Mass Effect Legendary Edition, the exceptional 4K remaster of the original trilogy that we said 'looks great' and 'absolutely flies on modern hardware', is now 90% off

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(Image credit: BioWare)

The original Mass Effect trilogy remains, to this day, an unparalleled sci-fi action RPG experience. But that isn't surprising considering that Mass Effect was the brainchild of BioWare, the legendary studio that had previously made such PC gaming hits as Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

So when the folks responsible for that landmark trilogy spent years lovingly remastering all three games and re-releasing them as the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, a package that included texture, lighting and 4K resolution upgrades, as well as control improvements, bug fixes, and gameplay enhancements, it became the definitive way to play the masterpieces.

So when I saw that the Mass Effect Legendary Edition is currently 90% off—taking its price down to $5.99 in the US and £4.99 in the UK—I thought I would bring it to the PC gaming community's attention. I've played all three remasters, having bought the Legendary Edition at launch, and can confirm that this is the best way to spend a fiver I've seen all year. It's literally hundreds of hours of top-class gaming for very little spend.

As Alan Dexter details in our best settings for Mass Effect Legendary Edition guide, the beauty of the remastered package is not just that all the game's assets have been improved in quality—with more detailed textures, more complex and subtle lighting, as well as a 4K resolution increase—but that key aspects of all three games (but notably the original game) have been overhauled to make them play better.

The original Mass Effect was a great game on release, but it was very much still in the old school of RPGs that BioWare had made before, such as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, playing much slower and coming with unwieldy inventory management and controls. BioWare largely fixed this in Mass Effect 2, moving towards a more streamlined action RPG interface, inventory and control setup, which was then carried into Mass Effect 3. So what the Legendary Edition does is retroactively fit those action RPG improvements back into the original game. This not only makes the first game easier to play, but also makes it feel more coherent as part of the trilogy.