10 Things About Mass Effect You Might Not Know About After Playing Mass Effect Legendary Edition

In the book Mass Effect: Revelation, written by Drew Karpyshyn, it’s confirmed that blondes are almost completely extinct in the Mass Effect universe due to its recessive trait nature. There is an entire series of books that dive deeper into the time before Commander Shepard, which is great for those that want to learn more about iconic characters such as Saren and David Anderson. This little tidbit about blondes is the reason that most of my Jane Shepards are sporting a lighter do. 

Think you were sad when your Commander Shepard died (we’re ignoring the breath for argument’s sake here)? Well, the original ending was much darker! The original idea behind the trilogy was to have the entire crew die a hero’s death, dying alongside Shepard during the final showdown with the Reapers. Thankfully, that didn’t up becoming the case, and some of our most beloved characters went on to survive in a world without Reapers. 

Garrus is the best whether he is your bro or your go-to love interest, but that wasn’t always the case. Fans loved the renegade Turian so much in the first game, where he wasn’t romanceable, that they went nuts with fan fiction and fan art. The fan-created universe of Vakarian love was so good that it made BioWare rethink him as a potential sweetie for FemShep. 

Aria has a daughter. Yup, the “I am Omega” persona is a centuries-year old criminal genius but somewhere along the way, she added “Mother” to her repertoire. This fun fact was revealed in Mass Effect: Retribution with Aria’s offspring being named Liselle. Without spoiling Liselle’s storyline, she actually has a very massive role in the Cerberus narrative arc regarding the epic Omega takeover.

The faceoff against the Reapers in Mass Effect 3 was brutal, but that final fight wasn’t the original plan for the franchise’s Big Bad. Originally, BioWare slated the Illusive Man to be the big villain but the studio eventually shifted away from that idea because his final confrontation felt too much like Saren’s in the first game. 

Vorcha sound pretty annoying right? Except for the darling that delivers us pizza in the Citadel DLC and the Biotic God himself. Did you know that every Vorcha in Mass Effect is voiced by Commander Shepard himself? At least if you go MaleShep, because Mark Meer is the viscous disjointed voice heard all over Omega. 

Saren is first introduced to Sovereign in the book Revelation where he infiltrates a secret AI project that the Alliance tries to hide from the rest of the galaxy. The facility breached housed a Reaper-created artifact, thus beginning Saren’s indoctrination and eventual deal with Sovereign itself. It’s a fascinating character study into the first game’s big bad, especially when looking at the sociopathic way he approaches each mission, giving Anderson just cause to be suspicious of him when we meet him in Mass Effect 1. 

We were first introduced to James Vega in the animated movie Mass Effect: Paragon Lost before he became a squadmate in the third game. We see him encounter the Collector’s for the first time in the human colony Fehl Prime where he also learns what it means to sacrifice everything for the mission. 

If a Vorcha and an Asari mate, their child will automatically be allergic to all dairy products (the more you know). 

That’s it, that’s all I’ve got. 

“Cannon” Commander Shepard was originally a woman as the main character until BioWare eventually decided to focus on a male protagonist instead. While characters could always choose between a John or Jane Shepard, the marketing was purely MaleShep-driven until the third game.