Mass Effect Legendary Edition Goes Gold Ahead Of May 14 Launch

Mass Effect Legendary Edition launches in just about a month, and the remastered trilogy's project director Mac Walters has announced that it has gone gold. That means there is very little chance it's going to get bumped from its May 14 release date.

Walters celebrated the occasion with a clip of several Mass Effect characters dancing, including meme legend Garrus Vakarian. Despite its mostly serious tone, there are plenty of funny moments in the trilogy, with most being intentional.

When a game "goes gold," it essentially means that its code is finalized to the point where it can be put onto discs and shipped. However, because we live in an era of content updates and patches, it doesn't really mean as much as it used to. BioWare could choose to replace huge amounts of the game's code in the future if it wanted to change something, but it does still serve as a big milestone for developers who have been working on the project for months or years.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition bundles together the first three games with improvements to make them feel like one cohesive experience. The first game was criticized, in its original state, for lackluster combat, and this should no longer be an issue in the retooled version. It's coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC, with optimizations for the newer systems rather than dedication next-gen versions.

The first three games contain the complete story of Commander Shepard, chronicles a battle against a mysterious enemy known as the Reapers as they plan an invasion and threaten the Milky Way Galaxy. The fourth game, Mass Effect: Andromeda, takes place much later and is not connected to the first three games directly.

A fifth Mass Effect is in development, as well, though it appears to be pretty early right now. A teaser suggests it could somehow act as a successor to both Andromeda and the original trilogy.

Another game that also went gold this week is Nier Replicant, which is also a retooled version of a past game. As with Mass Effect, the original Nier's combat was surpassed by its sequel, and Nier Replicant will implement those ideas into the original game while retaining its story.