I Really Wish BioWare Brought Multiplayer To Mass Effect 3’s Legendary Edition

The wonderful Legendary Edition of the Mass Effect trilogy is currently 90% off on Steam, one of the bargains of the decade for anyone who doesn’t already own it. However, the original version of Mass Effect 3 has one advantage over its remaster — the 2012 version has multiplayer. Seeing the sale reminded me of this injustice. We’re a couple of years out from the release of the Legendary Edition, and the odds of multiplayer being added are lower than ever.

Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer is in the vein of Gears of Wars’ horde mode. A group of players defends against waves of enemies that become increasingly more difficult. There are regular objectives that appear between waves, injecting some chaos into the mix. You could customise your class and race, changing your playstyle and giving you the novel experience of piloting someone other than the indomitable Commander Shepard.

It scratches the same itch as Zombies from Call of Duty: Black Ops or, a more contemporary example, Helldivers 2. The vibe isn’t quite as chaotic as the latter, but there’s something timeless about destroying hordes of enemies with a couple of friends. Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer benefitted from the smoother, more flowing gunplay the series was transitioning towards. It was a lot of fun.

That Familiar Itch

Unfortunately, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition hasn’t had a ton of post-launch patch support. Considering the remastered trilogy launched in a good state, there wasn’t any need for BioWare to allocate additional resources to support it. With Dragon Age: Dreadwolf in late-stage development and Mass Effect 5 in its infancy, the chances of anyone touching the Legendary Edition are exceedingly slim.

The Legendary Edition not launching with multiplayer is disappointing but understandable. Multiplayer requires servers, which require a certain amount of upkeep, and the vast majority of the Mass Effect player base engaged with the singleplayer, not multiplayer. Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer servers remain online, but there are factors like new hardware to consider, the original Mass Effect 3 isn’t on the Xbox Series X/S.

There’s also the matter of progression. A player base that puts hundreds of hours into a multiplayer mode probably won’t be pleased restarting, even if it is on an updated version. We’ve seen similar discourse surrounding SMITE 2, a situation where players aren’t happy with all of their skins not transferring to the game’s sequel, despite the obvious upgrades and demonstrable challenges in doing so.

Then there’s the microtransactions. Mass Effect 3 was released in a time where monetisation was being shoehorned into everything, a practice that BioWare’s parent company Electronic Arts was infamous for. In all likelihood, Mass Effect multiplayer wouldn’t exist if not for EA’s desire to find additional monetisation avenues in its releases.

If you added multiplayer to the Legendary Edition, would you re-introduce these monetisation elements? It doesn’t seem likely; there would be a level of backlash and mild frustration from players, especially if their progress didn’t carry over. With all of this in mind, you can understand why BioWare washed its hands of multiplayer, preferring to allow the mode’s community to exist on the original version of Mass Effect 3.

Now, could the studio have overcome all of these obstacles if they had wanted to? Sure. However, despite how beloved Mass Effect’s multiplayer is, it was still only played by a minority of players. It’s unfortunate and never say never, but it doesn’t seem like a priority for BioWare. I really wish it was, though.

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