The release of Mass Effect Legendary Edition is only less than a week from now. But are you ready for Commander Shepard's glorious high-resolution, high frame rate return? That said, here's everything you should know about the highly anticipated Mass Effect trilogy remaster.
You'll Need Some Beefy Hardware to Run it Well
Here's one thing you absolute have to know about Mass Effect Legendary Edition: it runs like a champ on next-gen hardware. Bioware and EA really did their homework on this remaster. But in order for it to run like intended, you'll need some beefy hardware. So forget about all the OG system requirements that say Core 2 Duos, 9800 GTs, and 4GB of RAM or whatnot.
A GTX 1070 or RTX 2000 graphics card with a 7th gen Intel or 3rd gen Ryzen 7 is what you'll need to run Mass Effect Legendary Edition at its highest frame rates and resolutions up to native 4K, as stated on the game's Steam page. Minimum specs aren't generous either: a GTX 760 or HD 7970/R9 280X will mean you can barely play at 30 FPS. You'll also need 8GB memory for the minimum, and 16GB for recommended.
So, if you're one of the few who unluckily sold their GPUs hoping to get an RTX 3000 card (and failing), you're out of luck: your integrated GPU will die a million different ways.
You'll Need to Free Up a Ton of Space
Due to the various next-gen improvements in the assets of all three games, Mass Effect Legendary Edition is almost as big as a Reaper capital ship in terms of storage.
For PC players planning to get the game on Steam, you'll need to free up around 120GB. Consoles get a smaller file size but it's still pretty huge: 68GB plus a 12GB day one patch for the PS4 and PS5 in the Americas. EU players will get around 101GB (due to extra language packs), and Xbox players will need at least 85GB.
Its worth noting that the day one patch on PlayStation systems is actually bigger than the original games combined in terms of file size. Though it's still better than Cyberpunk 2077's 43GB Day Zero patch in comparison.
It's Got ALL The DLCs, Except One
That would be Mass Effect 1's Pinnacle Station DLC, which was some sort of a combat training sim. It featured 13 combat scenarios for players to improve their skills, and a brand-new location to explore. When asked about why it wasn't included in the Legendary Edition, Bioware and EA said that the original source code was lost (which was also the reason why it didn't arrive for the PS3 when it first released).
Speaking to Game Informer, game director and Bioware mainstay Mac Walters called the exclusion of Pinnacle Station "heartbreaking." He claimed that the studio tried everything it can to get the DLC's source code, contacting literally everyone and anyone who even remotely worked on the add-on.
Still, Mass Effect Legendary Edition has been confirmed to have everything else, including the fan-favorite Citadel DLC.
All Your Shepards Will Look The Same Across All Three Games
Now this is likely a welcome news to those who felt weird seeing their character's face change from ME1 to ME3, despite importing their saves. Now, Bioware and EA made sure that Mass Effect Legendary Edition will have Shepard look consistent across all three games.
Not to mention, the iconic FemShep face introduced in Mass Effect 3 has been made the default, to the delight of a lot of fans (which even made Commander Shepard voice actress Jennifer Hale shed tears of joy). So no more weird-looking Shepards like they've gone through plastic surgery or something.
The Mako's Original Terrible Steering is an Optional Toggle
Let's be honest: in the first game, the Mako steered like a drunk, blind driver is behind the wheel. But if for some reason you'd like to experience pain again, you can toggle back the Mako's original steering system in the game options, as reported by Polygon. Frankly, if you do decide to toggle the horrible controls back on, you're either criminally insane or extremely skilled.
Well, this concludes the list of things you should know about the highly anticipated Mass Effect trilogy remaster. See you out there, and as Commander Shepard used to always say, "I should go."
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by RJ Pierce
