Electronic Arts still hasn’t revealed Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, and that’s for a reason. The publisher originally planned to launch the remastered trilogy, that I first reported on back in May, with an October reveal and release. But now EA and developer BioWare are pushing that release into early 2021, according to people familiar with the development.
The primary factor holding up development, beyond the pandemic, is the original Mass Effect game. It currently does not live up to the quality of the rest of the package. It would make a poor first impression for new players, and it might disappoint fans who then won’t go on to play and experience the impressive upgrades for Mass Effect 2 and ME 3.
This is a problem with both the visuals and gameplay. The people working on the game understand the issues, and they want to do right by the franchise’s fans.
But one aspect those fans won’t get to experience regardless of how much time BioWare gets is the multiplayer. EA doesn’t plan to include the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer in this package. Something like that would turn this remaster into a live-service game, and that is likely not worth the investment. The publisher could instead put those resources into Apex Legends or another, new cooperative shooter — although that is just my speculation.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition will, however, include all of the downloadable content for all three Mass Effect games. This will enable players to get the full experience included in the purchase price.
This might disappoint fans, but that’s on me and not EA or BioWare. They’re holding back until they’re certain.