The Art of the Mass Effect Trilogy/Mass Effect 3

The following contains the text found within The Art of the Mass Effect Trilogy, 2021 edition, relating to Mass Effect 3. Unless otherwise stated, the text was written by Casey Hudson, Derek Watts, Chris Hepler, Karin Weekes and Ryan Cormier.

Ashley Williams

Ashley, Kaidan, and Liara were meant to be love interests throughtout all three parts of the trilogy. After we took them away from players in Mass Effect 2, they were ready for a passionate return in Mass Effect 3. For Ashley's reappearance in the series, we let her hair down and gave her sex appeal, while keeping her in a uniform that introduced the new Alliance colors. Ashley first bumps into Shepard as an Alliance officer on Earth, so her iconic look is a stylish officer's uniform, but later she will don a full set of armor.

We tried many hairstyles for Ashley. Ultimately the team decided on a less formal look, appropriate since she and Shepard are well acquainted by Mass Effect 3.

Kaidan Alenko

Kaidan's armor in the original Mass Effect was hardly memorable. We wanted to change that. The team bulked him up to show that he's seen a lot of action and is ready to fight in the biggest war the galaxy has ever seen. The armor went through many slight changes as we figured out the Alliance colors for human male characters.

James Vega

The idea for James Vega was to create a blue-collar military officer--a heavily muscled tank of a man. We gave his armor more heft to imply that James is an unstoppable force. The team added a beard, scars, and tattoos to make him stand out from the other Alliance marines, notably Ash and Kaidan, who are both very clean cut.

Admiral Anderson

Admiral Anderson, heading into combat for the first time in the trilogy, donned fatigues that wouldn't look out of place on the battlefield but would also reflect his rank.

Garrus Vakarian

We added silver to Garrus's signature blue-and-black armor to reflect his new rank. His eyepiece was slightly altered, and we added more detail to his armor. The idea was for Garrus to look familiar, but with heavier armor to withstand the battles he'd be facing in Mass Effect 3.

Liara T'Soni

Fans are most familiar with Liara wearing her medical outfit from the first Mass Effect, but we instead chose the outfit she wore in the Lair of the Shadow Broker downloadable content for Mass Effect 2. The jacket is a reminder of her background in science, while the more armor-like pieces get across that the galaxy is at war, and even civilians must join the fight.

Jack

We wanted to show Jack's maturation from Mass Effect 2 while still keeping her a rebel at heart. She's wearing more clothing and has grown her hair out, but still looks like she's rejecting the system. At the time this concept was made, it was not clear she would be a teacher at Grissom Academy, so her appearance looks a little unusual for a classroom--not that Jack would ever wear a regulation uniform.

EDI

EDI's body needed to be sexy, chrome, and robotic, the Mass Effect version of Maria from Metropolis. We had a lot of discussion about how robotic she would appear, what her "hair" would look like, and whether or not her face would be expressive. Since the body is an infiltration unit that once had skin over the metal, we decided she should have the same facial effects as the other humans. Otherwise the unit would be easily spotted.

Some of the early drafts of EDI had a model without eyes. We thought holographic, omni-tool-like eyes might work, but we decided against this in the end, as it wouldn't work with the digital acting system we use.

The partially completed 3D models above show the level of detail that went into EDI's design. A lot of discussion centered on the shape of her body, the split between the solid and transparent surfaces, and the finer points of her two-tone appearance.

The Child

One child would be the face of the people on Earth whom Shepard could not save. Below are variations on the child's clothing, which we wanted to feel appropriate for the far future but not so unusual that they would seem out of place on a child today.

Kai Leng

Kai Leng, Cerberus's top assassin, was featured in the Mass Effect novels. Mass Effect 3 marks the first time he appears in a game. Early concepts gave him metal legs and hard armor, but this evolved into a stealthier appearance with a coat reminiscent of Thane's. His face and body kept a few obvious cybernetic implants to imply that he'd been modified since the events in the books to become even deadlier.

