A Brief History on Mass Effect

Mass Effect is a game series that was released by BioWare in 2007. It’s set in the not too distant future as Humanity has finally reached the space age and discovered that it wasn’t alone in the universe. After a stellar trilogy starring Commander John/Jane Shepard as he/she travels through the known universe with their crew solving various conflicts, BioWare tried to kick start another trilogy. Mass Effect Andromeda was hyped up to be as good as the previous trilogy, but fell short once the game was released. It starred the pathfinder Scott/Sara Ryder after a colonization attempt made by the main species in the original Mass Effect Trilogy. I’ll mostly be covering the history of the series, but when I get to Andromeda I’ll cover some issues that the fan base had with the game. The fan base had several grievances with the game after launch, I’ll also cover the issues that I noticed when I played through the game. Before I continue I should note that I will be referencing the protagonists by their last name to remove as much confusion as possible.

First I’ll cover the baseline story of both games in case any of you haven’t played the games. In Mass Effect Shepard’s team is tasked with checking up on a human colony; Eden Prime. Shepard is warned by some of the ancient technology unearthed by archaeologists that some grave threat is making its way to the galaxy. Shepard and his crew, which is a mixture of badass bounty hunters to space cops, eventually find out the nature of the threat. A sentient mechanical race called the “Reapers” were making their way to the galaxy to cleanse the galaxy of all advanced life forms. Not much else of interest happens in Mass Effect 1 that affects the galaxy as a whole except who lives at the end of the conflict. If you’ve maxed out your paragon (basically good boy points) or your renegade (bad boy points) you can keep Wrex, a Krogan bounty hunter, from dying. And one member of your team eventually has to make the ultimate sacrifice; either Ashley Williams or Kaiden Alenko have to be left behind by Shepard when he goes to the final fight.

In Mass Effect 2 Shepard is mortally wounded by a group of lesser known aliens called the Collectors. He is revived by a terrorist organization Cerberus more specifically by the Illusive Man. Shepard and his new crew, including a scorned cop turned vigilante (Yes this is the space cop from Mass Effect 1) and an assassin with a terminal illness and a heart of gold, set forth investigating the Collector threat and their apparent interest in abducting humans. Shepard also of course knocks out some minor galactic conflicts during his investigation. Shepard figures out that the Collectors are working for the Reapers and subsequently shuts them down. The ending that most players get in the game has everyone in Shepard’s squad living; however, everyone, including Shepard himself, can die in the final mission.

Mass Effect 3 finds Shepard in the midst of a court martial for his involvement with Cerberus and for some of his attempts to slow the Reaper’s advance. The Reapers’ however assault earth, and leave it in ruins at the very beginning of Mass Effect 3. This leaves Shepard in charge of the counter assault on the Reapers. With him he has his crack team, the same vexed space cop turned vigilante turned secret task force leader from the other two games, and the last surviving Prothean from the last Reaper cleansing. Eventually Shepard (or at least my Shepard) unites the galaxy, cures the Krogans of a sterilizing disease, ends a centuries long war, and rekindles a romance with a fiery psionic former prisoner and lab rat after saving her students from Cerberus. All of this leads up to a conflict with the Reaper host on earth. Shepard stands with humanity in a drag out fight, where most of the attacking forces are decimated, except for Shepard and his friend Anderson. They board the giant Reaper and a Cerberus terrorist, the Illusive Man, attacks and wounds Anderson. The conflict comes to a head when Shepard ends up in the network hub of the Reaper collective. Shepard is faced with three choices. Either destroy the Reapers, control the Reapers, or synthesize with the Reapers. I personally chose to destroy the Reapers, but I have played the game three times to get all of the endings.

The Shepard Trilogy is one of the best gaming series in recent history, and I would say of all time. But then came Mass Effect Andromeda. The story had little to no reference to the Reaper situation and followed Ryder as he, his father, and a host of other sentient life, traveled out to the Andromeda galaxy. However Ryder isn’t a big shot hero at the start of the game, he’s just a kid (granted a skilled kid) who served in the Alliance and received informal special forces training from his dad.There’s also a Sara Ryder, but in my story she was in a coma for most of the game. Alec Ryder is the hero at the beginning of the story, but sacrifices himself to save his son. But there’s an issue, all of the planets that were habitable when they left weren’t habitable at all when they got there, hence the senior Ryder’s death. So, Ryder, an illegally created sentient AI, an alien hunter who fights for the freedom of his people, and a scorned first responder travel a new galaxy in an attempt to find a home for the millions of new beings in the galaxy. Sound familiar? Without getting into too much detail, Ryder ends up finding several planets to colonize using climate changing technology, killed a bunch of remnant technology that were literally flying metal worms, nearly committed genocide on a tyrannical bunch of aliens, set up for a continuation in the series.

Now onto the fan base’s outrage. It was entirely understandable, when the game was announced the fans thought that there would be more proverbial meat and potatoes to the game, basically you find a planet, make it hospitable, kill giant metal remnant worm, rinse repeat. There was also a strange brokenness to the graphics of the game people were rendered weirdly, bugs were very frequent, and the fan base was not happy about bugs. The last notable issue that I ran into was the lack of noting of Shepard, after playing all of the games in chronological order I fell back in love with Shepard’s story, and was upset that there was one, maybe two references to everyone’s favorite commander. I understand that they wanted it to be a standalone game, and if you take it as a standalone game it’s a pretty good game; but stack it up against Shepard’s legacy and it was doomed to fail. It was the start to what probably would have been a great trilogy, but fans couldn’t get over how lack luster it was. But unlike Mass Effect 1, which was also lack luster, Andromeda didn’t have a projected release date for the sequel, and Andromeda had a horde of fans that wanted more of Shepard’s antics. Maybe the franchise will come back someday, I certainly hope so!

Below are some pictures from Mass Effect Andromeda and a few links to wiki pages explaining some of the races in the game, there’s also some interesting Mass Effect history, and a video going into much more depth than my article did!

The Tempest pulls onto Elaaden, a desert planet, in search of a hospitable home

The Scourge is a mess of corruption that is scattered across the Andromeda Galaxy, causing shipwrecks and environmental havoc

Video of Shepard’s trilogy story explained:

Video of Andromeda’s story explained:

The Geth are a fascinating race of sentient machines! Read more about them here!:

The Krogan are by far my favorite race in the Mass Effect Universe! They’re bred for war and do it well!

The Turians are basically the America of the Mass Effect universe, they are the strongest policing force in the Milky Way!

Have you ever wondered what happens when someone who lives their entire lives inside of a clean room? The Quarians don’t have to! This race has such a nonexistent immune system that they have to live in sealed suits!

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Cover picture taken from: PCWorld