The Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is not shying away from change. The upcoming remaster of the original Mass Effect trilogy will see a unified character creation system spanning all three games, changes to the designs of certain locations, tweaked combat and vehicle mechanics, and changes to take advantage of the remaster's greater graphical capabilities.
There's one major quality of life change coming to the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, however, which has largely flown under the radar. Here's an explanation of the changes coming to morality checks, and why it might have one of the single biggest effects on the way players roleplay in the Mass Effect remaster.
Adjusting Morality Requirements in Legendary Edition
While answering questions on Twitter Mass Effect 2's lead writer Mac Walters explained one seemingly small change coming in the remaster.
This Tweet addresses a significant problem in Mass Effect 2. As the story approached the final Suicide Mission beyond the Omega Relay, players would find that some of their recruited squadmates simply did not get along. After the player has completed both Miranda Lawson and Jack's loyalty missions, for example, they will come across the pair having an argument.
If they side with Jack they will lose loyalty points with Miranda, while siding with Miranda causes them to lose Jack's loyalty. A similar interaction takes place between Tali the Quarian and Legion the Geth, and there was even a planned confrontation between Mordin and Grunt that was cut from the final game.
Loyalty has a huge impact on whether or not a Mass Effect squadmate survives the Suicide Mission. The higher a companion's loyalty, the more likely they are to survive the final mission, and the way the player resolves these inter-squadmate conflicts can cause the squadmate they side against to die.
From a roleplaying perspective, this is already a problem. There's no particular logical link between loyalty and likelihood of survival — in fact, an extremely loyal companion could be argued to be more likely to die in order to protect Shepard or help them achieve their goal beyond the Omega Relay. Ignoring the fact that Mass Effect 2 already makes an arbitrary connection between loyalty and survival, these choices cause a huge problem for the game's morality system.
Mass Effect's Morality
The only way to resolve Mass Effect 2's squadmate conflicts, without reducing or failing to gain the loyalty of either of the companions involved, is to choose the Paragon or Renegade dialogue option in response. However, these Paragon and Renegade dialogue options are only available to characters who have almost exclusively chosen either Paragon or Renegade options so far.
There are very few reasons to want any of the companions in Mass Effect 2 to die. Even fans who love dramatic deaths will find that dead companions have a relatively unsatisfying end to their story in light of Mass Effect 3. If a companion is killed during the Suicide Mission, they are often replaced by a less interesting stand-in in Mass Effect 3. Salarian scientist Mordin Solus, for example, will be replaced by Padok Wiks in Mass Effect 3's Tuchanka and Sur'Kesh. Ultimately, losing any companion in Mass Effect 2 usually leads to a less compelling and interconnected story in Mass Effect 3.
Because almost all Mass Effect 2 players want their companions to survive, many Mass Effect 2 playthroughs involve the player choosing exclusively Paragon or Renegade options. This is a huge problem for roleplay. In this version of the RPG, the player might as well just choose either Paragon or Renegade during character creation and then have the game pick out their dialogue options accordingly.
This problem exposed a huge flaw in Mass Effect's Paragon-Renegade morality system. Instead of weighing the potential consequences of their actions, the system marked a clear "correct" answer for the player depending on whether or not they were going for a Paragon or Renegade playthrough. Instead of allowing them to further immerse themselves in the role of Commander Shepard, the game's strict morality system had players using the dialogue UI to make decisions rather than the story itself.
Making Mass Effect More Immersive
This problem is also felt at the end of Mass Effect 3, when the only way to use the Paragon or Renegade options when talking to the Illusive Man was to have exclusively chosen either the Paragon or Renegade options when talking to him throughout the game so far. In the remaster in particular, this risks players simply knowing which dialogue options they're going to pick well in advance.
The fact that some of these checks will be made less strict in the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is a good start. If nothing else, it will allow players to explore more natural relationships with their companions and the galaxy of Mass Effect, instead of passing through the story as either a spotless paragon of virtue or a borderline-sociopathic renegade.
There are times when the moral divide barely even makes sense within the story. In order to maintain a 100% Paragon playthrough and unlock all the dialogue options, for example, the player can't stun-gun a Batarian mercenary when rescuing Archangel. It's a Renegade move, despite a Paragon player's inaction likely dooming this Batarian to a needless death when the mercenaries try to take on Garrus and Shepard.
Hopefully the change coming to the Legendary Edition will make Shepard a more immersive character to play the second time round. Instead of dividing choices into a clear binary with distinct themes, players will have more of an opportunity to try and weigh whether acting the hero or playing it tough will best serve a situation.
The fact that the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition will still have its binary morality system at all is ultimately a problem. However, removing the morality system from the remasters — as it was removed in one of Mass Effect: Andromeda's few improvements over the original trilogy — would likely be too controversial. Exactly how much more forgiving the morality system will be in the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition remains to be seen.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition will launch on May 14, 2021, on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
