"Mass Effect" Gave Me Hope

I’m not looking for virality or sympathy with this post, but only wished to share my experiences with how concluding the Mass Effect trilogy around the same time as one of the greatest tragedies in my life helped me move forward. Thus, why this post seems a little “bare” in comparison to my usual formats; I won’t have any clever subscribe message or my standard links at the bottom, just my words.

A lot of gamers around my age name Mass Effect as a game they grew up with. I knew of it around the time it was popular in the early 2010s and was even offered it a once as a Christmas gift but turned it down. To me at the time, it didn’t really fit what I wanted out of an RPG. In 2022, when I finally picked up the Legendary Edition (the remastered release that combines all three games plus most of the DLC) I realized what I had missed out on all those years ago. It was the June following my first year in grad school when I was in BioWare’s home country no less, and I noticed it was on sale on EA’s site. I bought it with some leftover gift card funds and started it soon before I’d sent in some stories to anthology calls for submissions—one of which was appropriately space-themed. I had finished my first year at grad school back in April, started diving deeper into my thesis, and was gearing up to start working as a production assistant on an outdoor production of The Hobbit with the local community theatre, so I was looking forward to have something to unwind with on my days off. I began my first playthrough on the first week of July and gamed into the early hours of the morning. Like with GreedFall, Mass Effect passed my “3am test”; I was hooked and would often just sit back and watch the cutscenes roll out while saying aloud, “This is so cool.”

Quite a bit of my memories about Mass Effect are surrounded by the smell of heated wood. One reason being that I started my job as a production assistant helping out with building the wooden sets, so I’d often come home with at least a layer of sawdust on my clothes and my ears ringing from the saws and drills. Another was that I put my laptop, a now decade-old Lenovo, in the drawer of the desk I was using and the vent heated up enough to draw out the smell of the wood. I never ran into an issue with overheating (although my framerates were suboptimal since I still hadn’t quite understood the concept of lowering my resolution), but whenever I was in the workshop my mind would wander to whatever mission I had left off on the night before and planned what I would do once I got home.

There was a simple beauty with the first Mass Effect, especially with the remastered, enhanced Legendary Edition. I enjoyed the bustling streets and corridors of the Citadel, the serene, empty landscapes of the various planets, and the RPG “quirks” that were holdovers from tabletop roleplaying games and some of BioWare’s previous titles like Knights of the Old Republic. The smaller Normandy also just felt more intimate and unassuming, just a small crew against a madman heralding a world-changing threat.

I finished the first game in the wee hours of July 17th and started Mass Effect 2 the next day. I was almost overwhelmed by the dramatic shift from the first game with the somewhat darker tone, the larger ship, and the sheer number of things I had access to within the first few hours. I certainly understood why many players regarded it as their favorite game in the trilogy, but I felt something was lost in the transition from the first game. I didn’t think I had enough time to spend with the massive crew, even with each of their personal missions—the ones I found myself connecting with the most were Garrus and Tali (the only two major companions to carry over from the first game), Grunt (the new krogan companion), and Joker and EDI who aren’t even companion characters. I did, however, like the game’s fun take as an “alien abduction” story and the overall new settings and gameplay. I was definitely not disappointed by it and enjoyed getting to see through this next chapter in Commander Shepard’s story.

Before I started Mass Effect 3, I debated whether I should begin soon after I finished the second installment or hold it off until my job obligations ended. I decided, on a whim, to dive right in a few hours before one of my shifts. The third game gets a lot of criticism in terms of how it handled the story, characters, and the drastic move away from the RPG combat to a more fast-paced action game system. For some reason, however, I felt some parts of it were a slight “return to form” to the first game, although it was actually quite different. I think part of it might have been the much leaner focus on companions and the primary objective of defeating the Reapers while ME2 felt a bit like a side story by comparison. One thing I did note was that the game felt more “on-rails” than the previous two, especially during the prologue on Earth and Mars. I suppose this could be chalked up, in all fairness, to the rushed development of this installment, which forced BioWare to streamline the story. It is unfortunate that was the case, and I definitely would have liked to have seen their original vision realized, but as one part of a trilogy I felt satisfied for the most part.

I wanted to savor every moment I had with this final installment, making my choices around missions and decisions very carefully in order to make all my previous actions count. I also wanted to take as much time as I could with each of my companions, knowing myself that I likely wouldn’t experience them the same way if I ever picked up a second playthrough. I managed to keep all of them alive from the Suicide Mission in ME2 and had fun getting to run into each of them even if they only showed up for a cutscene or two. The Citadel DLC, of course, ended up being a blast and really solidified what Shepard was fighting for in terms of the people who they befriended along the way through the literal end of the world. I played through the final DLC mission, the party, right before the point of no return in the last game.

At that point, I was fully invested in the whole trilogy and more than happy I took the plunge into it when I’d thought I’d missed the window during the series’ prime. It was right in the middle of ME3 when I started writing my fanhack for the Basic Roleplaying System using Mass Effect. I loved the games so much I wanted to share in the experience with friends if I ever got the chance. I even started writing fanfiction—much like with my enjoyment of GreedFall, I couldn’t help but speculate my own stories I wanted to tell within the universe of the game.

