In a vast sea of remakes and remasters, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition has stood as a worthy companion to the original Mass Effect trilogy, bringing the games graphically into the next generation, both in terms of consoles and in terms of an audience. One of the most iconic moments of the trilogy is the Suicide Mission – the final hours of Mass Effect 2 – where the player choices made throughout the game, as well as within the course of the mission itself, collide and interact in countless ways.
Electronic Arts, the publisher of Mass Effect, revealed the official stats of the Suicide Mission today – namely the percentages of crew members that survive the mission, as the key outcome of Mass Effect 2’s ending lies in the characters that make it to the third game as opposed to the player’s decision on what to do with the Collector Base.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the stats is the high percentage of survivors, with the chances of all crew members making it out of the Collector Base alive at 90% or higher. This is a marked improvement over the original stats for the Suicide Mission of Mass Effect 2, and even though they seem unexpected at first, a closer look might explain the difference.
At the time of Mass Effect 2, information and guides on how to survive the Suicide Mission were not as widespread and readily available to the players as they are today – with many of them relying on elaborate, yet simple flowcharts that explain the layout, choices, and consequences that await after (and before) using the Omega 4 relay.
Coupled with the accumulated knowledge of how the Suicide Mission works, down to its most minute intricacies, players are also aware of the long-term consequences of letting a character die. Some squad members in Mass Effect 2, like Mordin or Tali, can dramatically affect the story of Mass Effect 3, allowing or disallowing a player to obtain a better ending for parts of the game, as well as the ending of the trilogy overall.
One other factor that positively skews the stats is simply the age of the trilogy itself. Steam achievements point towards the fact that most players who have completed the Suicide Mission in Mass Effect’s Legendary Edition have already done the original one at some point, and therefore are not only more experienced in their second playthrough, but are motivated to do better.
Between the next game in the franchise being announced, as well as rumors of a new Mass Effect television show at work with Amazon, BioWare’s sci-fi saga seems poised to dominate pop culture once again.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
