Mass Effect Trilogy: 9 Crazy Facts You Never Knew
It wasn't even called Mass Effect, for a start.
Mass E-ffect! Mass E-ffect! Mass E-ffect!
Forgive me. It's just hard to contain my excitement over the upcoming release of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition.
Gaming's greatest ever trilogy jazzed up to 4K/Ultra HD and 60 FPS? The chance to fall in love with sci-fi's greatest ensemble all over again? (Garrus! Liara! Tali!). Re-experiencing the journey of Commander Shepard, the greatest video-game protagonist of the past 20 years?
Hell. Yes.
There were a lot of "greatests" in that last paragraph, but Mass Effect deserves each and every one of them.
Bioware's best ever series (sorry, Baldur's Gate/Dragon Age fans) was one of the defining IPs of the Xbox 360/PS3 generation, and its influence is still felt to this day.
Of course, like any series of note, Mass Effect has some intriguing stories beyond what players experienced on their monitors. From the games' art director tipping his hat to an unlikely source of inspiration, to FOX News causing a shift in a major character's sexuality, the Mass Effect universe is no stranger to the quirks and controversy that come with any major media franchise.
9. Miranda Was Inspired By Final Fantasy: Spirits Within
Sometimes, people need the obvious pointed out to them: that their comb-over isn't fooling anyone, that they're too old for that dress, and that Mass Effect's art style was heavily inspired by box-office bomb Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.
Art director Derek Watts admitted as much in an interview with Xbox World 360 magazine back in 2011, (from Kotaku) and the revelation resulted in thousands of slightly-reddened foreheads across the land as gamers slapped their heads in disbelief that they'd missed out on something so obvious.
Case in point: The above screenshot shows Spirits Within protagonist Aki Ross, a white-jumpsuit wearing raven-haired beauty surrounded by bulkily-armoured space soldiers. It doesn't take a huge leap of imagination to go from there to Mass Effect's Miranda Lawson, a white-jumpsuit wearing raven-haired beauty who works for Cerberus, a terrorist organization that commands a large number of bulkily-armoured space soldiers.
Spirits Within didn't deserve the level of disdain it received upon its release - the Final Fantasy name hurt it way more than it helped in that regard - and its nice to see its "Spirit" (har har) live on through another sci-fi opus.