I planned to finish Mass Effect 3 near the end of the summer, but for some reason I couldn’t muster up the energy to. I went about the day feeling down and upset for no reason, but resolved to pick up the game the next day. That night, however, as I was laying in bed listening to music since I couldn’t sleep, I got a phone call from my dad.

Someone very close to me had died.

I couldn’t and didn’t want to believe it. As more voices of my relatives joined the call, I started to realize the truth of this new chapter in my life. I was a wreck the next morning and throughout the day, struggling to hold in tears and trying to hold onto all the memories I could. I had a lot to do and had to do it fast—I was miles away from my hometown and was quickly scheduled to fly there on the next afternoon. I was feeling lost, hopeless, and uncomfortable in the bright, dry heat of what felt to me like the last summer. I spent the day getting my affairs in order, accepting condolences as they came, and still trying to make sense of everything.

Then, night fell.

That night, I loaded up the final mission and played. I didn’t care that I needed to be up relatively early the next morning; I just wanted to have a few hours to myself with the game that got me through a busy summer, and sparked my imagination, before I had to accept my life changed irrevocably. Even though it was just a video game, I wanted to see the story through and give myself the best ending I could. I sat in the media room of my apartment, dark blue party lights on to reflect the color pallet of ME3, booted up my laptop—smelt the warmed wood of the desk—and made the final push to save Earth and the galaxy.

The Shepard I had made for this first playthrough I named Tiberius, after James Tiberius Kirk in the original series of Star Trek. Although many trekkies claim The Next Generation is the superior series, I’ve always had a soft spot for the original cast, particularly since I grew up watching the movies. I played Tiberius Shepard as a mostly pure Paragon (with room for some Renegade options in the vein of '80s action heroes) who greatly valued the lives of his crew and creating friendships with alien species. I made it part of his backstory that he was indeed a Star Trek fan and incorporated parts of what he observed on the show into his philosophy as a commander. And, in honor of his hero, I had repainted his N7 armor to match the gold uniform of James T. Kirk for the final missions.

I had my Shepard say goodbye to all of his companions as they rallied before the frontlines, characters I had only known for less than two months who each embodied different peoples and philosophies in the world of the story. Once I had talked with all of them, I made the final charge. Garrus and Tali, who had been with my Shepard since the beginning, were the ones to come along and unfortunately had to pull back after a devastating blast from a Reaper. They lived but Tiberius had to go on alone.

Eventually, I made it to the final area of the game—where Shepard stands atop the Citadel and speaks with the infamous Catalyst, who manifests as a ghostly child. Going in, I knew the ending disappointed many Mass Effect fans when the third game was released. I felt very crushed when all the choices laid out made it seem like everything I had worked for was for nothing. Despite the initial disappointment, I considered the options carefully and almost chose Synthesis (or the “Green Ending”) which merged organic and synthetic life at the cost of Shepard’s life. However, for whatever reason, either because it was the closest and I was tired and Shepard’s limp wasn’t making me want to loop all around to the correct node for the Synthesis ending, I chose Destroy. The Destroy ending (or “red ending”) would destroy all synthetic life in the galaxy (including allies I had made and damage Shepard’s own cybernetics) and wipe out the Reapers. After choosing it, I felt a pang of regret as I watched the red blast sweep over the galaxy, destroying synthetic life and the means of quick space travel. Thankfully, the Normandy crew survived.

What was more, before the credits rolled, it showed a brief scene of Shepard’s chest, clad in broken, burnt armor, atop a pile of rubble. Then, he took a breath…

I had lived.

I stepped away from my computer as the credits rolled and onto the porch of my apartment. I looked out into the night as a soft drizzle of rain came down. Everything looked dark and black, like there was nothing beyond the porch light and nothing would come. However, with what the end of my first playthrough showed me, even going through the worst of it, one can still live.

I wasn’t trying for any particular ending (I wasn’t even aware of one where Shepard survived), but in hindsight I did manage to get “the perfect Destroy ending” where Shepard and most of his companions lived. Of course, we won’t know what happens afterwards until the next Mass Effect game releases (if that ever happens), but now of all times I think not much more really needs to be said. In my case at least, I finished the game at a point of major uncertainty in my life, but the way I had played it as an optimistic space captain who was fine giving people a chance and inspiring hope gave me an ending that in turn gave me hope.

I hadn’t grown up with this series, but I appreciate it as much as if I did. It roped me in like few other games have and it just makes me wish I had more time to play through it again. The world, the characters, and the story all formed together to make this somewhat imperfect but epic saga that made me never want to leave and share in my excitement with anyone else who cared to lend an ear. At the same time, I am quite happy with the first story I told with this game. The story of how a small crew, led by one Commander with a will to live, dared to rage against extinction and won. It was just one of the stories that reminded me the black of night would not last forever.