: Kaidan Alenko, who is romanceable by male Shepard in Mass 3 but not Mass 1, will not be romanceable by a male Shepard in Mass 1. That said, there are mods for the original trilogy that allow these options, which we'll get into later. Additionally, the ending has not been changed. As confirmed by the devs, the extended cut is the accepted canon. Questions on new content is the #1 thing I've been asked about most since MELE's reveal. I truly am sorry to disappoint, but as someone who's been part of the BioWare community for years, this is the one thing I wanted to make sure you all had the real answer to first.

Bad news out of the way, let's keep going.

What engine is MELE on? Is MELE moddable?

The Legendary Edition is running on Unreal Engine 3. After discussions with Epic in regards to having MELE on Unreal 4, BioWare quickly found that if they were to use that engine, the entire feel of the games would be changed, in addition to re-doing almost all their assets.

Instead, BioWare decided on Unreal 3. This would ensure the game would work not only with the then-current consoles, PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, but also future consoles.

And to the second question - is the game moddable? Officially the devs haven't given an answer on this. Because the game is on Unreal 3, in theory, yes. It is possible, much more so than if we were stuck with Unreal 4 or Frostbite. However, this does not mean the current mods available will automatically work with MELE. There was never an official toolkit for the series, and the current one made by the modding community may have to be changed. I don't claim to know much about modding; it's not my forte. But in the description, I've linked a good post from a well-known modder Kinkojiro that explains the situation of having older mods possibly be compatible with MELE. It's not impossible, but to help set expectations, we shouldn't expect them to work right off launch.

Also, a quick Thank You to every modder to contributed in the past years. You're the real MVPs — I purple you. And personally I'm hoping all of the mods' compatibility with the Legendary Edition works out seamlessly.

What content is available?

Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, and almost every single-player DLC will be available in MELE. (RIP Pinnacle Station.) This is kind of old news, but just as a reminder, Mass Effect 3's multiplayer will not be in the remaster.

Outside of Pinnacle Station, rest in peace, here is the confirmed list of all DLC available. Some DLC will unlock immediately, while others will unlock over time. The games are accessible through a launcher, which will load up each game separately. But you don't have to mess with the save files for this one it's all part of MELE.

Character creation?

In the original trilogy, BioWare offered more appearance options as time went on. In MELE, Character Creator has been unified across the three games. That way, your Shepard can keep the same look from Mass 1 to Mass 3.

The most significant change you'll notice is default Shepard, especially with FemShep. Their default look in Mass 3 is now the default look in Mass 1 and 2. Not gonna lie — FemShep looks gorgeous, and BioWare really made it work in Mass 1.

And as a side note, you'll also notice this retroactive change with other characters. For example, Ashley Williams, Kaidan Alenko, and Captain Anderson in Mass 1 look much closer to their respective appearances in Mass 3.

Now, if customizing Shepard is more your speed, BioWare is unifying the appearance options across all three games. As an example, eye colors that show up in Mass 3 are available in Mass 1. They're also offering a few new hairstyles, including one that looks identical to Sloane Kelly's hairstyle in Mass Effect: Andromeda, and a bob that looks similar to the top of Ashley Williams' haircut in Mass 3. MELE will also include new skintones; from what I saw, there's a more expansive range from light to dark, including warm and cool tones.

BioWare did fix a lot of the textures, including more pronounced lip wrinkles and realistic, non-clumpy eyelashes.

That said, BioWare's still working on things for the Character Creator, so I'd watch out for more reveals.

Graphic and Tech changes?

I like charts, so here's the rundown of tech changes for MELE. I'll run through this quickly for those listening at home.

Remastered for 4K. HDR capable. Enhanced visuals and audio, with tens of thousands of textures upressed.

For consoles: 60 FPS on Xbox One X, Playstation 4 Pro, Xbox Series X, and PS5. Frame rate for original Xbox One and Playstation 4 were not mentioned.

For PC, MELE supports high refresh rate and 21:9 ultra wide, with built-in controller support.

Gameplay changes?

So here's a few. The elevators in Mass Effect 1. There's now a "Skip" button. (lol) The elevator load times are significantly shorter, as well. While I think it's a dang shame if you skip the elevator music and conversations, you can skip them if you so desire.

The Mako has a boost feature in Mass Effect 1, including an alternative control scheme and better physics for control.

Also, Mass 1's combat interface was modernized to match Mass 2 and Mass 3. They also changed the font so Mass 3's font type is used in Mass 1 now. Small change, but they went for modernizing and unifying the look across the series.

There's more quality-of-life changes that BioWare's made that you can see on screen... and more that will be announced.

How does the game REALLY look?

So for context, something cool I've wanted to share for a while now is that I'm part of a group that advised BioWare on MELE. This group is comprised of several content creators, cosplayers, and fans within the Mass Effect community people you've likely seen around. Long story short, I've seen way more than what the Press is sharing today.

And honestly? A lot of it is gorgeous; you'll definitely recognize the differences in the environments, with Mass 1 being the most distinct. Instead of just upressing the environments that you saw in the original trilogy, they added aesthetic changes to all the sceneries of these places and planets you see, whether on foot or in the Mako.

Lighting is totally improved. Several changes to ambient occulsion, anti-aliasing, depth of field. You can definitely see this on places like the Citadel and the presidium, but way more obvious on worlds like Feros or Ilos.

It doesn't mean that Mass 3 looks the same — matter of fact, with the improvements to all the character models, it really looks great. But Mass 1 did release in 2007, so you'll notice those changes way more.

In the future, I'll be able to share more information about the Legendary Edition. At this point I sound like a broken record, but BioWare will definitely be revealing more of the game leading up to its release.

Questions?

That's all I have for you right now. Thanks for watching! If you have any additional questions, feel free to ask them in the comment section. Or on Twitter! At LadyInsanity. But just letting you know ahead of time I can't answer everything yet. When I can, I will definitely let you all know.

If you've enjoyed anything you've heard here or what I do, please press the "Like" button. It tells Youtube that my content is totally cool to share to other people on Youtube. And I'd appreciate it greatly.

Take care, it's back to the abyss for me! See you next time, and Fen'harel enansal.