Mass Effect Legendary Edition is due out in just over a month, and Electronic Arts and Bioware have released a post detailing the gameplay updates that players can expect in the upcoming remaster. There are a number of gameplay tweaks, most of them centered around making the first game more consistent with the other two, and a few cosmetic upgrades to the character creator. Oh, and the infamous Mako is getting cleaned up as well.
The combat of the original Mass Effect has always been a little divorced from its two successors. This is because the game was leaning more into its RPG roots, or at least that’s the explanation in the update post. “Mass Effect was heavily influenced by traditional RPG mechanics, like the randomness of a dice roll and pen-and-paper stat building.” So the Legendary Edition will adjust the combat for accuracy. Shepard can also now sprint and melee things at will, and cover will also be more like cover from 2 and 3.
Another change is to the ending(s) of the trilogy. Mass Effect 3 uses a Galaxy at War feature to determine what kind of ending the players get. In the original game, Galaxy at War could be influenced by the ME3 multiplayer or the companion app. In the Legendary Edition, the only factors are how much of the games you have completed. The new default ending is also the Extended Cut DLC now.
Among other changes to the game will be some cosmetic quality of life upgrades, most notably that character customization options will be more uniform across all three games. The default Female Shepard face is now the one from the third game, giving her a distinct appearance similar to the default Male Shepard. There will be a few more upgrades, but we’ll have to wait until the game is released on May 17 to see all of them.
Source: Electronic Arts
