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Mass Effect Legendary Edition Replaces Tali's Stock Photo Face With A More Natural Portrait

Mass Effect's best companion finally gets a portrait that doesn't look like a bad photoshop.

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Mass Effect 3 had no shortage of romantic partners that you could count, and after a brief fling on the Normandy, your Shepard would have a reminder of their one true love in the form of an artistic framed picture in their sleeping quarters. For fans of the character Tali, this picture was an extra special memento as it showed the Quarian without her trademark mask on. In Mass Effect Legendary Edition, that picture is still there but Tali's face from the 2012 game has been swapped out for an image that's more in line with her character and race.

Possible spoilers below

The original...and not the best.
The original...and not the best.

The new image features Tali's face now only partially uncovered, and her skin tone has lost the purple hue of the original photo for a more greyish tone. Here's the new picture, from "Maxgoods" on Reddit:

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Now Playing: Mass Effect Legendary Edition Has HUGE Changes

Lookin' less stock photo!
Lookin' less stock photo!

Back in 2012. Tali's original unmasked appearance resulted in a small controversy. Developer BioWare had used a stock image by photographer Matthew Leete, which was then modified to appear more alien. Some fans at the time pointed out inconsistencies in the image and Tali, such as several of the model's fingers clearly having been photoshopped off, and the small fact that without her protective suit Tali should have been dead within minutes after the glamorous portrait shot was taken.

For newcomers to Mass Effect, Quarians have to live their entire lives while dressed in a protective enviro-suit as their weak immune systems cannot handle germs and microbes outside of sterile environments. If you're looking to earn this new photo of Tali, you'll need to play through both of her character arcs in Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 to successfully romance her. Unfortunately, only male Shepard can date her.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition is currently doing very well since its release last week, having reached a concurrent player figure on Valve's PC storefront that has broken new franchise records. This won't be the last that fans see of Mass Effect either, as BioWare is also working on a new game in the series which still in an early stage of development.

For more on the remastered trilogy, you can check out GameSpot's Review in Progress for Mass Effect Legendary Edition.

Darryn Bonthuys on Google+

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Dragon_Nexus

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And yet it's still just "A woman."

She has two toes, two fingers and a slender body and she still looks like "Grey Human Woman"

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PrpleTrtleBuBum

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@Dragon_Nexus: i dont understand why they had to add the picture. every single person built a different image their head. bioware could never satisfy people. some people wanted her to be a cthulhu in a tinsuit, others would have said wtf you ruined the series

i never cared for tali but it must feel kinda like seeing darth vaders face and thinking "oh, hes a bald man" :(

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deactivated-64efdf49333c4

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The new one looks even worse. I always imagined her looking similar to WoW's Draenei minus the horns and a slightly cat-like appearance from the little I could glean from her silhouette through the mask.

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dragonsama

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Edited By dragonsama

I think I liked the one without the helmet better since we can see her whole face/hair etc.

The new one isn't bad but the helmet kind of kills it. I know the lore about their immune systems but I'm pretty sure they have a sterile room someplace on those ships for them to take a shower and change suits so we could take an uncovered face picture there.

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Armos

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@dragonsama: I'm pretty sure the photo was supposed to be taken at the point in the game where you basically solve their little atmosphere problem, or was it with the suits? It's been a while for me, but I do remember this much. The main reason the photo ever happens is because they could ditch the suit due to improved conditions and a new safe haven.

The new picture doesn't depict this at all, in fact, it doesn't fit the lore at that point in the game. You improve their quality of life and their suits' tech to help them acclimate to any environment. Later on they probably won't need a mask.

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LesserAngel

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@dragonsama: The problem with the original wasn't that it was simply an edited stock photo, it's that it was a lazily edited stock photo. The hand in the edited photo, for example, is WAY off model from the in-game model for Tali.

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superdoyle1

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@dragonsama:The old photo was literally a stock photo that someone incredibly lazily edited to look slightly alien. They could have at least taken their own photo, maybe hired a model, that way people wouldn't be able to find the original by googling it.

Here's the original, it's still for sale: https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/hammasa-picture-id123488108?s=2048x2048

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MigGui

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@dragonsama: I like the idea of a fully unmasked Tali, but the previous photo was definitely horrendous. I hate that they still wen for a "human in a mask" thing instead of making her a bit more alien, but that photoshopped hand was so cringey.

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