Mass Effect Legendary Edition could get multiplayer if there’s demand for it

BioWare decided to not include Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer in the remaster, but it’s possible that could change.

There is a lot that Mass Effect Legendary Edition offers to both long-time fans and newcomers. But one thing it doesn’t have is multiplayer.

This may sound obvious since the series is primarily all about the single-player campaign, but Mass Effect 3 did come with a multiplayer mode back in the day. Said mode was not kept for the remaster.

However, project director Mac Walters, in an interview with CNET, has admitted that he wouldn’t say no to adding it back in, although it would depend on multiple factors. Including whether people still want it or not.

‘We want to see what kind of reception the Legendary Edition gets and what the demand for the multiplayer is. And then we’ll ask ourselves if we have the resources and time to bring it up to the quality level we and fans want.’

Another reason the multiplayer was excluded was because of the challenges that would have come about implementing it, especially since there are still people playing it on the original Mass Effect 3.

‘It obviously had a lot of challenges,’ said Walters, in a separate interview with IGN. ‘Everything from what you do with cross-play, because that’s kind of an expectation now; what you do with people who are still playing multiplayer now – how do you honour that, how do you bring them in, can we somehow bridge that gap?

‘And of course, these aren’t insurmountable challenges, there are things that we can do to fix that problem and get multiplayer in there. But when you look at the amount of effort that it was going to take to do that, it was easily commensurate if not greater than uplifting all of Mass Effect 1, and I think our focus was on the single-player experience.’

As it stands, there’s no guarantee that multiplayer will be included in the future. After all, BioWare is quite busy working on both the next major Mass Effect game and a new Dragon Age.

While speaking with CNET, Walters was also asked about Mass Effect 3’s controversial ending. At the time, the ending became a huge talking point and BioWare had to release a DLC epilogue to help rectify it.

Walters explains that, while the DLC is included in the Legendary Edition, the ending itself remains unchanged, and he hopes some players will have a different outlook on it after all these years.

‘I guess people have to make up their own minds about it – we haven’t changed any of the story. It’s also been a little bit of time, so people play through it as a whole and then reassess. If they still have the same feelings about it then, that’s fair. I know I viewed the trilogy in a very different way now that it’s all together. I’m hoping other people will see it that way as well.’

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.

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