Mass Effect Legendary Edition is launching in just a couple of months. The game is comprised of the original Mass Effect trilogy, but that doesn’t mean that you need to play them through in order. As Mass Effect became more popular over the years, more fans picked the series up. However, they didn’t actually go back and play the older games first. Most people actually picked the games up with Mass Effect 2, moving to Mass Effect 3 when it launched, and then going back to Mass Effect to complete the story. The games all have such a good recap that you don’t really need to go back and look at what came before. So I’m wondering what people will do this time around.
I’d like to start with Mass Effect again, and play through the whole trilogy in order. That’s how I like to play games if they’re part of a series. I prefer seeing what came before, knowing the story, and being able to pick things up from the standpoint of a fan, rather than a newcomer. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I’d say that the only other logical point to drop into the trilogy is with Mass Effect 2. It’s widely considered the best game in the series, and is pretty great as a standalone title. I think this is what most people will do, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some people only play the remastered version of this game alone.
Of course, there will be those who want to play Mass Effect 3 and all of its DLC, and only that. The game is probably the best known in the trilogy because of the dreadful original ending, despite it being fixed up by DLC later. I believe that some players will want to relive this experience because it’s the freshest to them, but I still think that they’ll go back and replay the other two games afterward.
Since you can carry progress between games, I think that playing through them all in order will be the best way to play. There’s nothing that beats that sense of progression across separate games.