Mass Effect Remastered coming soon and new Mass Effect Game in the Works

[Inarius]

But wasn't that what they did?

First they wanted to just jump to the Citadel turn off the relays except theirs and conquer everything. But the Protheans had tinkered with the Keepers so that didn't work. Then they tried to use the Rachni to get to the Citadel and turn on the signal. But the Rachni failed. Then Sovereign tried to find the next tool for this task and eventually came up with Saren and the Geth. But Shepard beat them.

So the direct path to the Citadel wasn't available. So, the Reapers off in the space between universes traveled to their next point of interest the Alpha Relay. And the plan was still pretty much the same. Get to the Alpha Relay so they can get to the Citadel Relay and control the Relay system and their victory is assured. It would just be more dangerous because there's an extra point of failure and they don't get to teleport directly into the Citadel they will still be outside of it and have to fight their way inside to get to the control the relay switch allowing for more reinforcements to attack them until they can shut it off.

But Shepard blows up the Alpha Relay too. So they're down to the slowest least direct method. Direct invasion from the outskirts of the galaxy working their way in. They do not have control of the relay system. Their enemies can still coordinate and move about the galaxy unimpeded. And they will likely loose some members.

Basically what Serenity said, theres about 2000 years from the start of the rachni wars to the reaper invasion. It took them about 2 years to fly to the Alpha relay from the end of Mass Effect 2 so they totally could of done something in that timeframe instead of waiting around for whatever reason. You also have to consider the alpha relay was claimed by the batarians which were a fairly new race so its likely during those time periods it was uninhabited which would of allowed for them to achieve the same level of surprise as just popping out around the citadel would.

[Name_Here]

That could have in theory worked too. The ending could be changed to avoid all questions of the Reapers origins.

I think many players would have been disappointed with that as well, since for three games we got details of weird mysterious nonsensical stuff. Only to not deal with any of it.

It’s kind of a bind. The Reapers motivations were a big enough mystery to get many players attention and desire to know more (even if not yours Anteros). But were never essential enough to the flow of the story or foreshadowed well enough to work as a climax.

I disagree with the idea that not explaining the reaper motivations would have been disappointingfor 2 reasons. The first is the fact that ME3 fell apart once we learned their motivations. Up until then everything was going good little rocky in places but good then we meet the star child who does an exposition dump and presents the three choices and the experience sours real quick.

Second is that the Cthulu mythos is a thing still going strong even though the elder gods' reasoning hasn't been explained beyond "the stars are right" meanwhile Mass Effect is pretty much a franchise on life support that probably isn't hoing to be able to shake off the mortal wounds that were entirely self inflicted.

[GloatingSwine]

I disagree with the idea that not explaining the reaper motivations would have been disappointingfor 2 reasons. The first is the fact that ME3 fell apart once we learned their motivations. Up until then everything was going good little rocky in places but good then we meet the star child who does an exposition dump and presents the three choices and the experience sours real quick.

Second is that the Cthulu mythos is a thing still going strong even though the elder gods' reasoning hasn't been explained beyond "the stars are right" meanwhile Mass Effect is pretty much a franchise on life support that probably isn't hoing to be able to shake off the mortal wounds that were entirely self inflicted.

Primarily though it fell apart because those motivations were at odds with themes presented repeatedly in the trilogy so far.

And dumb.

But moreso the at odds with previous themes thing.

Like the Reapers are clearly based on the Inhibitors from Revelation Space, and their motivations are revealed in that trilogy without making the story implode. (They wipe out advanced spacefaring life to prevent a galaxy-spanning civilisation from arising before the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies collide in about 4.5 billion years. Which won't have significant planetary effects so any civ without spaceflight will be fine, but will fatally disrupt a galaxy-wide civilisation as all the stars get shuffled around by the massive gravities involved, and will have used too many of the galaxy's resources to recover).

