I’ll be real with you, there’s a lot to play right now. The fall season of releases is in full swing and is especially full of heavyweight RPGS like Metaphor: ReFantazio and Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which are coming down the pipeline later this month. However, if I could draw your attention away from the incoming tidal wave of fresh new role-playing games for a moment, there’s a deal on another storied Bioware RPG franchise that’s worth mentioning right now while you can still snag it for an incredibly cheap price.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition, which comes packing the original trilogy of Bioware sci-fi games, is currently discounted to $8.99 on Xbox. It won’t be for much longer though, making this a deal that you ought to snap up as soon as possible. If you were ever worried about getting the most for your money, I cannot possibly recommend this trio of games enough, with their epic and absorbing space-faring narrative spanning dozens of hours per game. Each is filled with mesmerizing characters, tantalizing romances and mysteries, and lots of tough choices to make. There’s a metric ton of exciting third-person shooter encounters, which often challenge players to make the best of their character classes as well as those of their allies, and strategically deploy the right weapons and skills to survive to see another day. if that’s the kind of thing you look to RPGs for, this seminal series from the mid-to-late aughts delivers in spades.
The Mass Effect games take place in a future where humanity has discovered the means to travel over incredibly long distances across space via these left-behind devices known as mass relays. These mass relays help humanity establish contact with several species of aliens, and they all mostly come together to form a unified society. However, various threats begin to crop up at the time that the first game begins, which set in motion a sweeping adventure across the stars and back to save the galaxy from an ancient and advanced civilization that’s been dormant for a long time.
You play as Commander Shepard, a decorated war hero and eventual black ops Spectre agent, who finds himself (or herself) caught in the middle of all of this strife and bearing the weight of every living thing on his shoulders. It’s a lot for him to do on his own though, and so across the entire trilogy of games, Shepard comes to rely on many allies, friends, some rivals, and even a handful of lovers or partners. This focus on interpersonal relationships is perhaps the single most enduring aspect of Mass Effect.
Given that focus, it’s hugely important that Mass Effect has one of the most memorable casts in video games. Over the course of three games, many recurring characters enjoy rather full narrative arcs, which is uncommon these days. Urdnot Wrex and Garrus are two examples of characters that recur throughout every installment, enjoying a bevy of character development in each title against a backdrop of large and complex narratives concerning their shared histories and those of their people. Many of the cast, like Garrus, Thane, Tali, Liara, Miranda, and more, have become objects of romantic and sexual fascination for many players, and the romances and sex scenes that have sprung from the series have imprinted themselves on the impressionable minds of many players since 2007.
Besides the deep characters and relationships that Mass Effect has traditionally offered players, it’s also just one of gaming’s few real epic sagas. Even if I don’t rate the games quite as highly as many others do, it’s hard to deny the impressively high standard that the series set, as well as the difficulty that many developers, Bioware included, have had in matching it ever since.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition doesn’t just compile all three of those classic RPGs together, it also serves as a remaster. All three games received some visual reworks, though the earliest game receives the biggest facelift of the bunch due to its age. The collection also features most of the single-player DLC that was released for the games, including the widely beloved Shadow Broker and Citadel expansions for Mass Effect 2 and 3, respectively. Additionally, there are quality-of-life changes that bring the first and second games into alignment with the final installment, including a rework to Mass Effect’s Mako vehicle handling.
In short, you’re getting pretty definitive versions of one of gaming’s biggest stories for a measly 10 bucks. Think of the dumb little things you spend 10 bucks on during an average day. Skip the little treat just once and snag Mass Effect Legendary Edition for cheap while you still can. Considering there’s a sequel coming…eventually, I promise it’ll pay for itself down the line.