Tali might spend most of the trilogy in her suit, but players who romance her get to see what she really looks like. Quarians as a race all have to live in their enviro-suits due to their immune systems being so poor that any exposure could be deadly. Because of this, the glimpse Tali romancers got of her in Mass Effect 3 was the first ever real look at a Quarian.
After three games of hype, many were disappointed with the result. Curiously, the image of Tali was actually an image of model Hammasa Kohistani that had been edited to give her alien features, such as glowing eyes, and three fingers on each hand. The disappointment seemed to stem from the reveal simply being an edited stock photo, rather than anything unique.
Well, as originally reported by Eurogamer, some fans have somehow managed to get to the face reveal already - and she’s looking completely different.
Spotted on both Twitter and Reddit, Tali is instead keeping much of her enviro-suit on, just lifting off her face guard as she does in the romance scenes. Since we’re seeing a whole lot less, it leaves a lot more about the Quarians up to the imagination. We can see that she’s sporting completely pale eyes that aren’t glowing anymore, and her skin is more grey than purple.
This face reveal is a lot more lore friendly than the original. If the Quarian homeplanet of Rannoch is retaken for them in Mass Effect 3, she comments that it will still be years until she can fully give up the suit. This is obviously contradicted by the original portrait, which has her completely suitless already.
We’ll get a better feel for the fan reception as players make it through the trilogy (anyone who’s seen it already would have had to skip to the third game and completely speedrun it), but for now the general consensus is that it’s an improvement on the old face. The majority of the comments on the Mass Effect subreddit thank BioWare for the change, as they feel it closer matches the codex descriptions of a Quarians appearance.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition released May 14, and is available for PS4, Xbox One and PC.