So it can be done. But it can't be done if you've sacrificed your details-first sci-fi worldbuilding for chest thumping military shootmans because EA really wanted everything to be Call of Duty. (Seriously, the first ME3 trailer basically even had Soap in).

[Mechalich]

Primarily though it fell apart because those motivations were at odds with themes presented repeatedly in the trilogy so far.

And dumb.

But moreso the at odds with previous themes thing.

It's really the second part. Dumb motives for the existential threat villains work fine. I mean, sometimes the reason is just 'zombies!' The Reapers can just believe that organic and synthetic intelligence are incompatible because of some programming fault and their ancient and alien programming configuration can be almost impossible to solve (which would make the Catalyst essentially an extraordinarily complex codebreaking device to allow you to actually get into the Reapers' core formatting). After all, the Geth were only transformed from a 'kill all organics' threat into possible coexistence by changing part of their core protocols, which you could only do because other Geth told you how to do it.

However, even if there was an alternative ending where you can 'fix' the Reapers, it doesn't really change the fact that the Reapers, as presented over the course of the three games, represent an existential threat that has to be stopped.

So it can be done. But it can't be done if you've sacrificed your details-first sci-fi worldbuilding for chest thumping military shootmans because EA really wanted everything to be Call of Duty. (Seriously, the first ME3 trailer basically even had Soap in).

That's not really an issue unique to Mass Effect. Any game that is based around the adventures of a small squad operating at the tactical level has problems of scale when it comes to dealing with existential threats. Sci-Fi and Space Fantasy settings have it the worst simply because the scale is larger, but ultimately the problem is that if you operative mode of confronting obstacles in game place is to stab/shoot them in the face, you run into an issue when the obstacle is too big to successfully shoot. As a result you end up with a climax that shoehorns in some sort of boss enemy of McGuffin that your team can destroy to serve as a proxy that somehow allows for the tables to be turned.

Mass Effect 1 handled this pretty well - Saren has a link to Sovereign so by killing Saren you temporarily cripple Sovereign and allow your otherwise overmatched fleet to destroy the Reaper. ME2 mostly does this - the Suicide Mission is about fighting past a series of obstacles so you can throw a switch and liquidate the Collectors. The Human Reaper is totally superfluous and misses the point entirely. ME3 gets it even worse because your final conventional contribution happens on Earth and its connection to the struggle to trigger the catalyst is tenuous at best, and then they rest is scripted. The ending basically skips the whole 'final battle' scenario that a conventional RPG really needs - you're supposed to kill the boss and then go to the dramatic cut scene, you can't just skip the boss entirely.

[Rynjin]

Like the Reapers are clearly based on the Inhibitors from Revelation Space, and their motivations are revealed in that trilogy without making the story implode. (They wipe out advanced spacefaring life to prevent a galaxy-spanning civilisation from arising before the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies collide in about 4.5 billion years. Which won't have significant planetary effects so any civ without spaceflight will be fine, but will fatally disrupt a galaxy-wide civilisation as all the stars get shuffled around by the massive gravities involved, and will have used too many of the galaxy's resources to recover).

This sounds...equally as dumb. Applying the same moon logic, do they go around scouring every planet in the universe of intelligent life because their suns will go nova in X billion years? Because the idea seems to be "they're going to die eventually, so we may as well kill them now".

It's no more or less logically coherent than "destroy the squishies because squishies and AI can't get along".

[The_Snark]

This sounds...equally as dumb. Applying the same moon logic, do they go around scouring every planet in the universe of intelligent life because their suns will go nova in X billion years? Because the idea seems to be "they're going to die eventually, so we may as well kill them now".

I think the idea was that they would only have to exterminate people for a finite period of time, and after that they could turn themselves off and in the very long term there would be fewer deaths/less damage? It's still not super-compelling, honestly... but in Revelation Space we don't find out about this ten pages from the end of the last book, which helps. Also, from what I recall the author doesn't expect the characters (or the reader) to accept the AI moon-logic as correct - you are allowed, perhaps even encouraged, to think that they're dogmatic and kind of dumb.

