Mass Effect 2 Guide

This page contains a full walkthrough for the main missions of Mass Effect 2.

In an attempt to cut down the length of this page aim will be made to provide hints/tips and links to greater length pages with specifics.

Prologue: Save Joker
The SSV Normandy SR-1 is under attack from an unknown enemy. The ship is taking catastrophic damage and the crew have begun evacuating. A member of the crew, Ashley Williams, informs you, Commander Shepard, that the ship's pilot, Joker, is reluctant to leave. After you convince Ashley she must abandon ship and save the crew, you are tasked with convincing Joker to leave.

As you gain control of Shepard, walk through the blazing hallways keeping to the left and up a set of stairs where will reach an airlock. Opening this door leads you to a damaged Command Deck, now exposed to open space as the roof has completely disintegrated. As you slowly move your way towards the cockpit in low gravity, eventually reaching a kinetic airlock to find Joker reluctantly giving up against extremely unlikely odds.

A cutscene begins as you carry Joker into an escape pod. Before the you can enter the pod, an energy beam separates you, forcing you to eject Joker by himself. Another explosion sends you flying into open space where you soon realizes your suit is quickly losing air. You struggle for a brief moment before losing consciousness.

Prologue: Awakening
(This is your very first mission)

Walk to the locker to obtain a pistol and armor. From this point just listen to Miranda's commands over the radio.

There are a few main differences from Mass Effect that returning players should pay attention to:

1. You do not automatically go into cover, to get into cover, you have to get next to a relevant object and then press [Space] on the PC or (A) on the 360 to get into cover. If you are sprinting towards an object you can take cover behind you will instantly do so when you reach it.

2. Instead of simply climbing on top of low cover, you are now able to simply flip over it if it is small enough with [Space] or(A)

3. Gun fire changed dramatically, instead of instant hit mass drivers, it now fires more like a real life firearm. This means if you are trying to hit a moving target you would need to aim in an arc. Damage calculation isn't done by a strict formula anymore, and much more like a shooter. Instead of weapons that dissipate heat, you have thermal clips, so don't go around spraying.

4. Most interactions are now done with [Space] rather than [E] on the PC but operate the same on the console.

Use through cover command to avoid damage from the explosive and then surmount the cover.

Proceed through the next few rooms where you will encounter a few "light mechs" they will be the easiest targets you will find in this game, it might be a good idea to knock them down and kill them for the Brawler achievement. Needless to say Overload and hacking would make this part a lot easier for you, if you are on a harder difficulty.

There will be recordings by Miranda and Dr. Wilson about their experience reviving Shepard, nothing else of much note.

Eventually you will meet Jacob (Mass Effect 2's "Kaidan Alenko", but a vanguard instead of sentinel), the conversation choices will give you Paragon or Renegade points. This is very important because in Mass Effect 2, your paragon/renegade points determines how well you can persuade or intimidate someone, so be sure to build it up fast so you wouldn't have to backtrack so much later on.

After clearing the room with Jacob and a little bit more dialog, Shepard and Jacob will meet up with Dr. Wilson, after some dialog you will head forth toward the shuttle bay, the combat does not get much harder as now you have a biotic and a engineer mowing down enemies with their abilities.

As you reach the shuttle bay the mission ends.

Recruit
Archangel is Found on Omega. After you acquire information from Aria T'Loak in Afterlife (she is expecting you) about joining a mercenary group, you may sign up to "fight" Archangel. To do this, go into the the private room in Afterlife (this will be directly to your left when you enter the club). You have to apply for a freelance spot to attack Archangel. Once you're done applying, you'll start to walk out, passing a young-looking, gun-wielding man. You will overhear him ask about applying to fight. At that point, an opportunity for a Paragon interrupt appears. If you take it, you'll disable the cheap pistol and walk out of the room (If you do this, you'll later get a private message from the teen at your private terminal on the Normandy, thanking you from stopping him). Exiting the club, there is a small alcove with vehicles that look very much like Citadel Rapid Transport vehicles in it. A Turian wearing Blue Suns armor is standing guard. When you're ready, you may speak with him, and he'll take you to Archangel's base (It is highly suggested that you prepare yourself well for the Archangel mission, as once you get to Archangel's base, there is no returning until the mission ends). You will then be transported into a mercenary encampment, where you can talk to several of the mercenary leaders and gain valuable insight into their operations. As you make your way throught the hallways, check for footlockers containing cash and raw materials. In addition, you will be given the oppertunity to disable to the mech and/or dropship. Do this. It makes the upcomming fight much easier. However shortly after you do this, you will be ordered to begin your assault. Your assault entails you running across an open bridge as Archangel picks off your freelancer compains one by one. After making it across the bridge, you confront Archangel. He removes his helmet and reveals himself to be Garrus.

