With the release of Mass Effect Legendary Edition, fans of the epic space opera game series had the chance to return to one of gaming’s richest worlds and rediscover what they loved about BioWare’s masterpiece. Not only would the entire Mass Effect trilogy be available on a newer generation of consoles and PC, but it could now be experienced with enhanced visuals, reduced loading screens, and 4K HDR capability. But the main thing about these games that pulls fans in is the story. From the outset, players take on the role of Commander Shepard and find themselves embroiled in a mysterious conflict they don’t quite understand. The questions raised in the early hours of the game keep players intrigued and encourage them to press on for answers, allowing them to fall in love with the world in the process.
Mass Effect 2 released in 2010, three years after the original, and it carried on Commander Shepard’s story of trying to find a way to save the galaxy from the dreaded race of sentient machines known as Reapers. What the sequel does, though, is toy with the player’s expectations right from the opening cutscene. Mass Effect 2 is widely regarded as one of the best video game sequels of all time and one of the few to surpass the original in terms of quality and enjoyability, and it does this by taking a risk that, by all rights, should have alienated fans of the original game.
A Fall From Grace
At the beginning of Mass Effect 2, we see Shepard’s ship, the Normandy, cruising through space, and hear some mentions of geth, the first game’s main enemy and a common nuisance for the galaxy. Most players would be itching to jump back into the Commander’s armoured boots and take on whatever new threat BioWare has for them…but things don’t quite pan out that way. When a mystery ship appears, enormous in size and initially misidentified as a geth vessel, the Normandy is totally obliterated and Commander Shepard, the saviour of the galaxy, gets jettisoned into space with a damaged oxygen tank. Shepard struggles for air as they descend into the void, only to go limp moments later and plummet through the atmosphere of a mystery planet, dead.
It’s a ballsy move, one not a lot of developers would have made. Even after one game, Shepard was a beloved character and a memorable, charismatic protagonist to play as. Personally, Mass Effect 2 was my introduction to the series so I never really had that moment of total shock, but I imagine there were a lot of jaws on the floor back in 2010 on launch day. But it’s an emotional moment, even without the pre-existing attachment to the character, and it does feel like a sudden left turn. However, BioWare have a plan in place. They aren’t going to kill off the previous game’s protagonist in the opening few minutes and replace them with an unknown.
The relief begins to sweep in when the Commander’s body is recovered by a nondescript organisation and the game shows us some disconnected pieces of footage, giving us just enough to understand that Shepard’s body is somehow being revived. One character creation screen later and the player takes control, navigating their way through the station currently under attack. Multiple new faces introduce themselves, but only one of them is forthcoming about who is actually responsible for Shepard’s revival; Cerberus.
The Sins Of The Father
Anyone who paid attention to the first game’s slew of side quests will recognise the name Cerberus, and not for any good reason. Simply put, they are considered a terrorist organisation by most of civilised space, full to the brim with extremists, ethically skewed scientists, and all manner of unpleasant individual. Many of the side quests that the shadowy group features in revolve around human experimentation and kidnapping. What’s more, if the player chooses the ‘sole survivor’ background for Commander Shepard, they can discover that Cerberus were responsible for the deaths of their entire unit on the planet Akuze. In essence, BioWare take yet another risk by making the player work for the bad guys. The first two companions the game grants the player insist Shepard meet with the head of the organisation and learn why they were brought back from the dead.
During the meeting, the Illusive Man introduces himself and explains that human colonies are disappearing overnight. He believes the Reapers are responsible, and poured an absurd amount of resources into the revival of the Commander. Two years and several billion credits later, and the once irreparably damaged mass of flesh and bone that had been the galaxy’s greatest hope against extinction was returned to life. With the knowledge of what Cerberus have done in the past, it’s easy to mistrust the Illusive Man-who is wonderfully voiced by Martin Sheen-but the game does not give the player a choice on this point. If they want to experience more of what this series has to offer, they have to suck it up and press on. Gone is the Systems Alliance Navy of the first Mass Effect and the safe, familiar council space the player has come to know. Mass Effect 2 sets its sights on the lawless Terminus Systems, outside the jurisdiction of the galaxy’s main governments. It’s a fitting setting, given the organisation Shepard now works for.
