Mass Effect Legendary Edition announced for 2021, new Mass Effect also in development

It’s official! Revealed on N7 day and reported two days later because I was firmly in weekend mode, Mass Effect’s original trilogy is finally getting the remaster treatment. As you probably guessed, Mass Effect Legendary Edition will combine the first three games into one solid package that also adds all the single-player DLC that each game came with, and it’ll be out next year on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. And by virtue of backwards compatibility, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

Visually the games should be a treat with Bioware explaining that a whole lot of graphical fine-tuning has been done under the hood. “For many months now, our team at BioWare has been hard at work updating the textures, shaders, models, effects, and technical features of three enormous games,” Bioware’s vice-president Casey Hudson said in a blog post.

Our goal was not to remake or reimagine the original games, but to modernize the experience so that fans and new players can experience the original work in its best possible form. It’s been amazing to see the adventures of Commander Shepard take on new life in super-sharp resolution, faster framerates, and beautiful visual enhancements.

As game developers, we always hope that our games will transcend their original platforms. Having the opportunity to remaster the trilogy means that the fruits of a decade of our work will live on, and will be experienced better and clearer than ever before.

It’s not all old games though! Bioware also revealed that a new Mass Effect game is in development, although it’s very early days for now. “Meanwhile here at BioWare, a veteran team has been hard at work envisioning the next chapter of the Mass Effect universe. We are in early stages on the project and can’t say any more just yet, but we’re looking forward to sharing our vision for where we’ll be going next,” Hudson said.

I never played the first Mass Effect game, but I did hop into the second game when it arrived and I found myself very lost as to all the lore that was thrown at my face. It was superb, and the third game amped up the fight to save the galaxy with missions asking you to make very hard choices. Like choosing an unstoppable robot death-machine army over a caravan of space hobos. How was I supposed to know that seeing her entire civilisation wiped out would lead to my beloved Tali choosing to throw herself off the nearest cliff?

And now I’ll get to relive that mental damage next year. But with better and more traumatising visuals!

Last Updated: November 9, 2020