Long ago, we decided Kai Leng was going to wear Cerberus colors, but we weren't so sure about his hairstyle, coat length, or visor type. The lower concept shows a heavily modified Kai Leng with inhuman metal legs, an early direction that was taken because Anderson disables Leng with shots to the legs in the novel Mass Effect: Retribution.

The Illusive Man

One of the plans on the drawing board was to have the Illusive Man turn into a Reaper creature for the final battle. Eventually, this plan was scrapped, since we wanted to give players the satisfaction of fighting a character they know rather than a random creature. The design implies that the Illusive Man's weapon is his intelligence, not his physical strength.

Below are concepts for the Illusive Man and his observation room. Some vary the color of the dying sun in the background, and one version shows the sun eclipsed.

Numerous facial concepts were made to establish what level of indoctrination the Illusive Man had undergone. A few variations went so far as to reference Saren from the first Mass Effect.

Cerberus Forces

The trooper is the most common Cerberus enemy in the game. We decided the armor needed to look more robust than it did in previous games to show that troopers are battle-hardened foes who have fought all kinds of enemies across the galaxy. Common features for all Cerberus enemies were the coloring, rectangular eye slits, and circles over the shoulders and chest. Heavy armor pads over the collarbone completed the tougher look.

The engineer has lighter weapons and armor than the trooper. The class is also capable of detaching a turret from their back and setting it on the field to help cover an area. We used cloth to imply that this class might be easier to bring down than the trooper. This look also suggests they'll use technology and engineering to defeat foes rather than brute force.

While early versions of the sniper were male, we ultimately decided to make her female to make the sniper's silhouette distinct from other Cerberus enemies. The red lens light was added so she would stand out at a distance.

Rougher versions of the centurion were influenced by the uniforms of real-life bomb-disposal troops. This was eventually toned down to fit the centurion's leadership role. As the gameplay department created weapons for this class, we altered the armor to accomodate things like grenade canisters, matching form with function.

What makes the guardian unique is the heavy gun on the shoulder, required because the class also carries a large, impervious riot shield.

The Atlas went through multiple iterations. An early version cast the Atlas as a heavy Mass Effect 2 YMIR mech with a soldier inside. Eventually, a canopy was added to protect the soldier, and we made the Atlas larger than the YMIR. The canopy was made clearly visible so it would be an obvious weak point. These changes had consequences: increasing the size of the Atlas created a lot of extra work for the animation department.

Reaper Forces

One of the biggest challenges in creating Mass Effect 3 was designing enemies that side with the Reapers but are not Reapers themselves. After all, Shepard wouldn't last long in a fight with a two-kilometer-long starship. To allow us to maintain the series' signature squad-based combat, we created horrific versions of the galaxy's established species, like asari and batarians, and set the action during an invasion where Reaper ground forces were going from house to house harvesting victims.

The banshee is a Reaper version of an asari matriarch--she is stretched taller by the conversion process to make her silhouette both wispy and intimidating.

The cannibal is a Reaper version of a batarian with a human corpse for an arm. The corpse's legs fuse with a large gun. This seemed appropriate, as the Reapers' early fronts during the invasion were in batarian and human space.

The brute was named to suggest its appearance: a large enemy with an oversized claw, able to pick up and mash Shepard into the ground. The krogan were a perfect species to use as a model. We decided to swap out the krogan head for something turian, making for a grisly synthesis of two species whose planets were closely linked in the invasion plan. The exposed vital organs were appropriately repulsive, but we ultimately added armor plating that could be blown off, making the brute extremely tough.

The marauder was the "general" of the husk-like enemies, taken from one of the species most skilled at warfare, the turians.

The harvester was a great opportunity to bring back a creature we had designed for the original Mass Effect. While it appeared in a short mission in Mass Effect 2, we didn't exploit its full potential until Mass Effect 3.

We added dual cannons underneath its head and a large porthole on its stomach. It could now spawn enemies during combat, making it the Reaper equivalent of a troop dropship.

