Mass Effect 2 Tried Something Bold But Didn't Spark A Revolution
Mass Effect 2 fully leans into Star Trek, with a strong emphasis on B-plot and character work but its gaps feel more plentiful than its successes.
Mass Effect 2 is celebrating its 15-year anniversary today, January 26, 2025. Below, we look back at its unique episodic structure, and how other developers have not picked up its torch.
Most RPGs are like fantasy or science-fiction novels. The cross-continental journeys of Final Fantasy X or Dragon Age: Origins feel analogous to The Lord of the Rings or The Wheel of Time. Even sandboxes like Baldur's Gate 3 lean on a linear set of events, the disruption of routine key to fantasy fiction. Mass Effect 2 is a serious contrast, instead modeling itself after a season of television. I'm not the first person to make this comparison, but even after a decade and a half of further RPG releases, ME2's structure remains striking. The format helped catapult ME2 to upper echelons of many greatest-games lists. It is still the most beloved entry of the franchise, beating out its incomplete and controversial siblings. However, without the novelty of experiencing it for the first time, ME2 feels more like a valiant first effort at something new, rather than the apex of the form.
To summarize, protagonist Shepard is tasked with recruiting 12 party members to accompany him on a "suicide mission." Outside of a few main quests, most of ME2's runtime concerns itself with recruiting those characters and helping them resolve their personal issues. ME2's main plot is ultimately inconsequential to the trilogy's broader machinations. Instead, the game's series of one-off missions steal the show, making ME2 more character-focused than its kin. One could argue that Baldur's Gate 3, with its three acts, or Dragon Age: Origins, with its hub areas, have episodic structures. But each mission in ME2 is essentially an episode of TV. Most are entirely self-contained, and few relate back to the main plot in any meaningful way. They act the way individual episodes in a television show might act. The game is a serious attempt to bring the long-term, routine-focused dynamics of classic Star Trek to a massive RPG.
In theory, this offers space for characters to relax, take up space, and show their complexities and shades. Sometimes it even succeeds. The assassin Thane is an obvious highlight--a clichéd character given weight and grace through careful writing and some beguiling alien touches.
The Oblivion Remaster Needs To Be Bad In Order To Be Good Star Wars Outlaws: A Pirate's Fortune | Story Pack #2 Reveal Trailer Zenless Zone Zero - Vivian Character Teaser | "When Birds Sing" The Oblivion Situation | The GameSpot Show Cronos: The New Dawn Could Be The Beginning Of A New Era For Bloober Team Diablo x Berserk - Official Collaboration Reveal Trailer FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves｜Special Animated Music Video Trailer Bloober Team Breaks Down Their Next Game, Cronos: The New Dawn Capcom Fighting Collection 2 - Physical Comic Book Preview Trailer Cronos: The New Dawn | Official Gameplay Reveal Trailer | DON'T LET THEM MERGE Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate - Launch Trailer GORN 2 - Six Minutes Of Absolute Carnage | Gameplay Trailer
Please enter your date of birth to view this video
By clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's
Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
The problems are in the ensemble. Mass Effect 2's focus on individual characters leads to some remarkable moments, but it also means there is little room for party members to get to know and react to each other. To be fair, this is a problem that many RPGs have. Because you often swap out companion characters, leaving the remainder "back at camp," means that you have little guaranteed time with any individual character and even less time with any pair or trio in your party. Intra-companion interactions are limited to banter or brief reactions. Conflict between party members cannot drive the plot because there is no guarantee that any individual party member will be present at any time. (Final Fantasy solved this problem years ago by assuming every party member is present for cutscenes, but restricting combat to a limited number).
Mass Effect 2 instantiated this problem in some novel ways. Each of the game's 12 party members are only guaranteed to be present for two missions. DLC characters like Kasumi Goto and Zaeed Massani only get one. This means that party members have to go broad, charismatic, and identifiable. The majority of the cast are recognizable archetypes that get little elaboration: the traumatized punk with a heart of gold (Jack), the neurotic, autistic-coded scientist (Mordin), the beleaguered self-sacrificing warrior (Samara). The returning companions Tali, Garrus, and especially Liara avoid this to some degree (the Liara-focused DLC Lair of the Shadow Broker is perhaps the single best Mass Effect story). But Tali's and Garrus's quests offer variations on their arcs from the first game. What is Tali's relationship to her culture and family? Should Garrus indulge his instincts of vengeance? Neither mission pushes either character beyond where they already were.
To give credit where it is due, ME2 does try to center character conflict. Opposing party members like Jack and Miranda (who works for the corp that experimented on Jack) get a moment of confrontation. However, these are isolated scenes that are easily defused with a persuasion check. ME2's structure can't allow these conflicts to boil over at a dramatic moment or become a pain point revisited during multiple missions. While individual characters can experience growth and change, the character of the ensemble itself must remain consistent. The only relationships that can develop, at least in a serious meaningful way, are between party members and the player. Even the suicide mission, in which all 12 party members participate, focuses on choices about individual characters. The growth of the ensemble, the development of it unto itself, is a defining element of most great television. ME2 can only manage a few gestures at it.
Despite all my grousing, ME2 does sometimes capitalize on its format. The episodic structure allows for a wider diversity of settings than the first game's hub worlds and the third's military theatres. Though the game's overall plot is weak, its individual moments remain focused, allowing missions with high and low stakes, from rescuing a lost sister to saving a son from the sins of the father. This gives the game an emotional character, so that when the stakes get higher in the suicide mission, your heart is with the individual lives of your crew more than anything else.
Despite these strengths, no game has really taken Mass Effect 2's mantle. RPGs like Pentiment, Disco Elysium, and Citizen Sleeper have innovated on the format in entirely different ways. Dragon Age: The Veilguard borrows the ideal of the "suicide mission," concluding in a massive setpiece, but lets go of ME2's more episodic elements. Throwback isometric games like Pillars of Eternity and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous attempt to wrangle the sprawl of tabletop campaigns into video game form. Even literal episodic games like Life is Strange borrow more from the miniseries, rather than the sci-fi television epic. While Mass Effect 2 is beloved, it is not exactly influential.
Fifteen years later, what Mass Effect 2 best showcases is promise. While hardly an experimental game, it attempts something novel in its genre-space and succeeds, but the gaps it leaves behind are tantalizing. One wonders what a similar game with a smaller cast, a greater focus on character conflict, and an unflagging commitment to episodic storytelling might bring. Its potential is still unrealized.
Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com
Join the conversation