Report: EA Is Remastering The ‘Mass Effect’ Trilogy At Long Last (Unconfirmed)

[WinchesterPremium]

That was the original plan, until the fanbase told them unambiguously that they had no interest in a prequel and wanted the story to advance.

I however have no idea how anyone could think that the first contact war would make for a good game.

The order of events are:
-Turian scout fleet finds unknown primitives trying to activate a mass relay, a massive legal no-no, so shoot first with-out asking questions.
-After curb-stomping the humans they follow the survivors back to their base on Shanxi and curb-stomp the utterly unprepared defenders there as well.
-A few days later the entire alliance fleet shows up and wreaks the Turians shit.
-The Asari notice the large scale Turian military build up as they plan to attack the humans in full force and so shut them down, before making a proper, peaceful first contact with the humans.

Thats it, no epic battles or cool mystery to explore, just 3 utterly one-sided annihilations over the course of less than a week. It could make a decent film, but nothing to make an action-rpg out of.

And all over the fanbase I see people talking about how the first contact war was some great victory, that showed that humanity was able to stand toe to toe with the great powers of the galaxy, when like I said their victory was literaly using their entire fleet to trash a small frontier scouting fleet that went way beyond their assigned role. If the Asari hadn't stepped in the alliance would have gotten it's shit pushed in very quickly.

You could probably retcon in some Black Ops "We'll never make it into the history books!" behind the scenes fighting. Prequels don't really work well with Bioware's choicy MO in general, unless they're willing to change the outcome completely.

Not like choice of setting was high on Andromeda's problem list.

 

[HeyYou]

The First Contact War pisses me off so damn much, since it's just the Turians jumping a race that was breaking a law they didn't know existed and getting butt hurt they lost. No attempts to explain anything, no rational response, just kick the shit out of the new guy without explaining shit. The fact that Humanity doesn't just tell the Council to go fuck themselves or that anyone actually trust the Council races blows my mind. The Council races are such shit to anyone not the big three.

That's pretty much the themes of the games, to be honest. Anderson/Udina tells you in 2 that even though humanity is on the council they basically treat him like he's second class and rarely take his opinion into account and in every game the council refuses to take Shepard seriously. I don't think the turians were intended to be shown as right, or even grey, to be honest, it was done that way to show how remarkable it ended up being that the humans and turians ended up respecting each other so much.

The idea behind the series is that so many races have valid reasons to hate each other, and sometimes one side was outright wrong, but it's always a good thing to try to make things right. The salarians sterilized the krogans but still made right by it in the end if you convince them to. The quarians treated the geth like absolute shit and yet the geth still want to make peace, and finally the turians started a war with humanity but both sides still end up begrudgingly accepting each other.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

That's pretty much the themes of the games, to be honest. Anderson/Udina tells you in 2 that even though humanity is on the council they basically treat him like he's second class and rarely take his opinion into account and in every game the council refuses to take Shepard seriously. I don't think the turians were intended to be shown as right, or even grey, to be honest, it was done that way to show how remarkable it ended up being that the humans and turians ended up respecting each other so much.

The idea behind the series is that so many races have valid reasons to hate each other, and sometimes one side was outright wrong, but it's always a good thing to try to make things right. The salarians sterilized the krogans but still made right by it in the end if you convince them to. The quarians treated the geth like absolute shit and yet the geth still want to make peace, and finally the turians started a war with humanity but both sides still end up begrudgingly accepting each other.

It is a theme in game, although I hate how Ashley gets shit in the fan base for not trusting the Council races. To be fair to the Quarians, I think the situation with the Geth isn't as simple and is, in a lot of ways, the shittiest thing in the game. Also because ME3 absolutely took an enormous steaming shit on the Geth with regards to the portrayal in ME2. Legion flat out tells you in ME2 that the Geth don't want to be individuals, then Chris L'Etoile leaves, the hacks roll in for ME3 and the Geth do a 180. The Quarians didn't really treat the Geth like shit intentionally, they never intended for the Geth to be anything more than robot workers. Not self-aware. They accidentally created a VI collective that functions like an AI without meaning to and then tried to shut it down, because the Geth were just machines to them. And then the Council shits on them for centuries, even though the Geth generally didn't move into Council space. There were the seeds of an interesting story with some legitimate questions about the nature of life, but BioWare whiffed on it as badly as they whiffed everything else in ME3.