To kill or spare the rachni queen was one of the player's biggest decisions in the first Mass Effect, and we knew early on we wanted to bring the species back. Early versions had a human corpse turned into a gun mounted on the creature. When this was deemed too disgusting, we added large sacs that could be punctured, releasing miniature rachni. We're not sure if this is actually more palatable, but it made for more interesting gameplay.

This creature (called the pariah or the adjutant at various points) was never fully developed before being cut. Planned gameplay, at one point, was to have it teleport around the battlefield. This proved too much even for the relatively generous physics of the Mass Effect universe.

For the third game, we decided to make a smaller version of a Reaper that could land on planets and actually do battle with Shepard. It may not look it, but this destroyer is only about 160 meters high in the game, compared to two kilometers for Sovereign.

The original shape for Sovereign was based on a leaf insect nymph, which gives these Reapers their distinctive silhouette.

Here we have multiple views of a 3D model of the Reaper destroyer. The middle right image shows the faceplate opening up to reveal its main gun. Mechanics like these maintain the synthetic but still organic feel of the Reapers; we wanted to imply that they are thinking creatures that adopt patterns of living things in their construction.

Earth

Earth was an exciting level to design for Mass Effect 3, because it marks the first time in the trilogy that Shepard visits the planet. We knew we wanted a beautiful harbor setting and kicked around many ideas for the city, including Rio de Janeiro and Hong Kong. In the end, we stayed closer to home, choosing Vancouver. These concepts show the process of designing an iconic look that wouldn't conflict with the alien architecture that was already in place. We blended large curves with strong forty-five-degree angles and added a slightly weathered look with human signage to make it familiar.

Mars

After Earth, Mars was probably the second-most-exciting planet to design. We knew it would have human architecture, and we wanted to capture the realistic feel of a drill site on the red planet, excavating Prothean secrets of the Mars archive. We kept the base quite low to the ground to help it survive sandstorms and other harsh Martian weather, and went with a circular design that supported a large drilling shaft down the middle. The large spokes coming off the circle serve as docking stations for shuttles and rovers.

The design of the interior has a clean industrial look, more like a first-world factory than a backwater mining station. The architecture also shows how humans' decades of studying the Prothean archives influenced the design of the mine.

Sur'Kesh

Sur'Kesh, the salarian homeworld, had to harbor an amphibious species. We went with a lush tropical jungle that implied humidity. We thought the large curves of the structures mimicked some of the more organic shapes in salarian armor and clothing. The actual inspiration for this building was a shopping center in Istanbul. We intentionally designed the interiors to blur the line between the landscape and the structure, which helped give the base a very open and inviting feeling. The rubble is the result of Cerberus dropping in a commando team, turning the idyllic building into a battleground.

Tuchanka

Tuchanka was well established in Mass Effect 2 as a bomb-blasted planet that was mostly rubble. The top image was created to help visualize the adventure with the turian crash site. The lower image was a very early concept showing what Reaper walkers invading the planet might look like.

The lost krogan city on the facing page was meant to evoke the feeling that the krogan were worth saving, and that they once created things of beauty before their society crumbled and the krogan nearly became instinct. We showed minor battle damage as well as sparse foliage to imply that life has a small, fragile hope of persisting, even in the midst of mass destruction. The structures were inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture, over which we placed a veneer of krogan aesthetics that made them seem more brutalist in nature. The bottom concept on the facing page was an early draft of the space elevator used to reach the Shroud, a high-tech atmospheric device used to block Tuchanka's harsh sun.

Rannoch

The challenge for Rannoch, the quarian homeworld, was to create a place that seemed consistent with two alien styles: quarian architecture, seen on the Migrant Fleet, and geth architecture, introduced by the geth occupation of the quarian planet centuries prior. We decided to keep Rannoch's quarian environments industrial looking, with modular stainless steel sections similar to the Lloyd's of London building.

The interiors and exteriors were meant to blend--there was no hard line between the two. We were careful not to put in battle damage here, since the geth have kept the quarian homeworld in an almost pristine state.

