Mass Effect Guide - Legendary Edition Tips And Tricks Roundup

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition compiles Bioware's much-loved Mass Effect trilogy, providing old and new players the chance to experience these iconic sci-fi RPGs. As you'd expect, jumping into the Mass Effect games can mean a lot of catching up and learning for newcomers. This is especially true if they aren't familiar with Bioware's role-playing games, which often have a high degree of variability based on the choices you make. And with the new changes made to these remastered versions of the games, even veteran players might find themselves confused. To help you get the most out of your Mass Effect: Legacy Edition experience, we've compiled and updated this feature with all our new guides and walkthroughs below, each detailing essential tips and tricks for all three games.

For more about how this remastered collection stacks up, be sure to read our Mass Effect: Legendary Edition review in progress. Otherwise, read on for all our guides!

Essential Tips For First-Timers

If you're new to the Mass Effect series, this guide is a solid place to start. We outline important tips about how to best play these games and highlight essential practices to follow to ensure that you're always on the best path from game to game.

• Mass Effect Beginner's Tips Guide - Legendary Edition

Everything Returning Players Should Know

Returning players should start with this guide, as it details all the big new changes to Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, many of which are important to know. This is because the Legendary Edition, in particular, does things like incorporate DLC content more organically into the main experience and create new challenges thanks to adjustments to how your actions impact the final game's epic conclusion.

• Mass Effect: Legendary Edition - Everything Returning Players Should Know

Mass Effect 1-3 Walkthroughs

Sometimes it helps to have a walkthrough handy as you play an RPG series as involved as the Mass Effect games. Fortunately, we've got in-depth walkthroughs that you can refer to that'll provide beat-for-beat directions on how to get through each game. Note that these walkthroughs were published on GameSpot during each game's original release, so the content within does not account for the changes made in the Legendary Edition. Regardless, these walkthroughs should help you get to where you need in a general sense.

• Mass Effect Walkthrough
• Mass Effect 2 Walkthrough
• Mass Effect 3 Walkthrough

How To Pick The Best Class For You

Like every RPG you boot up, Mass Effect is likely to perplex you with the question around which class you should play. With six different types to choose from and sparse practical explanation to help guide you toward which one is right for you, you're going to need help. Here's our guide detailing how to pick the best class for you in Mass Effect.

• Mass Effect: Legendary Edition - How To Pick The Best Class For You

Trophy and Achievements Guide

If you're exploring the Mass Effect universe for the first time or coming back to it, you might be inclined to complete each game's trophies or achievements. To help you accomplish this endeavor, we've compiled a guide detailing how to complete all the trophies/achievements across all three of the Mass Effect games. This guide does contain light spoilers for the stories of Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3, so be careful.

• Mass Effect Trophy Guide and Full Achievement List

Fun Side Missions You Don't Want To Skip

There's quite the array of side missions in the Mass Effect games--known specifically in the games as Assignments. Not all of them are as involved, but the ones that offer substantial story details and beats that follow through into subsequent sequels as your save transfers from game to game. We've compiled a guide detailing some amazing side missions you shouldn't miss. As of this writing, we only cover the first Mass Effect game in this guide, but we'll be updating it with even more awesome side missions in the days to come.

• Mass Effect: Legendary Edition - Fun Side Missions You Need To Play

If This If Your First Time, Play Either As Full Paragon Or Full Renegade, And Here's Why

It may be a no-brainer for returning players, but if you're a newcomer, it's especially important that you commit to either Paragon or Renegade in the game's morality system. The decisions you make are important, so it's essential to be consistent with your dialogue choices when it comes to the game's more complex moral situations. We've compiled a quick PSA guide detailing why this is essential.

• Mass Effect: Legendary Edition First-Timer PSA - Play Either As Full Paragon Or Full Renegade

Rarest Moments You Might Not Know About

That said if you don't make consistent decisions as a Paragon or Renegade, you will encounter some intriguing and rare moments. This is less a guide, but more of a fun feature recounting some of the most memorable rare moments that can occur in the Mass Effect games and how they happen. This feature contains a ton of story spoilers, so do not read it if you're new to the series.

• Rarest Mass Effect Moments You Might Not Know About

All Romance Options, How They Work, And How To Unlock Them

Another big feature of Mass Effect is the ability to romance characters in your squad. While you can't romance every character, the ones you can are available for a relationship so long as you fulfill certain conditions. To help you with your romantic escapades in Mass Effect, we've compiled a detailed romance guide. Though, if you're specifically curious about how to romance Liara in Mass Effect 1, be sure to read our Liara romance guide.

• Mass Effect: Legendary Edition - All Romance Options, How They Work, And How To Unlock Them

Mass Effect 1 Mission Order Guide - Novaria, Feros, Or Therum?

Once you clear the Citadel section of Mass Effect 1, you might get overwhelmed with what to do next. After all, the game opens up at that point, allowing you to pursue three different objectives in any order. If you want to know where the best place to start is, then be sure to read our mission order guide.

• Mass Effect: Legendary Edition Mission Order - Novaria, Feros, Or Therum?

How To Get Mass Effect 2's Best Ending

If you're vaguely familiar with Mass Effect 2, you'll know that the biggest story beat in it is about the big suicide mission that Sheppard and his crew need to tackle during the game's climax. It's pretty much what the game reiterates and works to culminate to, and it can go very wrong if you're not consistently doing the right things throughout the game. Here's a guide detailing exactly what you need to do to survive Mass Effect 2's suicide mission. As to be expected, this guide will have story spoilers.

• Mass Effect 2 Suicide Mission: How To Get The Best Ending

How Mass Effect 3's Galactic Readiness System Is Changed

One of the most important aspects of Mass Effect 3 is the measurement of your galactic readiness--a factor that heavily dictates how your journey ends. In the past, this measurement was dictated by a variety of factors, including your decisions, time spent in multiplayer, activity in the game's companion mobile app, and more. But seeing as those last two are no longer around, Bioware made some changes with the Legendary Edition by adjusting how galactic readiness is measured. To help you best understand what contributes to your overall galactic readiness throughout the three games, we've compiled a feature detailing what you need to know. We'll be updating it in the coming days with even more details, but it should give you a general understanding of this complex system.

• How Mass Effect 3's Galactic Readiness System Is Changed In Legendary Edition