This is why outlines and firm world building are important. Mass Effect's world building sins are many. Like DNA Chirality is a thing, it's not the big thing they make it out to be, we eat things with opposite chirality all the time. Also, everyone should know what Quarians look like inside their suits, they have Space Internet and Space Porn, and the Quarians were around for a while before the Geth happened. It's just laziness, which has always been one of BioWare's biggest problems.

 

[Secret Asshole]

I don't give a shit unless they remake Mass Effect 3.

 

[Overcast]

It is a theme in game, although I hate how Ashley gets shit in the fan base for not trusting the Council races.

Right? I felt she was probably one of the more nuanced human characters in this respect. Your entire family gets burdened with the fact your grandfather was the first human to surrender to the Turians during the First Contact War, impeding your ability to advance in your career. Of course you're going to feel bitter towards aliens.

You wouldn't see a character like her nowadays because "MUH DIVERSITY" overtakes any form of common sense now in the writing scene.

Her new look in 3 was god fucking awful though. Did not fit her character at all.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

Right? I felt she was probably one of the more nuanced human characters in this respect. Your entire family gets burdened with the fact your grandfather was the first human to surrender to the Turians during the First Contact War, impeding your ability to advance in your career. Of course you're going to feel bitter towards aliens.

You wouldn't see a character like her nowadays because "MUH DIVERSITY" overtakes any form of common sense now in the writing scene.

Her new look in 3 was god fucking awful though. Did not fit her character at all.

Chris L'Etoile is a great character writer and all three of his characters were nuanced and well like, the other two being Legion and Thane. It's why they all felt hollow in ME3, or in Legion's case did a complete 180. Legion and the Geth didn't want to be individuals in ME2, but in ME3 now want to be cliched Real Boys. The best part was that it wasn't like Ashley didn't get along with non-humans. The teammate she was closest to in ME1 was Tali, so it was more that she didn't trust the council races because they were dicks, but had no beef with the Quarians. Who were also victims of the Council races being dicks.

Her look in ME3 made me think about her comment in ME1 about wearing a tinfoil miniskirt and thighhigh boots. They didn't even make me take her out to dinner first.

 

[6MillionCoofs]

If it is not on Switch I will not care.

 

[Milwaukee Macho Man]

Legions and the Geths complete 180 in ME3 is why I kill them every time. They're clearly indoctrinated and not worth trusting.

 

[HeyYou]

Considering the fact that Mass Effect 2 retconned the geth siding with the Reapers as being like 5% of the total geth, I can't exactly fault Mass Effect 3 for retconning them again in a different direction. I can definitely see the sprinklings of the idea even in 2, what with Legion wondering how the geth diverged in opinion so drastically.

Legions and the Geths complete 180 in ME3 is why I kill them every time. They're clearly indoctrinated and not worth trusting.

That doesn't really make sense. Wouldn't giving the geth individuality prevent mass indoctrination?

 

[Berrakh]

This will be glorious(ly shit)

 

[Milwaukee Macho Man]

Considering the fact that Mass Effect 2 retconned the geth siding with the Reapers as being like 5% of the total geth, I can't exactly fault Mass Effect 3 for retconning them again in a different direction. I can definitely see the sprinklings of the idea even in 2, what with Legion wondering how the geth diverged in opinion so drastically.


That doesn't really make sense. Wouldn't giving the geth individuality prevent mass indoctrination?

That's assuming the Geth arent lying to you in the first place. Letting them use Reaper tech for anything at that point is stupid since they've already willingly aligned with the Reapers for a stupid reason.

Also individuality has never stopped indoctrination before. It isnt like all the living species that were indoctrinated didnt have individuality.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

That's assuming the Geth arent lying to you in the first place. Letting them use Reaper tech for anything at that point is stupid since they've already willingly aligned with the Reapers for a stupid reason.

Also individuality has never stopped indoctrination before. It isnt like all the living species that were indoctrinated didnt have individuality.