A Ship And A Crew
While Mass Effect 2 is an incredible game all around, its most unique aspect comes in the form of its companions. A large portion of the game is spent waiting for the next lead on the colony abductions and, during this time, Shepard is given a series of dossiers on potential candidates to join their crew. The Illusive Man knows the path ahead is dangerous and he wants only the best at the Commander’s side. Once again, the dynamic is flipped on its head when compared to the first game. Where before Shepard was accompanied by a lot of cut-and-dry heroic types, with a sprinkling of bounty hunter and vigilante here and there, the dossiers forwarded on by the Illusive Man detail assassins, fugitives, morally ambiguous mercenaries, and many other unsavoury individuals. There’s a very clear line forming between the first game and its sequel. While 2007’s Mass Effect painted a pretty picture of a tight-knit band of comrades racing against the clock to save the galaxy from certain doom, the picture painted by Mass Effect 2 is a lot grittier. Everything from the environments to the characters screams of the unmistakable crime-infested cesspool section of the franchise that every space opera dips its feet into at one point or another.
The player can decide how to recruit these colourful characters into the Normandy’s ranks and each one comes with their own story. After enough time has passed, each of these companions will offer a loyalty mission, completion of which will secure their loyalty for the final mission, as the name would suggest. Failure to complete the loyalty missions, along with a few ship upgrades some of them will make available for you, will result in a number of deaths during the suicide mission at the end of the game. These missions are where the game really comes into its own. Instead of taking you through a carefully crafted linear narrative and urging you to work towards the final mission, Mass Effect 2 actively encourages players to make sure they are ready before jumping into a quest they may not return from. Anytime an important task must be completed, the game will allow the player to refuse and inform the crew that there is still more to be done. BioWare want the player to form a bond with these companions before the day of reckoning, when the people they’ve spent most of their time with put their lives on the line. And that’s just the thing, most of the game is spent with these characters.
It’s an unconventional approach to an RPG, and one I’ve not seen repeated. Average completion time for Mass Effect 2 without doing any loyalty missions and interacting with the companions as little as possible is around fifteen hours, but completing the game the way BioWare intended, by speaking to each of these unique crewmates and completing their loyalty missions one after the other, puts the completion time between thirty-five and forty hours. And I’m willing to bet it’s possible to complete the main story in under ten hours if one is inclined to speedrun the game. Not a lot of games would have the guts to put the story on hold while you recruit new members of your team and actively encourage you to get to know them and help them out over unravelling the mystery it has been presenting since the outset. It’s safe to say, though, that this unorthodox approach pays off.
A Suicide Mission
Mass Effect 2 exceeded all expectations and went down in history as one of 2010’s greatest video games, even nabbing the coveted Game Of The Year award, but it did so in the most unconventional of ways. There is an argument that BioWare stacked the deck against themselves with how they approached it. For a long time, there has been a certain expectation from sequels, with a thirst to see more of the same but done in a new and interesting way. Mass Effect 2 never felt content with this analysis and decided to go its own way, convention be damned. Having Shepard die in the opening minutes and being recruited into the ranks of Cerberus, a known terrorist organisation and enemy of Shepard’s previous allies, would have been risk enough. It would be like playing Grand Theft Auto VI where the main character is a police officer. But BioWare were only just getting started and they presented players with an emphasis on the Normandy’s crew and Shepard’s relationship with them.
At the risk of incurring disappointment and even anger from fans by changing much of what fans loved about the original game, BioWare took the plunge and turned the accepted sequel dynamic on its head. Cliché went out the window from jump and they crafted a story that could have been incredibly divisive, and probably would have been if it had been made a few years later. Just look at The Last Of Us Part 2, a game so different from its predecessor it had many self-proclaimed ‘fans’ sending death threats to Naughty Dog and the performance capture artists. But the sequel to 2007’s Mass Effect threads the needle so finely that it has become more beloved in the hearts of many than the game that started the franchise. Like Commander Shepard and their trusted crew, BioWare embarked on a suicide mission to make their vision a reality, knowing full well it might be doomed to fail. But they pushed on into the unknown and came out on top, against all odds. And, boy, am I glad that they did.
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