Ever since the initial reveal and the first trailer shared by Bioware, the fans of the Mass Effect series have been waiting with the bated breath to hear more details about the upcoming Legendary Edition. But when the world needed Bioware devs the most, they vanished – until now. The team has taken to the official EA site with a lengthy blog post dedicated to what players can expect to see in the remaster.
The message focuses on gameplay and rebalancing. Next week the team will share more with a strong focus on the visual changes across the trilogy.
Combat Tuning
The developers of Mass Effect Legendary Edition wanted to make the experience better across the board, but not to unnecessarily change what the fans of the series have come to love about each game which has proved a challenge.
The first game in the series is quite different from ME2 & ME3 in terms of gameplay. The team tuned accuracy and improved aim assist across the board in ME1 and rebalanced certain abilities:
- Shepard can now sprint out of combat
- Melee attacks are now mapped to a button press rather than automatically occurring based on proximity to an enemy
- Weapon accuracy and handling has been significantly improved
- All relevant enemies now take headshot damage in the first game
- Ammo mods (Anti-Organic, Anti-Synthetic, etc.) can now drop throughout the whole game
- All weapons can be used by any class without penalty
- Weapons cool down much faster
- Medi-gel usage has been improved
- Inventory management improvements
- Some abilities have been rebalanced
- Weapon powers (i.e., those that are unlocked on each weapon type’s skill tree) have been improved
Additional Gameplay Improvements
Bioware also made some specific changes to certain encounters, enemies, and how you engage in combat.
- Squadmates can now be commanded independently of each other in the first Mass Effect, the same way you can command them individually in Mass Effect 2 and 3
- Some boss fights and enemies in the first game have been tweaked to be fairer for players but still challenging
- Cover has been improved across the trilogy
- Additional cover added to some encounters
- Entering and exiting cover is now more reliable
- XP has been rebalanced in the first game for better consistency
- Ammo drops have been increased in Mass Effect 2
The Mako
Shepard’s noble steed in the original Mass Effect, the (in)famous M-35 Mako has been “calibrated” for better performance. In the original game, the physics tuning for the Mako made it feel too light and bouncy, even at times becoming uncontrollable, but it’s now a much smoother ride while still being “loveable” like before. (Yes, you can still drive off cliffs to your heart’s content).
- Improved handling – physics tuning improved to feel “weightier” and slide around less
- Improved camera controls – resolved issues preventing the Mako from accurately aiming at lower angles
- Shields recharge faster
- New thrusters added for a speed boost
- Its cooldown is separate from the jump jets’
- The XP penalty while in the Mako has been removed
- Touching lava no longer results in an instant Mission Failure and instead deals damage over time
Shepard
The team unified Shepard’s customization options in the character creator and even added some new options, like additional skin tones and hairstyles. You can use the same character creator code (seen bottom-left in the image below) across all three games, meaning your Shepard can now have a consistent appearance across the trilogy, or you can choose to change their appearance at the start of each title. Customization options and character appearances have also been improved with updated textures and hair models.
Of course, the Legendary Edition includes a variety of additional enhancements. Here are some of the things you can look forward to:
Of course, the Legendary Edition includes a variety of additional enhancements. Here are some of the things you can look forward to:
- New unified launcher for all three games
- Includes trilogy-wide settings for subtitles and languages
- Saves are still unique to each game and can be managed independently of each other
- Updated character creator options, as mentioned above
- FemShep from Mass Effect 3 is the new default female option in all three games (the original FemShep design is still available as a preset option)
- Achievements across the trilogy have been updated
- New achievements have been added to the trilogy
- Progress for some achievements now carries over across all three games (e.g. Kill 250 enemies across all games)
- Achievements that were streamlined into one and made redundant were removed
- A number of achievements have had their objectives/descriptions and/or names updated
- Integrated weapons and armor DLC packs
- Weapons and armor DLC packs are now integrated naturally into the game; they’re obtainable via research or by purchasing them from merchants as you progress through the game, rather than being immediately unlocked from the start. This ensures overall balance and progression across ME2 and ME3
- Recon Hood (ME2) and Cerberus Ajax Armor (ME3) are available at the start of each game
- Additional gameplay & Quality of life improvements
- Audio is remixed and enhanced across all games
- Hundreds of legacy bugs from the original releases are fixed
- Native controller and 21:9 display support on PC, with DirectX 11 compatibility
Check out the full text of the blog post to find out more about Mass Effect Legendary Edition!