I think the original idea Drew K had about the Geth is that they were supposed to mimic his vision of the Reapers. The Geth are a collection of VIs that can mimic an AI while the Reapers are the collected mind of an entire race or some such. BioWare's remaining writers were creative enough to handle that, so we got something completely different in ME3 for no in universe reason.

I still would have prefer the Reapers never explaining who and what they are and why they do what they do. You don't need to know, it doesn't actually matter to you, you just need to stop them. Otherwise you end up with Star Child.

 

[HeyYou]

I think the original idea Drew K had about the Geth is that they were supposed to mimic his vision of the Reapers. The Geth are a collection of VIs that can mimic an AI while the Reapers are the collected mind of an entire race or some such. BioWare's remaining writers were creative enough to handle that, so we got something completely different in ME3 for no in universe reason.

I still would have prefer the Reapers never explaining who and what they are and why they do what they do. You don't need to know, it doesn't actually matter to you, you just need to stop them. Otherwise you end up with Star Child.

Well, from a certain perspective, everything Sovereign said in 1 was written to sound threatening and mysterious and there wasn't actually any depth to it. If their motivations were never explained at all we would have an alternate Mass Effect 3 where everyone would complain about the writers having no idea what they wanted to do with the Reapers, or what their motivations were, and instead just bullshitted with badass sounding lines.

 

[WinchesterPremium]

That's assuming the Geth arent lying to you in the first place. Letting them use Reaper tech for anything at that point is stupid since they've already willingly aligned with the Reapers for a stupid reason.

Also individuality has never stopped indoctrination before. It isnt like all the living species that were indoctrinated didnt have individuality.

Wasn't it actually the opposite? The Rachni Queen had some immunity to it because of their hivemind in the same game.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

Well, from a certain perspective, everything Sovereign said in 1 was written to sound threatening and mysterious and there wasn't actually any depth to it. If their motivations were never explained at all we would have an alternate Mass Effect 3 where everyone would complain about the writers having no idea what they wanted to do with the Reapers, or what their motivations were, and instead just bullshitted with badass sounding lines.

Given the level of talent of BioWare's writers? Probably. It's entirely possible to pull it off, but if the Reaper's are going to pull the godlike and mysterious card, you have to play it straight. You can't make them mundane and nothing more than poorly programmed AI. They gave themselves a great device in Indoctrination and then never really use it. The reality is, Mass Effect flirted with depth but nothing more. Like most BioWare world building, it's a nice looking surface layer, but no depth. That's why no one knows what a Quarian looks like under the suit. Everyone in universe should know, they have Space Internet, the Quarians have been around, there was a time when they didn't wear suits. BioWare never seriously thought about it, Casey Hudson was too busy jerking it to Blueberry Waifu.

 

[Aidan]

I can't wait for ME1 remake to bomb because everyone who liked ME2 and ME3 didn't like ME1.
They also have shit taste.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

I can't wait for ME1 remake to bomb because everyone who liked ME2 and ME3 didn't like ME1.
They also have shit taste.

Wait, for real? Here I am enjoying all 3 lol.

 

[The Bovinian Derivative]

Given the level of talent of BioWare's writers? Probably. It's entirely possible to pull it off, but if the Reaper's are going to pull the godlike and mysterious card, you have to play it straight. You can't make them mundane and nothing more than poorly programmed AI. They gave themselves a great device in Indoctrination and then never really use it. The reality is, Mass Effect flirted with depth but nothing more.

The bioware cliche chart demands that the reapers must be dark and mysterious without any depth because that's what all the previous big bads were.

 

[Aidan]

Wait, for real? Here I am enjoying all 3 lol.

I'm being a snob, but I also didn't even play 3. 2 was ok but a big downgrade imo so I just sorta gave up on the series then and there. 1 was great and pretty unique, it reminded me of old swat games where you commanded your team into cover. eg Republic Commando. (aka star wars swat)

 

[Notgoodwithusernames]

The bioware cliche chart demands that the reapers must be dark and mysterious without any depth because that's what all the previous big bads were.

From that chart it seems like KOTOR 1 and Jade Empire are pretty basic template Bioware (not thats that is necessarily a bad thing since I quite like Kotor 1 even though its sequel is better in every single way. Havent played Jade Empire though)