After a highly successful launch for BioWare, Mass Effect Legendary Edition continues to dominate. At launch, it was able to surpass Resident Evil Village as a Steam Top Seller, and now BioWare continues to see solid numbers. The last few years have been quite rocky for the developer, but it seems to have found its footing once again.
The Mass Effect Legendary Edition set a record with 53,395 players, the highest concurrent number of players, which, compared to the record set by Mass Effect 2 with 13,320 concurrent players, is a massive increase. The information comes from Resetera user AshenOne, who showcased the number of concurrent players for every game in the series. In addition to impressive numbers, the game has been met with lots of critical acclaims and fan approval.
Moreover, Mass Effect Legendary Edition was the best-selling game on Steam even before release, so the notion of it having a substantial player count was always going to be a reality. Interestingly, the game came out on the same day as Subnautica: Below Zero and a week after Resident Evil Village, yet has retained its spot as the best-selling game on Steam as of writing. To add to the list of accomplishments, Mass Effect Legendary Edition also sits as one of the best-reviewed games of the year on Metacritic so far, with a score of 90 Metascore.
Keeping in mind that the game's success is proof that releasing games on Steam, rather than exclusively on EA Origin, would be more beneficial. However, recent years have shown EA only releasing its games on EA Origin, which isn't ideal for those unaware of the platform or prefer not to use multiple clients.
However, the kind of success that BioWare is currently seeing shouldn't be too much of a surprise. What with Mass Effect being a huge staple in the games industry and generally viewed positively for its great action-packed storytelling. With four main games in the series, only one has seen mixed reception, but Mass Effect: Andromeda was a shift in the series that many fans didn't appreciate. Even then, Andromeda was not viewed too negatively, other than for poor facial animations and bad lip-synching.
BioWare's release of a remastered trilogy was a smart move, bringing back original fans and making for some wonderfully nostalgic moments. Yet, Mass Effect Legendary Edition has some performance issues with many bugs and some players reporting crashes. The developers have acknowledged these issues and are working on a fix. Regardless of some minor bugs and crashes, the game has been an excellent success for BioWare, setting about an exciting future for the series.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition was released for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on May 14.
Source: Resetera