The Normandy

Greetings crew. As you're probably aware, the Legendary edition is about to be released on May 14, and I'm already a hyped up mess over fem!Shep getting so much face time in the trailer, so awesome that it made our OG commander, the badass Jennifer Hale ugly cry about it, and not gonna lie, same here.

Speaking of whom, See her interview here with WaPo's Launcher back from September 2020 in which we remember why Hale is a hero for reasons other than her voice acting badassery.

That said, we've been inundated in news coming in piecewise about what Bioware has done in terms of improving and reworking some of the earlier game mechanics, from fixing that Benezia fight to a unified character creation system with expanded options. Here's a good rundown of some other changes and updates as well, and it looks like at least one theme is lens flare. ;)

As a tech nerd, I also find fascinating and terrifying the fact that the one DLC that will not be included, Pinnacle Station, is missing because the source files went entirely missing. It's madness, and literally made me order another external drive for my own data.

One thing that I envy new players is that the extended cut DLC for the end will be incorporated with the game as well. I'm one of those people that pitched a fit about the end of ME3, mainly because it felt like the 'choice' was not much of a choice other than colored lasers and a five minute end cut. I did actually have the opportunity several years ago to chat directly with a Bioware QA exec who was emphatic about how the devs did their best to put out a game they were proud of, and were proud to play, but here's some feedback from devs on the drama that sheds more light on the subject. From the fact that they didn't all know how it was going to go, to one opinion that posits that the whole of ME3 was basically the end, thus who was there to fight with you was the culmination of your choices, is a spin that I have to admit I had not taken into account.

At any rate, I'm hoping to pop in the comm with more news and thoughts for anyone who's here to listen, and if you're interested in doing things like fic, recs, challenges, screenshots, whatever, drop me a line here and let's get it going.