Mass Effect 3 is remade, rebuilt, and remastered in a gigantic Mass Effect mod which overhauls almost every aspect of the classic Bioware RPG game, from the Normandy to the Citadel, and quests and dialogue options, as space game fans eagerly await news on Mass Effect 4.
It’s hard to overstate, or even capture, the enormity of Project Variety, which is available now for Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition. Created by a highly dedicated team of modders, Variety restores cut dialogue, redesigns key hubs like the Normandy and Citadel, and overhauls myriad little details to make Mass Effect 3 more consistent with series lore, and a more convincing and in-depth RPG experience overall.
“From adding new hubs, diversifying the Citadel population, restoring cut content, and much more, Project Variety touches most of ME3 in one way or another,” explains the mod’s development team. “Project Variety is extremely customisable, with hundreds of options changeable in-game via a mod settings menu.” The full changelog is immense, but let’s run you through some of the key features.
Once you reach level 60, you can now max out all your skills. There’s a whole-new codex that encompasses lore from the Mass Effect extended universe, and the relationship dynamic between Shepard and Miranda has been tweaked and altered in ways that can affect the entire direction of the Mass Effect 3 story.
Loading screens are replaced with ones similar to Skyrim, providing little facts and details about the world, and dozens of characters have had their appearances changed to be more consistent with the game world – the Citadel news broadcaster, for example, now wears a suit, and the soldiers in the crashed gunship during the prologue are now wearing armour.
And that’s just the start. “Thousands” of new NPCs have been added to the Citadel to make it more alive, and ambient dialogue on-board the Normandy has been reworked so that it no longer loops. Cut content including conversations with Liara and Garrus has been restored, and the Citadel now contains several new reactive events.
All the low-poly models and sprites have been removed, so you won’t bump into any immersion-breaking, low-res civilians, and the entire sense of scale has been enhanced by fact you can now see the whole Citadel refugee dock from the dock of the Normandy, and vice-versa.
But even all that is just scratching the surface of Project Variety, which adds hundreds of little changes across Mass Effect 3 to make the game more cohesive and expansive. It’s still in beta, and the development team warns there could be some bugs, but you can download the overhaul, and also read through the extensive changelog, right now over on Nexus Mods.
At ten years old, Mass Effect 3 could now, tragically, be considered retro, and belongs alongside some of the other best old games you can get on PC. You should also try some great open-world games, or perhaps some sandbox games in order to explore space, the wild west, or vast fantasy lands to your heart’s content.