After a small disscussion over events to occur, the mercenaries begin their assault. Shepard and his team have to defend Garrus and his position from waves of mercs, including a massive battle walker. After a few waves are cut down, the mercenaries begin drilling their way through the sealed passageways below. Shepard takes his team below ground to reach 3 sets of blast doors in order to lock them off for good. After a long firefight, Shepard makes his way back up stairs were the mercs are preparing for their final assault. After defeating a krogan battlemaster, the fighting stops, and Garrus reccomends making a break for it across the bridge. Just as your about to leave, a dropship appears and guns down Garrus.

Loyalty
===                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              The Professor                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               === Mordin can be found in the far end of the quarantined section of Omega. You must first fight through several Blue Suns before you reach his clinic. He will ask you to release the cure for the plague through the ventilation systems, and only then will he join your squad. Adding Dr. Mordin opens up the research laboratory on the second deck of the Normandy that you were previously restricted from entering.

Recruit

 * Fight your way through krogan and vorcha to the environmental controls for the district. Along the way, make sure to turn off the beaten path and save Mordin's assistant. Upon arrival, a vorcha reveals that the Collectors are behind the plague. Once there, follow EDI's instructions to place the cure in the console in the center platform. Then go to the east and west fan controls, fighting more Blood Pack vorcha and krogan on the way. After you activate both fans the mission is over and you are back in Mordin's office, ready to return to the Normandy.

Loyalty

 * On Tuchanka, one of Mordin's former STG associates has been "kidnapped" and Mordin asked you to save him. Talk to the "Scout Chief" in the Urdnot Camp. He'll lend you a truck to transport you to where Mordin's student is being held. Fight your way past the kogan and mercs until you find Mordin's old associate, who has not been kidnapped, but is instead working on a genophage cure, riddled with guilt. After the confrontation, return to the Normandy.

The Convict
The Convict Aka Jack Subject Zero is found on the prison ship Purgatory

Loyalty

 * Jack, being Jack, wants to blow stuff up! Specifically she wants to blow up the old Cerberus base on Pragia (Dakka System/Nubian Expanse) where she grew up. Of course, some mercs have other ideas and they'll try to get in your way. As you fight your way through them, hit all the conversation points and old computers to find out that Jack's the truth about her childhood was a little different than she remembered. Eventually you get to Jack's old cell, where you find Aresh, one of Jack's "classmates". He explains that, as bad as Jack had it, the other kids had it worse. Jack will either kill him or not. Afterwards, walk around Jack's cell and learn more about her experiences.

The Assassin

 * Meet Thane Krios


 * Quick kill biotic specialist


 * Expert sniper

Recruit

 * On Illium, go see old shipmate Liara T'Soni, now a full time information broker. She'll give you a lead on where to track down Thane.

Loyalty
At the end of loyalty quest, you can choose to kill The Justicar (Samara) and replace her with Morinth. Morinth would be loyal to you when you obtain her and her fourth skill is Dominate, an extremely useful skill for the last mission.

Loyalty
When Tali is accused of Treason by the Migrant Fleet, Shepard and team has to travel there to attempt to clear her name. She is put under treason for alegedly sending live Geth parts to Migrant Fleet compromising its security of one of its science ships. Shepard and team has to attempt to take back that ship to clear her name. In the mean time, they find evidence that clears Tali's name, but points to the recklessness of Tali's father and his team, which may have caused the incident. Shepard has the option of turning in the evidence. Depending on how Shepard talks afterwords, Tali is either exonerated or expelled and joins Shepard at the Normandy 2.

Veteran (DLC)
Zaeed Massani is found on Omega.After completing your first mission on Freedom’s Progress.Illusive man will tell you to go to Omega to findMordin solus, Zaeed Massani will be found right outside the Docking Area along the passage way. Zaeed Massani will join your squad right always after talking to him.

Loyalty Mission

You will receive a Mission on Traveling to Zorya. After walking/running thought the forested areas, you will encounter your first enemies, Blue Suns Troopers, pyro, heavy (using the ML-77 Missile launcher) and a Fenirs Mech. Using overload on the Pyro will immediately kill him. There will be a Medi-kit around behind cover. After the fight a cut scene come when reaching the bridge. Continuing down to the Gatehouse there will be a loot on Refined Palladium. Again another cut scene will pop out when opening the door. There will be 2 enemies after the cut scene when reaching the cross section, to the right there will be another loot on Refined Palladium. After, opening the door another cut scene will pop out. The cut scene added 11 Renegade for me.

No more cut scenes from now unit the end. There will be a Salvage(+6000 Credits) to the right side of the room after killing your first 5 enemies, going down the passage way there will be a Research Terminal (gives a updated on your Squad assault rifles’ damage). Going on there will be 9 enemies to kill. Continue on and again there will be a loot on Refined Palladium. Down the hallway there will be a M-451 firestorm(only given by downloading the DLC), in short a flamethrower. There will be 2 enemies and a Weapon Locker with power cells right beside.

