New Mass Effect Legendary Edition Comparison Trailer Highlights Stunning Visual Enhancements

There's a new Mass Effect Legendary Edition trailer that spotlights how much different the remastered's visuals are in comparison to the 2007 original title. The results are stunning, with upgrades like 4K base assets and improved skin rendering seemingly creating a more dynamic gameplay experience across the board.

The two-minute trailer showcases various sequences from the original Mass Effect and the remastered version packaged in the Legendary Edition. Side-by-side, you can see just how drastic the improvements are.

There are global post-effect improvements to further brighten and deepen the image. This includes touchups like volumetrics and fog for a more dynamic set, as well as subsurface scattering to bounce the light source around. All of the effects, in short, work together to create an experience that looks brighter and clearer.

In a lengthy PlayStation blog post, EA/BioWare community manager Jay Ingram detailed the team's process working on the three Mass Effect titles. Ingram noted that because a finished game "generally resembles a house of cards," the team took a three-phased approach to remastering the trilogy: Addressing the state of foundational elements such as assets ("well over thirty thousand individual textures," Ingram said), modernizing outdated components like old uniforms, and rebuilding the games' worlds.

It's pretty involved stuff, with Ingram going in-depth about aspects like how materials were rendered in a more convincing way despite the games not featuring physically based rendering (PBR), a method of using lighting and shading models with computer code to accurately represent real-world materials and textures.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition will ship with some welcomed improvements as well, including user interface continuity, an expanded character creator, better inventory management systems, and more. The trilogy package launches on May 14 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. Hit up our Mass Effect Legendary Edition preorder guide to learn about the various bonuses and editions available.