The Mass Effect trilogy is rightly famous for its story, companions, and choices. But what makes these games truly gripping is something more ineffable than that. There is one more crucial ingredient to its success: cosmic horror. This is by no means the only literary tool the trilogy utilizes to great effect, but it stands out as an important one. Some of the most epic scenes in these games belong in this category.
In a galaxy where humanity is the upstart newcomer to the community, Commander Shepard regularly encounters the terrifying and the bizarre. Many scenes inspire fear and morbid fascination, from discovering the Thorian on Feros to visiting the Ardat Yakshi monastery. But they pale in comparison to the moments of hopeless dread at the limits of sanity that these games have to offer.
10 The Unbreakable Hero Is Broken: Shepard’s Death
After everything Shepard achieves by the end of Mass Effect, the opening scene of Mass Effect 2 takes all of Shepard's considerable might and acumen and throws it against the new main enemy, the Collectors. And they wipe the proverbial floor with the Normandy.
Shepard ends up spaced, falling into a planet amid the debris of what used to be the finest ship in the Alliance Fleet. Saren seems unremarkable in comparison when it takes just one Collector ship in one engagement to blow the first human Spectre out of the sky as if it was nothing. It impresses upon players how insignificant their hero is in the face of this evil.
9 The Abomination That Should Not Be: The Larva
It's hard to imagine anything topping discovering the Reaper threat, but then Mass Effect 2 delivered a human-Reaper hybrid baby to fans. This disturbing creature is an unnerving boss battle that can be the scene of Shepard's team's demise or a victory against the Collectors.
Learning how Reapers are made is horrifying enough, but witnessing colonists, and potentially Shepard's crew, become liquefied is a sickening reminder of how profane and powerful they are. The Reapers' goals aren't made clear at this point, but it is clear that humanity has an awful part to play in their plans.
8 Watched From The Watcher's Chamber: Vigil On Ilos
The horror of this scene is multifaceted. Among the disturbing things Vigil reveals, Shepard learns the last surviving Protheans awoke to a galaxy wiped clean of all traces of both their civilization and its destruction. That they planned for Vigil to turn off their stasis pods to preserve power while the Reapers culled the last of them drives home the point that all their cleverness wasn't enough to stop their extinction.
Vigil also reveals the Citadel was the gateway for each Reaper invasion. The last Protheans used the Conduit on Ilos as a one-way ticket to a newly vacant Citadel to break this cycle, before starving to death. It's not a cause for hope, however. Because Vigil confirms Saren's indoctrination, the VI also offers the insight that the Protheans' warnings went unheeded, thus this cycle is likely already doomed.
7 The Gruesome Truth Of Their Nature: The Collectors
The Collectors are introduced as nearly invincible enemies. Seeing as they are abducting human colonists and are strong enough to take out Commander Shepard, there's no question that they are a malevolent race. Except it turns out they are not.
When Shepard walks into the trap set aboard the Collector ship, this most enigmatic and dangerous foe is revealed to be the hollow remains of the Prothean race. Their deeds are inexcusable, but learning what was done to them is all the more disturbing. It's hard not to feel as though Shepard is annihilating victims of something far too terrible to comprehend.
6 We Are Your Only Hope: The Rannoch Reaper
As terrifying as the face-off with the Reaper on Rannoch is, it's even more unnerving to sense how indifferent it is to its defeat. Shepard proves they are not invulnerable, but going by this conversation, the Reapers barely take note. They don't even acknowledge that the galactic conflict they started is a war.
Perhaps the most horrifying revelation in this scene is that the harvesting cycle is meant to save organic life. Whether the Reapers malfunctioned or if their original mandate was to save life at any cost, no matter how terrible, is unclear. Perhaps it is unknowable. What is known is that up until Shepard's time, the price of this salvation was the repeated extinction of all advanced civilizations.
5 Amid A Sea Of Corpses: The Citadel Over Earth
Shepard arrives in a part of the Citadel no one has been to before, and a gruesome sight unfolds. Although players expect the carnage that greets them, watching the otherwise docile Keepers processing corpses is a reminder that they, too, are unfeeling, mindless creations of the Reapers.
The Citadel itself is a scene of recurring horror: at first, it was a doorway to an imminent invasion. By the end of Mass Effect 3, though, the Citadel's final functions are revealed when the Reapers station it above Earth. While Shepard was enjoying the Sunset Strip or arguing with the Council on the Presidium, a factory of horrors was waiting to be fired up in the bowels of this space station.
4 Even A Dead God Can Dream: The Reaper IFF
The Reaper IFF is one of the most eerie missions in Mass Effect 2, and not because of the swarms of husks, abominations, and scions. It's more about the fact that players piece together they may just be shooting at the remains of the Cerberus research team that was stationed aboard the derelict Reaper.
The researchers' log entries unfold the bizarre circumstances of their indoctrination. Some of them seem to possess each other's memories after a while, and Shepard even discovers a creepy shrine. The most haunting line encapsulates the horror of what happened here: even a dead Reaper is capable of robbing organics of their sanity.
3 The Apex Of Life: The Leviathans
The Leviathan DLC is cosmic horror through and through. Bryson’s laboratory oozes a haunting ambiance that pairs so well with the mystery Shepard is there to uncover. That’s nothing to the strangely vacant staff members on the asteroid, though. Or exploring the wrecked ship, and learning how its crew finally ate each other.
The penultimate moment, of course, is watching Leviathan emerge from the deep. This massive creature has abilities similar to Reapers, and it tells a tale of once having a cult-like following of "lesser species." These vast entities took it upon themselves to be godlike and created the intelligence that would one day be responsible for the Reapers. The Leviathans, far from being gods, became the first harvest.
2 You Touch My Mind, Fumbling In Ignorance: Sovereign
The true nature of the first game's enemy is revealed when it turns out Saren's ship, Sovereign, is a sapient machine, and the conversation remains one of the most chilling and iconic scenes to this day. Sovereign does acknowledge the existence of the "rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh," but it's clear this ancient being is unimpressed.
This scene is the first time Shepard realizes that the Geth and Saren are the pawns of an inconceivable monster that lives in the dark space between galaxies. The lurking presence of more of these super-intelligences, and the strange way they can control their thralls, is also quite concerning.
1 A Meaningless Fight: Activating The Catalyst
The endgame of Mass Effect 3 is one of the least popular scenes, and yet, it is possibly the most Lovecraftian moment in the trilogy. Mass Effect is otherwise a choice-heavy space opera, which is partly why so many found the ending disappointing. But this feeling of insignificance, and of being left with unanswered questions, makes this scene work as cosmic horror.
It is humbling to learn that all of Shepard's efforts and sacrifices are still meaningless to this construct. Shepard is the first organic ever to meet the Reaper AI, and although it acknowledges that the cycle cannot continue as before, it feels more like Shepard won an audience with this ancient machine intelligence rather than a military victory against its forces. To players, the Reapers remain unknowable.