You'd think 15 years after the first game, Mass Effect fans would have found just about everything there is to find in the series' first installment. Especially after the trilogy was remastered and relaunched in 2021. However, the discovery that Mass Effect's intro was inspired by Top Gun has only just been discovered a decade and a half later.Highlighted by GamesRadar, MissSnizabelle shared screenshots of the Top Gun and Mass Effect intros, placing them side by side to show the similarities. Not only did the Mass Effect fan note it was something they had picked up on before, but they posted it like it was common knowledge. Well, apparently not. Casey Hudson, a director who worked on the original Mass Effect trilogy, seems to think this is the first time anyone has picked up on his easter egg.“Finally someone noticed this! I’ve been waiting so long,” Hudson tweeted in reply to the photos comparing the intros. The Top Gun intro details how the elite arm of the US Navy was established, noting how its members refer to it. The Mass Effect version uses similar wording to describe the discovery of life on Mars that led to “the greatest discovery in human history”, signing off with “the civilizations of the galaxy call it Mass Effect”.
Even before Hudson got wind of someone finally discovering Mass Effect's Top Gun homage, the replies to the post were filled with people claiming they knew about the similarities all along. While it's certainly possible plenty of people have noticed it before and simply not shared their discovery, you can shout into the void about it all you like. MissSnizabelle will forever be the one credited with finding it first.
As for why now, both Top Gun and Mass Effect have been getting more attention than usual these past couple of years. Through the former's critcally acclaimed sequel Maverick, and the latter's Legendary Edition. The hype train for the next Mass Effect game has also left the station after BioWare released an image of a Mass Effect relay being built, seemingly confirming the destory ending of Mass Effect 3 is canon.