[GloatingSwine]

This sounds...equally as dumb. Applying the same moon logic, do they go around scouring every planet in the universe of intelligent life because their suns will go nova in X billion years? Because the idea seems to be "they're going to die eventually, so we may as well kill them now".

It's no more or less logically coherent than "destroy the squishies because squishies and AI can't get along".

The idea is that if a galactic civilisation arises after the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies have passed through each other, it will be fine. All the wide-scale gravitaitional changes will be over by then. So they're stopping anyone using all the available resources before that happens.

[Anteros]

Yeah, the biggest problem with the Reaper's motivations in Mass Effect isn't that they're wrong. That could be said of almost any antagonist ever. It's that you're not allowed to refute their idiotic reasoning and just have to accept it.

[Artanis]

Yeah, the biggest problem with the Reaper's motivations in Mass Effect isn't that they're wrong. That could be said of almost any antagonist ever. It's that you're not allowed to refute their idiotic reasoning and just have to accept it.

And then, when they later added in the option to tell the Reapers that they're wrong as one of the choices, it was actually a giant middle finger to the fans. "Shepard refused to play along with our stupid scenario, so everybody died and the next cycle played along LIKE WE SAID TO."

[Serenity]

Like, it's fine, in theory, if there's no clear-cut best option. That's clearly what they were going for; the only reason EDI and the Geth are on the chopping block for the Destroy ending is because they wanted people to hesitate to choose it, despite it being on its face everything that we've been working for. But, from a narrative perspective, the choice has to provide *catharsis*. You need an opportunity to feel heroic, even as you're forced to choose what to sacrifice. *Especially* if it's the Big Bad themselves presenting the choices to you, you need to feel able to reject them, come up with something outside their framework, take a third option. That's obviously what the designers wanted Synthesis to be, but it falls flat because A) it's pushed as such *by the Big Bad* and B) only makes sense as a solution within the framework of their 'logic'--so it's impossible for it not to feel as if you're dancing to their tune.

For my money, putting a big choice around the final moments was unnecessary to begin with. Firing the super-weapon and winning is cliche, certainly, but I guarantee, if the game had ended with Shepard hitting an activation switch for the Crucible, collapsing, and then we rolled a series of epilogues that changed based on choices throughout the trilogy, there might have been a few jokes about Bioware writing themselves into a corner that required the Deus ex Machina of the Crucible, but there wouldn't have been a massive backlash.

[LibraryOgre]

Yeah, the biggest problem with the Reaper's motivations in Mass Effect isn't that they're wrong. That could be said of almost any antagonist ever. It's that you're not allowed to refute their idiotic reasoning and just have to accept it.

And then, when they later added in the option to tell the Reapers that they're wrong as one of the choices, it was actually a giant middle finger to the fans. "Shepard refused to play along with our stupid scenario, so everybody died and the next cycle played along LIKE WE SAID TO."

"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering." - The Doctor

I don't think you'd be able to logic the Reapers out of their genocidal programming... I'm sure others have tried in cycles past. The Reapers were winning... that was made clear throughout the 3rd game. The only way you'd convince them differently is to pull a Geth Heretics on them... upload something that let them change their minds. Maybe on your Mac laptop.

[PhoenixPhyre]

"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering." - The Doctor

I don't think you'd be able to logic the Reapers out of their genocidal programming... I'm sure others have tried in cycles past. The Reapers were winning... that was made clear throughout the 3rd game. The only way you'd convince them differently is to pull a Geth Heretics on them... upload something that let them change their minds. Maybe on your Mac laptop.

Yeah. Honestly, the endings were more "meh" than "rage" for me. But talking the Reapers out of genocide? Yeah no. That would involve convincing them that their entire existence was a mistake and that they had needlessly killed countless people. My take is that the Reapers are a self-fulfilling prediction. There would always be war between AI and flesh...because that's what the Reapers had designed themselves to do. Entirely circularly. And their entire existence and purpose revolves around that.

