Bioware Announces Mass Effect: Legendary Edition

So the big news this weekend was obviously the presidential election, and most brands and companies had the good sense not to try and announce anything while everyone's eyes were glued to CNN waiting to see if American democracy was over or not. BioWare, however, was forced to be an exception, because even though this was one of the most historic and consequential votes of our lifetime, November 7 is still Mass Effect day, and fans still expect some kind of news to be announced to celebrate the occasion.

And BioWare did not disappoint, because they announced the Mass Effect: Legendary Collection:

"Mass Effect Legendary Edition will include single-player base content and DLC from Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3, plus promo weapons, armors, and packs – all remastered and optimized for 4k Ultra HD. It will be available in Spring 2021 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC, with forward compatibility and targeted enhancements on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. More information to come in the new year!"

Bioware was careful not to call it a full remake -- while some things would be upgraded, such as improved textures, models, better framerate and resolution, it probably won't be enough to pull the games to modern "standards." Plus, if they were to remake the games, hopefully they'd do something about Mass Effect 1's gameplay, which... wasn't ever super great.

That said, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X version of the game is supposed to have "Targeted Enhancements", which either means they'll look a lot better or they'll load a lot faster, which means elevators in space are going to get a huge speed boost.

Finally, they also announced that, yes, a new Mass Effect game is on the way:

"Meanwhile here at BioWare, a veteran team has been hard at work envisioning the next chapter of the Mass Effect universe. We are in early stages on the project and can’t say any more just yet, but we’re looking forward to sharing our vision for where we’ll be going next."

So that's something to be excited for, I guess.