Mass Effect: Legendary Editionis now officially announced after months of rumors regarding a remaster of the originalMass Effecttrilogy. BioWare will be bundlingMass Effect,Mass Effect 2,Mass Effect 3, and all of each game’s respective DLC into a single package, to be released in spring 2021. But fans are already worrying thatMass Effect: Legendary Editionwon’t actually include all of each game. BioWare’s announcement made no mention of anyMass Effectmultiplayer being retained inMass Effect: Legendary Edition.
Multiplayer was an addition inMass Effect 3, after both the original game and its sequel were entirely single-player. It was somewhat of a controversial decision at the time, but fans ultimately enjoyedMass Effect 3’s multiplayer for what it was. Despite that, it seems likely thatMass Effect 3’s multiplayer is something that fans would want in a remaster of the trilogy. That’s a substantial amount of great content, plus it ties into the single-player ofMass Effect 3via theGalaxy at War feature.
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The multiplayer mode itself offers players a unique wave-based cooperative experience. Players would take on waves of different types of enemies in increasing difficulty, culminating in a powerful boss. But the depth ofMass Effect 3’s multiplayerwas the class-based progression, which had players unlock abilities that would allow them to more easily defeat certain types of enemies. Squads of complementary classes working together would be able to take on extreme challenges.
First, to clarify, multiplayer hasn’t been confirmed to be absent fromMass Effect: Legendary Edition. It’s just thatBioWarelisted the planned contents of the package and didn’t explicitly mention multiplayer being included. Perhaps it was implied with the mention ofMass Effect 3, since multiplayer was available at launch, but there was a variety of multiplayer DLC and it definitely seems like something BioWare would have mentioned specifically.
It would be understandable if BioWare did decide not to includeMass Effect 3’s multiplayer inMass Effect: Legendary Edition. The package is already bundling inthree large RPGs, each of which having been remastered. Remastering multiplayer may have been too much extra work, or setting up servers for a new release could be asking too much.
It’s still possible thatMass Effect 3’s multiplayer will be included. The standard version ofMass Effect 3’s multiplayer is still up, after all. It’s possible thatMass Effect: Legendary Editionplayers will be able to join the existing playerbase. There are still a lot of questions left to be answered.Mass Effectfanswill just have to be patient for a few more months.
Mass Effect: Legendary Editionreleases spring 2020 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
