If you’re like me and haven’t played the original Mass Effect trilogy in some time, then boy do I have some good news for you if you have the game on PC or are thinking of grabbing a copy on Steam. A pair of wildly impressive mods for the Legendary Edition remaster of everyone’s favorite Xbox 360-era space opera trilogy contains so many exciting tweaks and so much new material that even I, someone who thought I was probably never gonna play those games again, is now thinking about how I’m gonna clear hard-drive space to hit the stars once more.
The LE3 Diversification Project (the White House is already upset about it) and Spectre Expansion Mod from virtuoso modder Tydeous and a team of talented editors sound too good to be true. Check out the trailer and deep dive here:
For those who don’t have 17 minutes to check out the video, let me break down the highlights of what’s on offer in these super neat mods:
- 4 new combat missions
- 1 new hub map
- 12 new cutscenes
- 8 altered cutscenes
- 3 new apartment decorations
- 6 updated character appearances
And there’s more than just what’s in that list. From making subtle changes like replacing the textures on dead bodies to be more accurate to the lore of the world, to performing incredible feats of digital archaeology in restoring cutscenes that were only referred to in snippets of code in the original game’s beta, the mods are packed with tons of new things to see and explore. The mods also expand how you can take in the world. For example, at the Purgatory night club from Mass Effect 2, you can now order drinks that were featured in Mass Effect: The Official Cocktail Book.
Unfortunately, though it’s well-deserved after such hard work, modder Tydeos is going on a hiatus now that his work on these mods is complete. However, according to the deep dive video, should he return in the future, he hopes to expand the four brand new missions the mod adds to the game to match the scale found in official, BioWare-brewed quests.
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