6 Video Game Reveals You Totally Missed

3. Saren, Anderson & Why Saren Hates Humans - Mass Effect

Thanks to the Legendary Edition sprucing up Mass Effect's combat model, we now have arguably the best sci-fi game of all time, playing better than ever. It's caused many fans to go back and re-approach just how much Bioware got spot on in that first title - one of many aspects they knocked out the park being the villain, Saren.

While if you go down the Paragon path you can eventually cause the "real" him to break free of Reaper Sovereign's indoctrination; killing himself and avoiding an entire boss fight, it helped establish Saren as a memorable presence that on reflection, only comes from a handful of scenes and pieces of dialogue.

After he kills fellow Turian Nihlus in the intro, we're told by Captain Anderson that Saren is a "living legend", and that he "hates humans", then we embark on the rest of the story. You always got the feeling there was more to this, and though the "why" is given that he thinks we're "growing too fast" and "taking over the galaxy", it's all a bit spurious given how much depth is given to every other aspect of the game.

Well, check out novel Mass Effect: Revelation and comic, Mass Effect: Evolution. Respectively, they detail how a young David Anderson attempted to work with Saren, Cloud and Sephiroth-style, only for remnants of the First Contact War to lead him into claiming Reaper technology as revenge, only to result in his indoctrination in the main game.

The Anderson/Saren dynamic is a fascinating wrinkle to Mass Effect's entire lore foundation, and remains one of the coolest parts of the fiction barely touched on in-game.