Thessia

In previous games, players visited asari-influenced worlds, so we knew how to style the asari homeworld for Mass Effect 3. The architecture has a lot of large swooping curves, reminiscent of the work of architect Santiago Calatrava. On the opposite page are early concepts for Thessia that did not show the battle damage from a Reaper invasion that eventually made it into Mass Effect 3.

The above concept is for the asari temple on Thessia, which includes upward-swooping lines like a cathedral. The lower images show some of the battle damage added to the planet to tie it to the Reaper attack.

The Citadel

We had seen the Citadel in the previous two games, but we needed a few more concepts to show the station from a new angle in Mass Effect 3. The bottom image is a concept for the keeper tunnels that were never used, where the creatures would walk around to maintain the station. The blue pads used mass-effect fields to keep the outer skin of the Ward arms separate from the rest of the structure so it could shrug off incredible impacts during battle.

Menae

The top image is an early concept of a turian outpost, created when we were trying to get a handle on their design. We knew what their ships looked like, but not their architecture. The two images below it were made after it was decided that the turians would have a base on Menae, Palaven's moon, from which they could organize a counterattack on the Reapers. The turian structures were designed to be portable military fortifications that could be set up hastily.

Cerberus Headquarters

These are early concepts imagining the Cerberus headquarters. The top image represents a version in which the Illusive Man is not viewing a hologram but instead has a window that looks out at a dying star. The bottom image envisions what the room would look like following a violent confrontation.

The top concept shows the Illusive Man in the early stages of development, back when he was heavily modified by Reaper cybernetics.

Above is what the final room might have looked like if Shepard fought him in this space. The concept is meant to show the moment right before the confrontation, when Shepard is walking past the bodies of the last of the Illusive Man's Cerberus troops.

The bottom right image is close to the final outer appearance of the Cerberus headquarters, which is intended to evoke the image of a blade cutting through space. Its engines are similar to those of Minuteman Station in Mass Effect 2.

The Normandy SR-2

The Normandy SR-2 did not undergo many changes from Mass Effect 2. Most notably, its colors were repainted in Alliance blue to reflect the Systems Alliance's possession of the ship following the events of Mass Effect 2's downloadable content Arrival.

On the opposite page, the top two images were ideas for changes to the interior of the Normandy. We wanted to convey the feeling that it had been captured and studied by the Alliance. The red and blue color changes were to show that the ship was almost always on high alert, appropriate for the wartime setting. The bottom image was an early production painting of a saboteur or assassin breaking into Shepard's room.

Vehicles

The human ships in the original Mass Effect had red and white detailing. As production progressed on Mass Effect 3, we decided that Alliance colors should instead be blue and white. These ships were to featured heavily in the final battle scenes.

The top images are assets for Alliance fighter ships from the first Mass Effect that were never used. We revisited them and improved their fidelity and detailing for Mass Effect 3. The early red and white paint job was changed to reflect the blue and white Alliance colors. Below are various interiors for Alliance fighters and the Alliance shuttle.

The interior of the Kodiak shuttle was a surprisingly important set piece, since Shepard has numerous conversations with the squad members on the way down to the surfaces of various planets. For the exterior, we blacked out the windows to make it feel more military and added guns to give it a more combat-ready appearance.

Weaponry

Each weapon variety maintains the iconic style of each group. For example, the N7-specific weapons share the same color scheme as Shepard's armor, while turian rifles share some of the angular features of their ships and architecture.

Pictured below are two variations of the submachine gun, a popular weapon. The color schemes indicate one was developed for the N7 soldiers and the other for Cerberus.

We added a customization system for weapons in Mass Effect 3. To show the five different levels of modifications for each weapon, concepts like the one above were created. The weapons' modifications could include scope, barrel, and muzzle attachments to visually show the effects of upgrades.