Now this is where the fun kicks in. Enemies including the YMIR Mech will come after you, after waves of enemies the YMIR Mech will come last. Do not forget the Medi-kit it is useful! The place where the Blue Sun Troopers spawn, the left and the right have some good stuff for you. (Top Left side doors, Salvage (+6000 Credits). Top Right side doors, Salvage (+6000 Credits)). Continuing on there will be a last cut scene.

Credits earned in total if you followed.

Reaper IFF
After this mission, you should save before moving into the Omega 4 Relay. And complete all loyalty and upgrages if you want all your crews to survive the last mission (someone dying may not have much impact on the rest of this ME2 game though...)

Suicide Mission
There are three stages to this mission. During which you would have to choose some characters to fulfill some other tasks, and picking a wrong character for those tasks will result in someone dying after the first or second session. Obviously, you can't use those dead character in the remaining sessions.

If you have chosen Merith over Samara in Samara's loyalty quest, the skill Dominate is your best friend in this part because it would allow you to control unshielded collectors - if you haven't noticed by now, enemies always target the closest target. On the other hand, AI Hack would no longer be useful.

The following is the combination needed to avoid anyone dying (provided that the conditions for no-one-dying are met)

First Session: You would have to fight some collectors and press forward to press 8 different buttons along a linear path. The last few buttons are timed so you should clear the enemies asap. It is advised to save to a new file before you press the last button - in case you pick the wrong character after the cutscene.
 * a specialist technician is required to crawl in some tube (Tali or Legion)
 * a leader is required for the second team (Garrus/Miranda/Jacob)
 * your team - you will be fighting against Collector Drones, Harbingers, and several Collector Assassins

Second Session: your chosen shield person will erect a dome shape shield. It will move slowly and you will move slowly within the shield. The biotic person will stop 3 times on the way when you fight off a wave of enemy during each wave : If you have followed all the necessary steps, no one should have died.
 * someone with biotic power to hold a shield (Samara/Morinth or Jack - Miranda will not work)
 * another person to escort the survivors back to the ship, and you can't use this person for the final session. (Grunt/Jacob - it appears most characters can do it)
 * your team - you will be fighting against Drones, Harbinger, Assassins, Husks+Abomination teams and 1 Oculus
 * 1) First stop is a wave of Drones and Harbingers - same old stuff...
 * 2) After you start walking after stop 1, there would be Husk+Abomination Teams climb up from ledge. Then Drones, Harbinger and Assassins will appear. Finish them off and move to 3rd.
 * 3) The shield person will stop and there would be a lot Husk+Abominations coming at you, and an Oculus as well. Before you talk to the shield person, save your game - this is your last manual save point. After you start walking again, a small group of Husk+Abominations will climb out at you. Give them the boot!



Final Battle (part 1 of 3):
 * The team you pick here will stay with you for the rest of the suicide mission - you will be fighting against Drones, Harbinger, Assassins, Abominations and Oculus

It's the last part of the game thus it makes perfect sense for it to be hard. You can easily run out of ammo so use your skills well. Basically it's like what happened in the Collector ship. Platforms will fly in carrying several enemies on them. The last platform will contain 3 Abominations and 2 Oculus (depending on difficulty, perhaps? Must verify) - good luck with it. There will be a console to trigger the next part (you cannot save here, although there are autosave points).

Final Battle (part 2 of 3):

More fly-in platforms. After clearing each platform, the armour covering the 4 tubes of the inactive Human-Reaper will open temporarily and you should destroy them ASAP (if you're lucky, you can destroy 2 each round, but this is incredibly difficult as their armour covers them very quickly after destroying one). Destroying the 4 tubes will trigger the option to destroy the facility (Paragon) or keep the facility for Cerberus (Renegade). Then, the final battle starts.

Final Battle (part 3 of 3):

You start behind a good barricade spot and you can start shooting at the Reaver's eyes (they are small, but there are 3 of them). It has a nasty charge up attack and it would be wise to not expose yourself until it is done. You have damaged the Reaper enough, Collector drones will attack. When the boss' life is below 25%, it will begin dodging around and send more attacks at you (if you are an Infiltrator, your sniper ammo should be your greatest asset at this stage). Keep poking its eyes until it collapses, thus ending the game.

This fight can be ended extremely quickly if you've got good aim and timing. To do this, you'll need the M920 Cain (researched on the Normandy). A successful hit on the Reaper's weak spot (located on its chest) will take a massive chunk out of it, well over 50% of its maximum health. This, combined with sustained assault rifle or heavy pistol fire, will end the battle in under five minutes. Only try this if you have a good aim, however, and dont waste the Cain's ammo before this fight!