Although the Mass effect Trilogy allowed players to create their own Shepard, the game had limited options for creating non-white characters. Environmental and character director Kevin Meek told The edge that improving options for people of color was one of the top priorities when it came to it Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, an upcoming remastered collection. “If you have type 4 hair or a really dark skin tone, or if that’s the Shepard you wanted to play, then you just didn’t have that option in the original Mass Effect,” said Meek.
Legendary edition contains all three games with all their associated DLC. While the game does not add new story content, it does revise the graphics and expand some gameplay elements to make them more modern. Returning to the series, BioWare had the opportunity to fix the flaws in the game’s original design. “There are certain hairstyles that just don’t work, especially for the female herders,” said Meek. “There was very little out there that supported that at all. There were options for long wavy hair, you can color it black but that didn’t really work. The team started by making a list of hairstyles they were missing and then working out textures. “You can’t make a really sleek, really clean buzzed cut with shiny, shiny hair,” Meek said as an example.
When deciding which hairstyles to include in a modernized game in the future, the developers aimed for more “timeless” options. “The difference between style and fashion,” said Meek. Some of the improvements to the game’s fading hairstyles, for example, include “sci-fi futuristic patterns” buzzing into the sides. “You don’t want to grab people’s attention, you just want it to fit into it Mass effect universe.”
In addition to new hairstyles, skin tones and more, the game also enhances its “iconic” FemShep – a player-tuned model that only appeared on the final installment of the trilogy. The late incorporation of the canon character model was “really limiting” for many players. “It’s quite unfair for the people who play as females, you go through all these moments Mass Effect 1 and 2 and then you come to Mass Effect 3 and you’re just given a choice: do you want to continue with your Shepard, or do you want to completely change your visuals, ”said Meek.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition Releasing May 14 on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.