Basically, AI can be just as irrational as flesh. As we saw with the Geth and EDI. And you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

Another quote (apologies to Upton Sinclair):

It is difficult to get a[n] [AI] to understand something, when his [continued existence] depends on his not understanding it.

[Rynjin]

The idea is that if a galactic civilisation arises after the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies have passed through each other, it will be fine. All the wide-scale gravitaitional changes will be over by then. So they're stopping anyone using all the available resources before that happens.

The question is then raised of "why is a galactic civilization that exists 4.5 billion years from hence" somehow a more valid one than the one that exists now. Why does it matter if the resources are used up now or at an unspecified point in the future? If the issue is resource consumption, why would they not keep wiping out civilizations even once the galactic shift has happened? On teh flipside, what value do resources have if they're not being used?

It just raises too many questions.

[Taevyr]

Honestly, I've basically lost all interest in more ME since they're unlikely to ever return to the original premise/flavor, which got screwed up as early as ME2.

ME1, with its overly-freeform gunplay, empty-planet exploration and terrible elevator rides, had a depth to it's writing: it was almost a classic lovecraftian story about dealing with the unknown: It had you, the guy who happened to get too touchy-feely with a mystery artefact, deal with enemies you couldn't possibly truly understand who convert your people with horrific, mysterious means. You fight an opponent you couldn't hope to fight directly, and could only hold them off with the craziest of last-ditch efforts, knowing they'd be back, which is exactly how ME1 ends: victory, in the full knowledge that it's only temporarily. And Shepard and his team are never treated as universal badasses: they're capable, sure, but they're also extremely out of their depth, and Shepard doesn't get any respect for chasing his 'insane theory" until the end. This thread is also present throughout the game: things like the Thorian and the Asari "embrace eternity" fit in perfectly with the ME blend of lovecraft and sci-fi.

Meanwhile, ME2 is basically a heist movie: you've got a small team and plenty of funds, but need to gather specialists and specific intel to pull off the "impossible scheme". If you do the preparation, you pull it off without a hitch and look awesome as you leave with an explosion behind you. And just like the average heist movie, it's all held together by the massively cool introductions of each team member, and the heartwarming character moments throughout the movie. And those weren't badly written, but they're on a completely different quality/depthness level than the afore-mentioned cosmic horror story.

Then ME3 arrives, and now you're facing reapers personally, being the "sole hope for the galaxy", and the formerly unfathomable beings get ****ty motivation that wasn't ever really necessary in the first place.

As such, I don't have much hope for a new ME game that fits my taste: they had an amazing setting in ME1, and squandered it to attract fans of shooters and power fantasies. Which, being a company, I can't fault'em for because it unfortunately sells better. But I'll always wonder what could've been done with it.

Addendum: it also feels similar (to me, at least) to how Dragon age ended up, though to me it feels like it got messed up less badly: Inquisition still had some dark moments, but it's not nearly the crapsack dark fantasy world origins was, or even DA2 to a certain degree. My biggest problem there would be going from "Freshly inducted soldier with limited experience/refugee just trying to keep his family/city intact" to "THE Inquisitor, Herald of local Jesus, Bearer of the Hand Mark of Awesome". I'd rather not be part of any Mary Sue fantasies, thank you.

[Anteros]

"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering." - The Doctor

I don't think you'd be able to logic the Reapers out of their genocidal programming... I'm sure others have tried in cycles past. The Reapers were winning... that was made clear throughout the 3rd game. The only way you'd convince them differently is to pull a Geth Heretics on them... upload something that let them change their minds. Maybe on your Mac laptop.

Who said anything about talking them down? The problem isn't that you can't convince them, it's that you're forced to agree.

[factotum]

Then ME3 arrives, and now you're facing reapers personally, being the "sole hope for the galaxy", and the formerly unfathomable beings get ****ty motivation that wasn't ever really necessary in the first place.

