It's a big day for Mass Effect fans as BioWare and EA have confirmed that a "new chapter" of the Mass Effect universe is in development, while a remaster of the hugely successful original Mass Effect trilogy is coming to consoles and PC in Spring 2021.
The news was announced in a recent blog post on the EA website, confirming widespread rumors that BioWare had something up its sleeve for N7 Day. Information on the next new Mass Effect was fairly thin on the ground, with BioWare boss Casey Hudson writing that a "veteran team" is "hard at work" on the project which is still in its "early stages".
Far more of the post was dedicated to the confirmation that the original Mass Effect trilogy is to be remastered and released on consoles and PC.
Called Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, the collection will bring together Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3, with their single-player base content alongside DLC and promo weapons, armors and packs. All three games will be “remastered and optimized for 4K Ultra HD”, with updates to the “textures, shaders, models, effects and technical features.”
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This announcement doesn’t come as a huge surprise - a Mass Effect remaster has been rumored and teased for a long time. A cryptic tweet from BioWare back in January of this year stoked suspicions, while a Mass Effect trilogy art book going up for pre-order in July for a February 2021 release all but confirmed a remaster in the eyes of many.
In fact, as recently as earlier this week in a presentation to investors, EA stated its intention to release a then-unannounced remaster by the end of March 2021 while industry insiders teased the news on social media.
More to come
Those now hungry for more Mass Effect content will be interested to know that a Mass Effect N7 Day panel featuring some of the original games’ cast and some developers, will be live-streamed at 11am PST / 7pm GMT / 8pm CET.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition will launch in Spring 2021 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC, with "forward compatibility and targeted enhancements" planned for Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 too. BioWare has promised to announce more on the game in the new year when, hopefully, we'll also hear more about the next game in the series.
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