Mass Effect Legendary Edition’s director reflects on the trilogy

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is a way to re-experience the original RPG trilogy, and it’ll be the first time some people see the games. The series hits different in 2021, but parts of it — like the romances and the squadmates — still shine.

Mac Walters was a writer and director on all three games — as well as follow-up title Mass Effect: Andromeda. He also served as the director for the Legendary Edition, which required him to sit down and replay the games for a fresh once-over. He has some thoughts on Mass Effect 1’s legacy, the clamor to fuck Garrus Vakarian, and the most unnecessary potential death in the series.

[Ed. Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.]

Reporter Door: As you look back at the trilogy, years after its original release, how do you feel about the reaction to the squadmates — especially the interpersonal relationships with characters and the romance scenarios? I feel like you can see the fingerprints of that in a lot of games today, from Triple A releases to mobile games.

Mac Walters: We really tried to push the bounds of what I would call interactive, cinematic storytelling. Everything from the fact that we patented the conversation wheel — you see something like it everywhere now, right? It’s very commonplace. But the whole goal of that was to kind of remove some of the barriers between the game and your interaction with the characters, to really make it feel like it was a seamless experience with a cinematic quality to it.

I think there was a degree to which we were thankfully successful at creating characters who … I don’t necessarily think every character appeals to everyone, but there’s a character there for everyone. We let each writer add their own influences and nuances to it, so the characters could have their own individuality and come to life.

The importance of developing relationships between Shepard and the characters, tying all of that into the Suicide Mission [at the end of Mass Effect 2] was something we hoped would be meaningful, but I don’t think we could have imagined how meaningful it was, allowing people to explore those relationships as part of the journey towards a successful mission was kind of unique. It’s very cool to see what other people have done with it, for sure.

Something I find really interesting is the romances are all different. Jacob straight up dumps you — I think he’s the only one who does. With others, you have more of a soulmate connection. Was that intentional from the start, to have a huge diversity of relationships for Shepard and the crew? What goes into planning that out and figuring who fits where?

We knew there would be three trilogy relationships — we don’t have to call them romances — that would span, in some form, over all three games. It was planned, right from the get go, the idea that you would meet and potentially become best friends or romantically involved [with Kaiden, Ashley, or Liara] in the first game, but then in the second game it would kind of wane. Only if you stayed true to them would you be able to continue certain aspects of that.

But then, when we saw the fan desire to be able to have romance or deeper relationships with Garrus, for example, it pushed us to try even more and add even more layers to those relationships.

Image: BioWare/Electronic Arts

In the wake of Mass Effect, there were people who were like, I don’t care about Miranda and Jacob, I’m just here for Garrus and Tali. Were you surprised at how quickly players formed relationships with the aliens on the Normandy, and maybe found the humans a little boring in comparison, or was that what you expected?

I don’t know if I would go so far to say I expected it, but in hindsight, I probably should have, because as a writer I certainly gravitated to the aliens over the human characters. I got the opportunity to write Garrus and Wrex in the first one and found so much challenge in freedom in being able to partly define who they were individually, but also using them as the centerpiece for explaining their species and its role in the galaxy. It was probably a delighted surprise that people wanted those relationships so much, and then we were able to push them even forward.