Not to mention that one of these unfathomably ancient evil monsters manages to get taken down by a Thresher Maw...because apparently it forgot it could fly and the Thresher Maw couldn't.

[Morty]

Yeah. Honestly, the endings were more "meh" than "rage" for me.

My feelings went from anger to disappointment to acceptance. By now it's mostly "can we talk about anything else in relation to the series?".

[Serenity]

"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering." - The Doctor

I don't think you'd be able to logic the Reapers out of their genocidal programming... I'm sure others have tried in cycles past. The Reapers were winning... that was made clear throughout the 3rd game. The only way you'd convince them differently is to pull a Geth Heretics on them... upload something that let them change their minds. Maybe on your Mac laptop.

1) I doubt anyone has tried to point out the flaws in the Reapers' logic before, because no one has known what the Reapers' motivation *is* before. The ending is fairly explicit that no one before Shepard has had an audience with the Star Child before--though the Star Child does expect it to happen again now that it's happened once.
2) There's not exactly a dearth of precedent in the narrative DNA of Mass Effect for breaking AI by talking in this way.

3) Disregarding that and ruling a Persuade check out anyway, sure, maybe they can't be reasoned with. But 'uploading something that lets/makes them change their mind is already basically what the Crucible is described as doing. So let us actually *do* that!

[Taevyr]

Not to mention that one of these unfathomably ancient evil monsters manages to get taken down by a Thresher Maw...because apparently it forgot it could fly and the Thresher Maw couldn't.

Oh god, that brings me back. It was awesome to see, sure, but I couldn't help but think "really? REALLY?"

Didn't feel nearly as bad as Rannoch, though. Summoning a "Primal Thresher Maw" from the depths still felt a lot more fitting than "Cosmic Horror? Lol, just avoid the lasers and point our orbital bombardment at it and you'll be fine"

[Serenity]

Oh god, that brings me back. It was awesome to see, sure, but I couldn't help but think "really? REALLY?"

Didn't feel nearly as bad as Rannoch, though. Summoning a "Primal Thresher Maw" from the depths still felt a lot more fitting than "Cosmic Horror? Lol, just avoid the lasers and point our orbital bombardment at it and you'll be fine"

Which, hey, if they wanted to write us fighting the Reapers more directly like that, that's fine too. There's tools in the narrative that could have leaned into that--the end of ME1 is pretty clear that the Reapers are deadset against having to wage a conventional war against a united galaxy; they've been delayed a not-insignificant amount of time past their usual schedule, allowing an opportunity for the galaxy to develop beyond what they're used to facing; and Sovereign's failure at the end of ME1 means the galaxy is forewarned and even has the potential to analyze Reaper tech. (Of course, then they threw much of that aside in ME2. And from a thematic, narrative perspective, you can't be having these on-foot Reaper confrontations on the one hand, and still go all in on the idea of 'there's no conventional victory here.'

[Zevox]

Oh god, that brings me back. It was awesome to see, sure, but I couldn't help but think "really? REALLY?"

Didn't feel nearly as bad as Rannoch, though. Summoning a "Primal Thresher Maw" from the depths still felt a lot more fitting than "Cosmic Horror? Lol, just avoid the lasers and point our orbital bombardment at it and you'll be fine"

Honestly, the concept that the Reapers were supposed to be "cosmic horrors" was always a joke to me. I seriously rolled my eyes when I first played ME1 and heard Sovereign claim it was somehow unknowable to me. It's a machine, not a Lovecraftian horror from dimensions beyond mortal comprehension, there's nothing "unknowable" about it. That's part of why I was always only moderately impressed with ME1 - Sovereign and the Reapers were always overblown, uninteresting antagonists, IMO. The rest of the setting just made up for it enough to get me interested, and then ME2 came around and made me an actual fan by improving on basically everything I cared about.

[Saintheart]

Remastered Mass Effect trilogy, huh?

My only question is the same one that Rambo asked at the beginning of First Blood Part 2: "Do we get to win this time?"

