The decision of who to save on Virmire is one of the most difficult and far-reaching choices players have to make during Mass Effect Legendary Edition, but a new mod enables both Ashley and Kaidan to survive that fateful mission. In the first Mass Effect, Commander Shepard is introduced to two of their many potential allies during a seemingly routine mission on Eden Prime at the start of the game: Mass Effect's biotically-enhanced Alliance Marine Kaidan Alenko and Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams. These two human teammates would follow Shepard on their investigation into rogue Spectre Saren’s involvement with the Reapers, and can even be romanced by the customizable hero under certain circumstances.
However, there is one major twist involving Kaidan and Ashley: only one of them will survive the events of the first Mass Effect game, and this is the first of many big narrative decisions players are faced with throughout the original Mass Effect trilogy. Shepard’s hunt for Saren and the Geth eventually takes their team to the tropical planet of Virmire, where Saren has built a base of operations. After a brief argument with their Krogan teammate Wrex over Saren’s secret plan to create an army of Krogan clones, Shepard and their crew set out to attack this base, and Mass Effect players can assign Kaidan or Ashley to the task of assisting Captain Kirrahe with the forward assault. Shepard and the other teammate then sneak into the base, with the latter staying behind to guard a makeshift bomb that will be used to destroy the facility from within. After a drastic turn of events, Shepard is forced to rescue one of these two squadmates, leaving the other to die as Saren’s base goes up in flames.
Now, a modder by the handle of Vegz is working on a way to save both Ashley and Kaidan during the Viremire mission in Mass Effect Legendary Edition. This Virmire Savior Mod is now available to download at Nexus Mods (via The Gamer) and uses cut dialogue from the original Mass Effect to allow both Ashley and Kaidan to make it off of Virmire in one piece. From there, the game’s storyline plays out as it usually does, although there are a few technical hiccups like Ashley struggling in her seat during post-mission briefings and Kaidan not looking at Shepard during conversations. Also, Vegz currently only has the mod set up for the first Mass Effect - players who load their save file into Mass Effect 2 will find that only Ashley is still alive, but this will supposedly be remedied in the future.
Thanks to the release of Mass Effect Legendary Edition on Steam and other outlets last summer, fans of BioWare’s beloved sci-fi RPG epic have been altering Shepard’s story in many interesting ways. While some of these mods make relatively minor changes like having Quarian teammate Tali show her face, others restore DLC that didn’t make the transition to the Legendary Edition remaster and even drastically alter Mass Effect 3’s notorious ending to better reflect the choices made throughout the three games and give Shepard a happy ending.
It would be interesting to see how both Ashley and Kaidan surviving the Virmire attack would affect the plots of the later Mass Effect games, as the fact that Shepard couldn’t save one of their teammates continues to haunt them during Mass Effect 3. Once Vegz manages to fine-tune their Virmire Savior Mod to work in Mass Effect 2 and 3, fans will be able to see that scenario play out during Mass Effect Legendary Edition.
Source: Nexus Mods (via The Gamer)