Mass Effect Trilogy Remaster
Righto let's get stuck into this, i might be bringing up something fairly new, i might be beating a dead horse, i dont know how popular this idea is. I always write a wall of text so check the TLDR at the bottom if you dont want to read it all.
Lemme start off by saying holy damn do i feel old now, 2020 is here, a whole new decade and i realise that i can no longer say that i started playing mass effect 'last decade' i have to say two decades ago because it came out in the 2000's (2007 i believe). On top of that, Mass Effect was january 2010, TWENTY TEN!!! We are almost at the 10 year anniversary.
Now i have been trying to 100% the mass effect trilogy for a year now because i am not an achievement person normally but i figured for my favourite gaming series of all time i would make the effort and i have to say, i love it but i hate it. The story lacks the impact of the first time as you would expect but nostalgia wins, the gameplay though GOSH it hurts. mass effect 1 and honestly mass effect 2 even are quite clunky at this point, you notice every jagged edge of the terrain you bump into. Mass effect 1 in particular is like trying to fit the block in the perfect gap in tetris. Mass effect 3 tbh i think it holds up well, the ending never bothered me as much as others and the gameplay still is noticably improved on the prior games.
With the 10 year anniversary of ME2 on our doorstep and the 10 year anniversary of ME3 in like 2 years, i'd like to ask for a trilogy remaster :D i dont know if that sort of thing takes months or years to do, i am not a tech person but I can see numerous benefits to EA and Bioware with following through on this.
For starters, a remake of the original trilogy could bring all 3 games up to ME3 game play or better or at the very least maintain the existing gameplay but improve the smoothness of it and modernise the older games a little while taking the opportunity to stamp out any unresolved bugs or balancing issues that the team never got to that they thought might improve the experience.
Second, We cannot underestimate how much love there is for this franchise and if the rumour of a 5th mass effect game are true i would not expect it for numerous years giving Bioware and EA the opportunity to slot a mass effect trilogy remaster in there a year or two prior to bring fans back to the franchise and drum up attention and hype for the series again prior to the next major installment. This would also buy time for developers to iron out the kinks of this rumoured ME5 while fans are content with this huge bundle of remastered content.
Third, Money. Let's be honest here, remastered games can make some money when done well, if all 3 games kept their story and unique elements but the gameplay was modernised and all dlc/expansions were included IN THE BUNDLE you can be sure many fans would be happy to pay money for the bundle to revisit one of their favourite franchises without the grind of the old gameplay.
Fourth, Good will. I cannot speak for others here but as mass effect is by far my favourite gaming franchise of all time I personally would look favourably on the opportunity to see the series I love so much treated well and brought back for the current generation of gamers to play and enjoy like i did through the 2010's.
The idea that the 2020's could be an amazing decade for mass effect is an exciting one for me and I do hope Mass Effect as a series continues. There is potential here for at least 3 releases in the 2020's if the original trilogy is remastered in the first few years followed by a sequel to andromeda in the first half of the decade and then wrap the decade up strong with a third and final installment to the andromeda series?
TLDR: Mass Effect remastered could bring old fans back with improved gameplay, bring new fans in to the series, build hype for the next mass effect installment, make the developers lots of money $$$ and of course, build good will with people who love to see the series treated well.
P.s. If a mass effect trilogy remaster is in the works I'm always down to test :D
Honestly Mass Effect is still one of my favorite games. Sure it's not perfect and the graphics are getting kinda old (thought there is DAO which looks even worse but is still a great game).
So is a remaster absolutely necessary as of now ? No, the games are playable, the graphics are ranging from "bad but okay" to "actually still relatively good looking" and the bugs are minor (well the ones I encountered at least).
Do I want a remaster ? Of course I do. The reasons are various and there are so many ways a remaster might make the games so much better so let's start with what we will probably get :- Better graphics
- Controller support (it's more than probable that they would implement it)
- Games + dlc package (not separate, I doubt they would take the risk to face backlash from selling the dlcs appart from the main games).
- Games running better on all platform.
This is basically what you might think you'll get if you have absolutely no faith in Bioware and EA something closer to a port to this gen (or next-gen) consoles and computer and better graphics.
What could make this remaster a success ? Well, they will have most of the ME community looking forward even for a simple port but if they want people to buy the games ? They might want to give us more something like
- Fixing the Mako
- Giving us secondary content that was cut at first
- Gameplay fix (maybe even go the extra step and make it similar to ME3)
- Bug fixes (well we know new ones will probably appear but at least the old ones should be fixed).
I am probably forgetting a couple more things that they can do without putting to much effort into it and that would push players to want to buy their remaster. Then of course we have the "what would make old players definitely buy a remaster of the game and would bring new players in" and that kinda varies a lot depending on who you are talking to. And most of the answers would probably just be wishful thinjing (kinda like wishing they'd change the ending). But I'll try and make a list or at least say what I would love to see but don't necesseraly think would be doable.
- Exclusive new content. Not only bringng the cut content but a couple more lines for some romances making flirt options with garrus or Tali in the first game might be a good idea. One on one conversations with some crewmembers (I still want to know more about Kasumi). That might be a nice touch.
- Changing the ending. Well not really changing it, I'd like to change it completely because it does not feel like a real ending to me but it would be nice to have a different approach to the ending something like GrimReaper suggested similar to the Witcher 3 system wich would take your conversations (key ones at least) and choices through the game to "decide" wich ending will play. That would still be better than the one we had and feel more like your choices matter.
Actually I think that's all (well for me). Now I think we could get all of that depending on a couple of things like how long they have been working on this remaster, the size of their team, why they are doing it (I mean if it's mostly for money I'll only expect the bare minimum), and the thoughts they put in it (like what should we do/what can we do/what do the players want/what are we going to do).
All of that being said, I am looking forward to this remaster and hoping they don't disappoint. I mean if it's to do a bad job at remastering the game, they would do better to leave it be
