Conrad Verner is Commander Shepard's number one fan, always one step behind his hero as he tries to emulate the protagonist's actions and help them save the galaxy. The dopy human appears across all three games in the original trilogy, and is now back with an upgraded look in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition.
Verner is one of the stranger NPCs players will meet as they make their way through Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. His story's always changing, he misremembers events from previous games, and he has strange connections to characters players meet throughout the Mass Effect trilogy. Here's a complete breakdown of Conrad Verner's role in the franchise, and why the devs kept coming back to the character.
Who Is Conrad Verner?
If fans of the franchise go to California's Great America amusement park, they can visit the 80-person motion simulator, Mass Effect: New Earth. Set during the Reaper invasion of Mass Effect 3, fans might expect the experience to be hosted by a virtual version of Garrus, Liara, or EDI, the Normandy AI. Instead, the ride is hosted by an actor pretending to be Conrad Verner, the galaxy's greatest sycophant.
Conrad Verner may be a minor character, but it's clear the developers had a soft-spot for him, even if his first two appearances can lead to his grizzly death. Conrad wants one thing - to be Shepard. Depending on whether the player chooses Paragon or Renegade options, Shepard can encourage him, scare him away, or inadvertently lead to his death. If he survives, he always manages to find a way to pop back up, often to Shepard's exasperation.
Back in 2012, BioWare's former community manager Chris Priestly revealed that the character was nearly cut after Mass Effect 1, but that the devs rallied to keep him in the games.
Mass Effect fans might wonder why Conrad Verner, an NPC who only briefly appears in each game, is as beloved by BioWare as he is. Here's a break down of the role he plays across all three games, and how his strange little background plot is interwoven into other parts of the Mass Effect story.
Conrad In Mass Effect 1
In the first Mass Effect players can find Conrad Verner on the Citadel in the Wards. Conrad will call the player over, honored to meet "Commander Shepard, the hero of Eden Prime." If the player will let him, he'll take their autograph, claiming his wife will be impressed. Eventually he'll ask for a picture, and talk about his ambitions to become a Spectre like Shepard. Paragon Shepard can convince him to go home to his wife.
If Shepard tells Conrad to get lost, however, he'll storm off, determined to prove that Shepard is "not the only one who can stand up for humanity!" An elevator announcement will later report that Conrad attempted to fight a group of Turians and was almost immediately killed. A Renegade player can stick their gun in Conrad's face when he asks to become a Spectre, causing Conrad to leave disheartened.
Conrad In Mass Effect 2
As long as Conrad survived, he can be found in Mass Effect 2's Eternity bar on Ilium. In the two year's since Shepard's death, he's modeled his life after his romanticized version of the commander. Regardless of whether the player chose the Paragon or Renegade option, Conrad will claim that he remembers Shepard sticking a gun in his face, which showed him "what it means to be truly extreme." Now he spends his time travelling the galaxy looking for people to help, and rummaging through crates for credits. His wife, apparently, was happy to buy him a shuttle off the Citadel.
Conrad will claim he's working undercover, but it turns out he's being manipulated by an Asari pretending to be a police officer in an attempt to get the deeds to the Eternity bar. If Shepard goes down the Paragon path they can confront the scammer, and even convince Conrad that he's done good work. In this case, he starts an orphanage in Shepard's honor. If they tell Conrad to get lost, he storms off, attempts to stop some kids riding on the top of a bus, falls off, hits several cars, and falls into a bio-mass recycling turbine.
Conrad In Mass Effect 3
If Conrad survives, however, he will return for Mass Effect 3. For the first time, the player can discover that Conrad isn't entirely useless. Having heard that Shepard was working for Cerberus in Mass Effect 2, Conrad has now become a Cerberus recruiter. In a nod to the bug from Mass Effect 2, Conrad will apologize to Paragon players for falsely claiming that they pointed a gun in his face the last time they met.
Shepard can explain to Conrad that he isn't working with Cerberus and that he is being used, which will cause Conrad to have a minor crisis of faith over his inability to help. However, if the player tells Conrad about the Prothean dark energy device they're building to stop the Reapers, they'll discover that he happens to have a doctorate in xenotechnology and dark energy integration. Not only that, but he reveals a contact who can help Shepard. If the player had picked up ten of Matriarch Dilinaga's Writings and the Elkoss Combine Armory license in Mass Effect 1, they can use these and Conrad's expertise to make his help as useful an asset as possible.
Shepard can also discover that Conrad never really had a wife, and if he started an orphanage after the events of Mass Effect 2, it was attacked by the Reapers and he spent the last of his money shipping the kids out of danger. Shepard can also get Conrad to reveal his Cerberus contact, who will then try to shoot Shepard. Conrad will throw himself in the way.
If the player completed the quest "Rita's Sister" in Mass Effect 1, it will be revealed that Jenna sabotaged the Cerberus agent's gun, saving Conrad. If not, Conrad will die protecting the commander. If nothing else, it's better than being shot by Turians or falling into a trash compactor. For players who managed to help Conrad make it all the way to the end, however, there may be good reason to expect the hapless human's return in the next chapter in the Mass Effect series.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