The pistols above show how their design was informed by the clothing and architecture of the species that developed the weapons. The salarian pistol on the left uses elements from Mordin's clothing. The middle pistol is quarian, while the one on the right is Cerberus, its design drawn from their color scheme and their armor's bulk.

Above are examples of heavy weapons. The bottom one is a Reaper heavy weapon. Its design was inspired by a Reaper's leg.

We created the omni-blade to make melee combat as exciting as gunplay. The blade is similar to the omni-tool from the previous games, but it is not entirely holographic. In Mass Effect 3, the omni-tool uses an ultrafast fabricator to manufacture a disposable blade almost instantly.

The Crucible

The Crucible is meant to evoke an enormous rocket-propelled bomb: something like a cross between the Trinity bomb and a NASA space probe. The inset image below shows how the outer protective shell would blow off its working parts.

Two early concepts for the exterior of the Crucible.

It was such a complicated piece of machinery that we had to draw up numerous plans for its use. The large arms slide down the structure to clamp it in place.

Extended Ending

The Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut DLC was created in response to players who wanted more context and deeper insight into the trilogy's endings. We created new scenes and dialogue to expand on the endings and players' choices.

New details of the Normandy's fate after its crash landing were added, culminating in scenes showing the ship being repaired or taking off to unknown adventures.

Added details for the Synthesis ending showed geth and quarians living and working together on Rannoch if the player brokered peace between the two races. Depending on player choices, other scenes on Rannoch included the geth building a new city and the planet shown as lifeless and abandoned.

Creating Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut allowed us to explore details and player choice outcomes. We created a complex flow chart to account for the hundreds of plot states involves in tracking the consequences of players' decisions throughout the trilogy.

This image is based on a photograph taken by one of our freelance staff over the Big Island of Hawaii. The floating towers and smooth clean curves were to evoke the feeling of a futuristic civilization that had advanced far beyond us and was living in peace and harmony with the world.

Supplemental scenes and dialogue added more details to the outcomes of player choices to show the conditions of planets like Tuchanka, Rannoch, and Earth. This highlighted possibilities that ranged from thriving, united communities to desolate destruction.

Depending on player choices regarding the genophage and the fate of the rachni, Tuchanka could appear as being overrun by the giant creatures.

Our team became particularly attached to the krogan over the course of three games, and we enjoyed imagining the various final versions of Tuchanka almost as much as we enjoyed imagining what a baby krogan might look like. Tuchanka's architecture was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture and the unfinished, never-used Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea.

Diving into potential outcomes for Shepard's team members was particularly rewarding. Depending on a player's choice regarding Morinth, Samara might be seen resuming her work as a justicar, or she could be visiting her daughter, Falere, at an Ardat-Yakshi monastery.

Kasumi might be found in her quarters gazing sadly at her graybox, or she might be able to reunite with her partner, Keiji, depending on a player's choices regarding the graybox in Kasumi's follower mission.

Javik

The Prothean statues on Ilos in the original Mass Effect were visually ambiguous, because we were never sure how much of the Protheans we would show over the course of the trilogy. By the time Mass Effect 3 came around, we knew that the Collectors were Prothean victims of the Reapers. The look of the Collectors influenced how we created the Prothean squad member.

We tried to make him look more intelligent than the Collectors, as a Prothean needs to look capable of inventing some of the galaxy's most advanced technology.

We had numerous designs for Javik's armor. It needed to have an ancient feel but still be fantasically high tech. Eventually we steered toward clothing more like a samurai's than the high-tech armor Shepard wears, to suggest the wearer had been in stasis for more than fifty thousand years.

Above is the final modeled head for a Prothean, showing off the shell shape that was a key feature of the Collectors. We added multiple pupils to the eyes and secondary nostrils off the upper lip for a very alien feel.

The top two images show BioWare's version of an archaeological dig site on Eden Prime. The main purpose was to show an interesting landscape that hinted at something far greater, far larger, happening below the surface. At the bottom is a Prothean city that we wanted to look alien and futuristic, but still instantly recognizable as a city skyline.

