Warning: the above video gets very loud about ten seconds in, watch those speakers. It shows a new mod for Mass Effect Legendary Edition, the basic description for which is straight-to-the-point: “This mod turns all Sovereign-class reapers in Mass Effect 3 into Among Us imposters.”
Okay I guess. The reaper capital ships are one of Mass Effect 3’s great spectacles, two kilometre high battleships with a giant cannon that can take vast amounts of punishment. Why they’re now giant Imposters stomping around like the Stay-Puft marshmallow man… well, creator and regular Mass Effect modder Mentlegen went straight for a copypasta explanation, which I think first appeared on reddit about seven months ago in Among Us flavour, but has been around the internet a lot longer.
I’ll spare you the whole thing but, as mod descriptions go, this does some sterling work. “I can’t fucking take it. I see an image of a random object posted and then I see it, I fucking see it. ‘Oh that looks kinda like the Among Us guy’ it started as. That’s funny, that’s a cool reference. But I kept going, I’d see a fridge that looked like Among Us, I’d see an animated bag of chips that looked like Among Us, I’d see a hat that looked like Among Us. And every time I’d burst into an insane, breath-deprived laugh staring at the image as the words AMOGUS ran through my head.”
“I’ll never hear the word suspicious again without thinking of Among Us. Someone does something bad and I can’t say anything other than ‘sus.’ I could watch a man murder everyone I love and all I would be able to say is ‘red sus’ and laugh like a fucking insane person.”
So that’s why the reapers are imposters now: all for the love of memes. Unsurprisingly the mod cites Thomas the Reaper Engine as an inspiration, a mod that (you guessed it) turns all the capital ships into Thomas the Tank Engine.
Before the descent into seeing Imposters everywhere Mentlegen’s been a regular modder of Mass Effect, including the More Gay Romances mod and allowing players to access unused romance options across the series. The game continues to receive mods large and small tweaking and adding elements to this beloved space opera, though admittedly few have come with descriptions quite as good as this.