In 2017, in the wake of an underperforming Mass Effect: Andromeda, BioWare announced its intent to put the Mass Effect series on hold indefinitely. This news was particularly disheartening in light of rumors of a forthcoming Mass Effect Trilogy remaster that had been circulating on the internet for several years.
It was disappointing, though not fully unexpected in light of major challenges at BioWare. Parent company Electronic Arts had recently enlisted some BioWare employees to help support studio EA Motive’s then-forthcoming release, Star Wars: Battlefront II. Other BioWare employees were working on a project code-named Dylan (which the studio would later release under the title Anthem), according to a feature from Kotaku published in May of that year.
This news crushed fans’ hopes of seeing a Mass Effect Trilogy remaster anytime in the near future. For years prior, the gaming community had shared its enthusiasm for the project in Reddit threads and message boards across the internet, speculating to when it might happen and what might change in the game’s execution.
In fact, in 2014, Aaryn Flynn, who was at the time BioWare’s general manager, weighed in on the idea of a Mass Effect Trilogy remaster. In a tweet, he shared that the team had discussed it internally but didn’t yet have a solid plan in place.
More than two years later, in an August 2016 interview with Game Informer, Patrick Soderlund, who was then the executive vice president for EA Studios, confirmed the EA team was looking into a Mass Effect Trilogy remaster but made no official announcement.
However, a lot has changed since then, including the fact that Flynn is no longer affiliated with BioWare and Soderlund is no longer with EA.
The past few years have been difficult for BioWare. Anthem, which was the studio's highly anticipated first release after Mass Effect: Andromeda, also hasn’t performed to expectations. In spite of its beautiful aesthetics and innovative jetpack-propelled gameplay mechanisms, Anthem appears to have failed to gain the level of traction needed to sustain a tentpole title.
Additionally, BioWare’s team is currently working on Dragon Age 4, the follow-up to Dragon Age: Inquisition. Unfortunately, the turbulence around Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem has slowed progress on that game’s development as well, according to a lengthy article from Kotaku that was published in April this year.
In the August 2018, BioWare published a blog post that contained a brief but important note alluding to a new Mass Effect project in its early stages.
"And yes – we hear loud and clear the interest in BioWare doing more Dragon Age and Mass Effect, so rest assured that we have some teams hidden away working on some secret stuff that I think you’ll really like – we’re just not ready to talk about any of it for a little while," reads the post, which is attributed to BioWare general manager Casey Hudson.
Statements Polygon published in February corroborate this, though add little additional detail.
“We’re definitely not done with Mass Effect,” Anthem executive producer Mark Darrah says in the Polygon profile. “There’s a lot of stories to be told. We could pull on the threads we put down with Andromeda; we could pull on threads from Mass Effect 3. There’s a lot of interesting space to be explored.”
“In my mind, it’s very much alive,” adds Hudson. “I’m thinking all the time about things that I think will be great. It’s just a matter of getting back to it as soon as we can.”
In the meantime, fans remain hopeful for a Mass Effect Trilogy remaster.
Game remasters have grown in popularity in recent years ,and are relatively cost-effective ways to enhance existing titles. They not only quench fans’ thirst for nostalgia, but can also introduce a classic game to an entirely new fanbase. Typically, game remasters keep original storylines and dialogue but include enhancements to audio and visual components, often leveraging the use of audiovisual technology that was not available at the time of the game’s original release.
Though it was slow to pick up on the trend, EA’s 2018 announcement of Burnout Paradise Remastered signaled the company’s willingness to explore remasters and led some to some speculate that the Mass Effect Trilogy could be next.
It’s been more than a decade since BioWare released the first Mass Effect game. Critics loved the 2008 space odyssey, which put players in the shoes of Commander Shepard as he embarked on a journey to save humanity from complete eradication. The game’s highly interactive narrative required the player to make decisions that ultimately influenced the game's outcome, which became a defining feature of all Mass Effect games.
Mass Effect 2 and 3 continued the story, with the series culminating in an ethical and moral conundrum that forces Sherpard to make a difficult decision that effectively concludes the Mass Effect Trilogy.
But, with technological advances in everything from computer processing power to motion capture technology, fans feel a remaster is long overdue.
Compared to modern games, including BioWare’s own Anthem, the Mass Effect Trilogy’s visuals haven’t withstood the test of time. By today's standards, they appear clunky and stale. A graphic overhaul would massively improve an already great series of games.
The trilogy as a whole would benefit from changes to user interface elements to make the gameplay experience smoother as a whole. A remaster could also make characters and settings appear more visually cohesive throughout the individual games in the series, focusing on consistency in colorization and facial features. This consistency could extend to gameplay mechanics, to the point where it would feel less like three different games and more like a single, longer play through.
There doesn’t seem to be any question that gamers would want all DLC included, particularly as trends in gaming seem to be transitioning away from this traditional DLC model. A remaster could also address outstanding plot questions, either with fresh updates to environmental content or additional and expanded cutscenes.
Regardless, with no official recent updates regarding the Mass Effect Trilogy remaster rumor, fans’ best hope is to continue expressing their enthusiastic support for this project.