The Citadel (2)

We did a lot of work around the concept of under-Wards that would represent the lowest levels of the Citadel, where few people ever went. There were discussions about placing a mission in these under-Wards for all three games in the Mass Effect trilogy, but that never materialized.

During the Citadel's creation and later additions, we were inspired by the architecture of Norman Foster, who designed the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation headquarters in Hong Kong and London's City Hall. His use of sleek, futuristic design was an important influence on the Citadel. The image on the right was intended to be a marketplace for Citadel residents that spread across the three levels shown. The market was placed in a massive, futuristic canyon to showcase the size, scale, and contours of the Citadel's interior.

CAT6 mercenaries were designed to give the impression they were always ready for a special-ops mission. The concepts had dark camouflage, heavy armor, and lights on the helmets for skulking around dark areas. We experimented with many different CAT6 helmets to best convey the intimidation and stark utility of hired killers.

We altered Nyreen's clothing to create the base model for female turian NPCs in the Mass Effect 3: Citadel DLC. The leader of the Talons was lighter and quicker than her male counterparts, which gave all the female turians a different look. The above images are Maya Brooks's character designs. Her appearance was intended to reflect her ex-Cerberus background.

Leviathan

The Mahavid mining station was created because BioWare developers loved the iconic appeal of an asteroid base. It's classic sci-fi.

Mass Effect 3: Leviathan allowed us to explore submerged areas in these images of damaged ships that were abandoned after crashing into the water. We thought of it as a ship graveyard or a rocky shore where dozens of pirate vessels had crashed on stormy nights. These images were reminiscent of a ship-breaking yard moved from the beach into the water.

Omega

With all its story potential and color, Omega was always fun for developers to work on. For the Mass Effect 3: Omega DLC, slight alterations were made that focused on having new areas to explore. We wanted parts of it to feel fresh, but still retain the basic idea that this was a cobbled-together station feeding off this asteroid's element zero.

Omega is Mass Effect's "hive of scum and villainy." After the Protheans abandoned their mining of the asteroid's element zero deposits, the station became a hideout for gangs of criminals and fugitives who constantly battled to control Omega's resources.

Omega's giant reactor needed to look monstrous and powerful enough to sustain an entire mining station and a crowded, seedy haven worth fighting over. These images highlight Omega's thematic red color, which differentiated it from the blue of the Citadel.

The Talon mercenaries led by Nyreen needed a unified look among their different races. These weren't ragtag mercs piecing their armor together out of scrap. Nyreen's leadership turned the Talons into an organized, professional force, and we wanted their appearance to reflect that with colors, symbols, and stripes.

Nyreen

Nyreen's face was challenging for our character artists. How do we adjust the bone features of a turian face to appear more feminine? These concepts show Nyreen with a slimmer head and adjusted jawline, and without the longer crest along the top of the skull that's common to male turians.

Though Nyreen wasn't as bulky or armored as other turians, we still wanted her to believably kick some ass in Omega's cramped corridors. As she covertly organized the Talons on Omega without being discovered by Aria, few people knew Omega's nooks, crannies, and shadows as well as Nyreen.

Multiplayer

For Mass Effect 3's multiplayer, the game required tight, contained levels that allowed players to have engaging battles regardless of their play style. Many multiplayer concepts were exciting ideas that hadn't fit into the main game. Repurposing them allowed artists to return to some of their favorite ideas and develop them further.

There weren't a lot of rules restricting the creation of the multiplayer environments. As long as the combat would work, the artists had full ownership of these levels and experimented with the function, shape, and colors of these different structures to create laboratories, alleyways, and even a large dam.

The opposite page shows Firebase Hydra, which depicted an abandoned quarian colony taken over by humans and converted into a hydropower dam facility. Above is Firebase Glacier, shown both in normal conditions and during Seeker Swarm hazard event.

BioWare artists always wanted to include the iconic sci-fi image of a huge satellite array like this one at Firebase Dagger. The idea of scientists clustered in a laboratory while listening for signs of intelligent life in the stars was an inspiration for many space adventures like Mass Effect.

