One of the key new features in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is its expanded character customization options that allow players to design the look of their unique Commander Shepard in more detail. Along with many visual, technical, and quality-of-life upgrades, major design emphasis was put on unification across the series, perhaps best exemplified by the new universal character creator. Mass Effect: Legendary Edition not only includes expanded options for players to represent themselves in Commander Shepard, but it also unifies the custom and default character designs, letting players keep the same appearance throughout the entire trilogy.
In the original Mass Effect trilogy, character customization options slowly expanded, with more choices appearing in the sequels. As environment and character director Kevin Meek suggested in a February Legendary Edition preview event, if players saw something they liked in character creation in Mass Effect 3, they may not necessarily be able to add it to their Shepard in Mass Effect or Mass Effect 2, leading to the character looking slightly different each time. In addition, the iconic look for the default female Shepard was only available starting in Mass Effect 3, and it was nearly impossible to replicate in previous installments.
The code that initially appeared in Mass Effect 2's character creator to help players seamlessly transfer their characters to Mass Effect 3 now appears in all three games. Players can choose to use this code and quickly begin the sequels with their same character, skipping character creation altogether, or tweak their Shepard's appearance between games as they prefer.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition's Improved Character Creation Options
In addition to expanded options for hair and eye color, makeup, and face shape and structure, developers focused more extensively on adding options for designing Shepard as a person of color. Mass Effect: Legendary Edition includes more skin tones, many of which have warm and cool undertones, and improved hairstyles. During the preview, Meek said the options for hairstyles and skin tones "just weren't wide enough, originally, to support the diversity of our player base or to be able to give fans the ability to create that Shepherd that they really wanted to play as." In the remaster, players can better represent themselves in their character and design the Shepard that most resonates with them.
The hairstyles in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition also have better, more realistic textures, and BioWare eliminated the intense shine from many of the original models. New hair colors include more unnatural, dyed options like those in Mass Effect: Andromeda, with Shepard now able to sport just about any color of the rainbow. For male Shepard, there even appears to be a few improvements to make facial hair look more realistic, though few of these have been demonstrated in official previews.
The box-art female Shepard will now be available as a default option from the very start of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, though players who enjoyed the original default design can also find that model as a preset option. ME3's "canon" look for default female Shepard came to be only after controversy: BioWare had fans vote on a female Shepard appearance in a sort of beauty pageant-style poll, and the model selected was stereotypical of Western beauty standards. Many fans were frustrated by the vote, seeing it as antithetical to everything female Shepard - a non-sexualized video game heroine - stood for.
The voting results were kept, however, and the chosen female Shepard went on to be the series norm, albeit with red hair instead of blonde. Still, the canonical default's availability across the series and in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition's marketing signals an acknowledgement of female Shepard's importance. Between this and the expanded choices to represent an even more diverse demographic of gamers, players have more opportunities to see themselves as part of the adventure.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition launches May 14, 2021, on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, with forward compatibility for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.