[LibraryOgre]

Had a mental image earlier today, that you all have to share:

The cast of ME2, in succession. You see Shepard, then each of the cast members says "You son of a bitch, I'm in."

[Artanis]

Had a mental image earlier today, that you all have to share:

The cast of ME2, in succession. You see Shepard, then each of the cast members says "You son of a bitch, I'm in."

You son of a bitch, I'm in.

[Taevyr]

Had a mental image earlier today, that you all have to share:

The cast of ME2, in succession. You see Shepard, then each of the cast members says "You son of a bitch, I'm in."

You son of a bitch, I'm in

(but only if shepard replies to each and everyone of'em with "I should go")

[Bunny Commando]

Honestly, the concept that the Reapers were supposed to be "cosmic horrors" was always a joke to me. I seriously rolled my eyes when I first played ME1 and heard Sovereign claim it was somehow unknowable to me. It's a machine, not a Lovecraftian horror from dimensions beyond mortal comprehension, there's nothing "unknowable" about it. That's part of why I was always only moderately impressed with ME1 - Sovereign and the Reapers were always overblown, uninteresting antagonists, IMO. The rest of the setting just made up for it enough to get me interested, and then ME2 came around and made me an actual fan by improving on basically everything I cared about.

It's made even worse by the fact that at the end of ME1 you actually defeat Sovereign.
Yes, there were lots of casualties but Sovereign had the advantage of surprise, an inside agent and a fleet of its own. If I can defeat a Reaper that had everything going its way through conventional means, why should I fear it?

Bioware had to make the Council races act foolishly and underestimate the Reapers - otherwise there wouldn't be no threat.

[Psyren]

I'm looking forward to this, and definitely plan to support it so they realize there's still demand out there for ME5 even after Andromeda flopped.

Things I'm hoping for:

- Kaidan M/M romance being fixed across all three games without modding.

- Incorporating some of the many, many vastly improved appearance options (particularly hair and makeup for Femshep) to the character creator that the community added via mods.

- Fixing some of the narrative bugs that required savegame editing to bypass e.g. the Conrad Verner bug.

- ALL DLC weapons included (e.g. the Gamestop-exclusive blackhole gun for ME2.)

- Getting back into a revived ME3 multiplayer (hopefully they either remove or massively scale back the lootbox character acquisition, this is the game that arguably spawned this hellish trend.) ME3's multiplayer to this very day completely blows Andromeda's out of the water, and many other shooters besides.


For the endings - I genuinely don't care, other than they'd better not make Indoctrination Theory canon. If they add more slides/clarifications, fine.

It's made even worse by the fact that at the end of ME1 you actually defeat Sovereign.
Yes, there were lots of casualties but Sovereign had the advantage of surprise, an inside agent and a fleet of its own. If I can defeat a Reaper that had everything going its way through conventional means, why should I fear it?

*shrug*
Cthulhu was stopped by a boat.

[InvisibleBison]

It's made even worse by the fact that at the end of ME1 you actually defeat Sovereign.
Yes, there were lots of casualties but Sovereign had the advantage of surprise, an inside agent and a fleet of its own. If I can defeat a Reaper that had everything going its way through conventional means, why should I fear it?

Bioware had to make the Council races act foolishly and underestimate the Reapers - otherwise there wouldn't be no threat.

Sovereign was only defeated because it stopped fighting back and lowered its shields, which it only did because Shepard killed its Saren-avatar. In future confrontations with Reapers, there's no guarantee that those circumstances would be repeated.

[Zevox]

- ALL DLC weapons included (e.g. the Gamestop-exclusive blackhole gun for ME2.)

We already know this is happening - all DLC and promotional content is going to be included in Legendary Edition. The others on your list I'd be more skeptical about, especially ones that would involving adding things that never existed before, like adding the Kaiden male romance to ME1/2.

[Morty]

I really wouldn't expect any changes to the story or gameplay from this. Not major ones, at least.