Many Mass Effect environments, structures, and visuals represent or take inspiration from real-world locations, which led to the creation of firebases in actual Earth cities. The above is a futuristic interpretation of the Rio de Janeiro waterfront with the Christ the Redeemer statue on Corcovado Mountain in the background.

The krogan planet of Tuchanka was always envisioned as a world that might not ever recover from the damage already done. At Firebase Giant, the krogan's endless wars had scorched the sky and turned their city's brutalist architecture into bombed-out ruins. This infrastructure represents the destruction of Tuchanka with cannons still pointing at the dirty, dust-choked sky.

The top images are of a level where the player would land on the helipad of a hospital, then fight enemies as they travel down into the building level by level at Firebase Vancouver. The bottom images are concepts of futuristic streets around Firebase London.

The top two images are of the salarian homeworld of Sur'Kesh that was the basis for Firebase Jade. Artists include different plants and palm trees in salarian cities because of the planet's wet, jungle-like environment. The turian moon of Menae was the opposite, with a barren landscape at Firebase Condor similar to our own moon. The turian homeworld of Palaven is visible in the background.

Characters

Separate from the main game, the possibilities for multiplayer character kits expanded and had fewer constrictions. The priority was to make them fun and interesting to look at, even if the designs didn't quite fit with the traditional race or faction. That enabled new appearances, and chances to play as traditional enemy characters like the Awakened Collector Adept and Batarian Soldier.

This Alliance Infiltration Unit was based on Eva, the Cerberus operative whose body was eventually controlled by EDI. This model was a heavier character with more armor than EDI. Artists added extra plating and thicker limbs to bulk up the character and make her more intimidating in a fight.

These male and female turian appearances were created exclusively for multiplayer. Often, these concepts would be a joint effort between artists and BioWare's combat team to develop details like the turian wrist blades.

Outside the confines of the main game, multiplayer offered players a chance to control characters from a wider variety of factions and races. While playing as a geth might never work in the main plot, it was a fun addition for multiplayer action.

The Krogan Warlord Sentinel was one of five krogan multiplayer models. The volus multiplayer characters (facing page) were a great way to use a popular element of Mass Effect in a brand-new way. BioWare developers loved the idea of having a volus combat character. There were even discussions of creating a multiplayer character from the jellyfish-like hanar, but the concept never materialized.

Outfits and Customization

Around the BioWare offices, we call this outfit "Linebacker Shepard" because of the wider armor profile. This model had extra plating in the shoulders, arms, and chest for a bulkier feel than the sleeker soldier that appeared in the trilogy. This is our tank Shepard.

After three games in the Mass Effect universe, a lot of BioWare's character artists got attached to Shepard and their followers. They were eager to try out variations in the appearance and clothing of crew members like Garrus and Liara.

James and Kaidan were intended to look more like they were members of a special-ops team in these outfits. We added the canisters, plating, and pouches to achieve a heavier military look.

The Reckoner Knight Armor (top) was designed as a cross promotion with the game Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and needed to fit that title's fantasy aesthetic.

The Garrus version of the Terminus Assault Armor was reminiscent of stealth bombers while still retaining the general shape of turian armor.

For Liara's redesign, we brought forward some unused concept art from the first Mass Effect game. These outfits are based on the earliest concepts of the asari, including the experimentation with different tattoos on Liara's face.

For Tali, we decided to replace some of the cloth areas of her outfit with armor to give a more resilient look. To achieve this, we experimented with covering her visor with armor. This led to a Tali who looked ready for the battlefield rather than the engineering bay.

DLC Weapons

For DLC content, we redesigned familiar weapons to match the theme of each new release. Artists took several days to conceive each base weapon, then thematic alterations were made, like the N7 Crusader shotgun and the batarian AT-12 Raider.

The N7 Valkyrie assault rifle was designed as the new standard-issue rifle for Alliance recruits.

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