Humorously the plot synopsis IS from a very reliable source, an actual casting site.
The problem is, all their cross over projects use a description of the franchise’s main entry (in this case ME1) it doesn’t at all mean that’s a summary of the project, but rather a light intro into why we know ME
This isn’t evidence for or against. Just telling us it’s got its blurbs going around the industry.
Exactly. Mass Effect is a headline grabber no matter what state the fandom is in. They get clicks. Unfortunately that wasn’t enough to get sales for andromeda and that’s why we’ve been stuck like this but articles always do well
The synopsis was posted here last week, and the consensus from the comments was that it might be for real, but it could easily be placeholder text that someone (with no knowledge of what the writers are planning) put together to describe what Mass Effect is.
As someone who used to have a Production Weekly subscription and trawl these weekly, the summary early on isn't always indicative of the plot. Sometimes it's a placeholder for whatever IP is being adapted. The fact that it doesn't make use of any specific gendered pronouns makes me think this might be a temporary placeholder (whether it does end up being about Shepard or not).
And in this case can be almost certainly dismissed even if it was reliable.
Because doing even the ME1 plot would require so much CGI for the aliens, costumes and locations. Nobody is throwing that much budget at a niche gaming franchise. Even the Halo series avoided the aliens as much as it could.
We are likely getting a story in pre-First Contact war that ends the season with the Turians showing up, if we are lucky. Maybe indoctrinated humans (from a randomly found Reaper artifact) running shenanigans.
Any Trilogy timeline story will be almost certainly either in the Solar System exclusively or in the human colonies.
Because fallout is so easy to do that with. Every fallout game is a different place with new characters.
So they can essentially make the show as if they made another game with a new vault dweller main character and new plot etc.
Halo and mass effect could do that too. But the whole plot and characters are the main point of the game. So it’s just a lot harder to make something new or different with it.
Halo is definitely the most difficult one to do it with because it's really hard to get the majority of people to care about Halo without Master Chief, Reach and ODST only worked because the franchise had an established fanbase at that point, trying to market a Halo show however not featuring Master Chief to general audiences was probably seen as financial suicide.
I know this is just a sign that I played Halo at a very specific time, but I find it crazy that Reach's story hasn't been experienced by so many people. "Objective: Survive" still hits like a truck. Would be interesting to see how/if they could adapt that for TV.
Here's to hoping it gets a successful remaster/remake one day, lots of great memories from the campaign and messing around in Forge mode.
That’s a great mission, but I was actually referring to the book, not the game. I think they’re both canon, and the book is more about John’s origins. It starts with his abduction and ends with the Pillar of Autumn discovering the first Halo ring
They already made a Master Chief origins story movie and another live action project with him. Literally all they had to do was give us a show about the stuff MC does in between the games
Ngl though I would love to see essentially the entire CE game filmed in live action. Been wanting that since I was a kid. Maybe change up how some of the scenes are filmed but keep the plot the same.
I think there's a huge distinction between "an original story made by huge fans of the game that is entirely canon and takes place in a highly accurate recreation of the world we already know" and "fuck the source material, we don't like it and are going to use characters, concepts, and plotlines from the game however we see fit without consideration of their origin"
Because the story of the Halo show was never supposed to be a Halo show. And it was written by people who have no clue or love of Halo or it's lore.
Last minute they changed a few things and slapped the Halo name on it. That's why the story makes no sense, its not a Halo story, but a generic sci fi story.
The fallout show was written from the beginning to be a fallout show, written by people who love the games and lore.
They would repeat the same mistake of not understanding the source material. So much of what makes mass effects story great comes from the writers understanding that it would be applied to the gaming medium.
If a show runner tries to follow the game storyline without the self-directed exploration and player moral agency, then the best it can possibly be is a cinematic theme park ride where you get to see the costumes, hear the names but not the full story nor get the full effect when the character on screen kills someone as their choice and not yours.
If they just respected the IP, there wouldn't have been an issue with creating an original Halo plotline, even with already established characters. But it seems like the showrunner wanted to make his own show, but got shackled with an IP he either didn't really know, or just didn't care about.
The failure of the Halo show was not because it was an original story, but because they made choices that were so far off base from the source material. Through 5 plus Halo games we never once see Chief’s face. In the show they decide to show it immediately and his character traits are so far off from MasterChief in the games.
Personally, I'm content if they essentially follow the game, regardless of the choices they make. All that matters is that they utilize the options already available within the game. I don't really care about anything else, like what gender they make Shepherd. Just don't try to reinvent the wheel.
Yeah, I honestly think if they use the Paragon route as an outline with a few smaller Renegade moments thrown in then it’s not as complicated as it seems. A lot of the big moments like how to handle the Genophage and the Geth conflict have overwhelming popular and satisfying Paragon resolutions, so they may as well just go with it imo
Yeah the only major ME1 choice I can think of that doesnt have an obvious answer is the Virmire Survivor, I would guess they keep Ashley but it could go either way. Wouldnt shock me if both live honestly.
There are a lot of people who haven't played the games, and wont ever play them. It would be nice to have a way to share the story with them, at least one aspect of it.
The story is deep enough that it would be much like making a book into a movie. You don't need to change much besides the things that wont translate well to the screen.
Exactly. This has been my opinion ever since the idea of a Mass Effect show first came up--what, like 10-12 years ago? It's a great space opera on par with the classics. It should be shown to a greater audience. A new story (First contact war, etc.) would be cool for those of us that played the games and know all the lore, but it's a TV show. Stick to the source material best you can. I've never seen something criticized for being too much like the source material. Lol.
I played the games and First Contact War to me feels like a very non interesting story to expand upon, we already know well what happened. Don't understand why some people in this sub insisted that the show should be about it.
Halo should have given us an ODST show showing how hard it is just to survive and a spartan, chief possibly, showing up at the final
Engagement and just slaughters the covenant with ease. Absolute waste they don’t basically make the halo 3 odst commercial a show
They sort of did with Halo 4, a live action mini series that follows a bunch of recruits. The series is called halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn. Master chief is in it.
But you have to start the show with those ODSTs rescuing Marines and being badass. Just fending off a Savage attack from grunts and jackals. Show that these guys are so much better than average.
Then episode 2 maybe have them lose some folks to drones. And just escalate through the season until blue team evacs what's left into a single pelican.
I can’t see it working tbh. Making choices and forging your own version of the story was key to what made the games so good. Any attempt to adapt it for tv will have to make a canon decision for every single choice made in the games, which is gonna make so many people mad. There’s literally no way to do it in a way that isn’t going to infuriate the majority of the people who played the games.
People seem to forget that mass effect has a ton of fleshed-out lore and a creative group of writers could definitely come up with a good original story that maybe ties into the events of the games somewhat, sort of like what we got with fallout. Sure it’ll be harder, but it’s more likely to make everyone happy, and it’ll be something new, which is better.
The TV show isn’t going to “change” the games themselves or “make things canon”. An adaptation could never retroactively change the original work like that. Why? Because they’re separate entities from each other. The TV show doing something different from the games isn’t going to “erase” or “undo the player experience” or whatever nonsense hysteria people are buying into.
I don’t think they should use the story of the games and instead just make something adjacent set in the universe like the Fallout show did. But everyone who’s played the games is always going to have those memories of doing so. The show isn’t going to take that away whatsoever.
There’s literally no way to do it in a way that isn’t going to infuriate the majority of the people who played the games.
Unless we just behave like reasonable people who understand all this and not toddlers having a tantrum. That would be so cringe. I'd like to believe the majority of people who played the games aren't entitled children.
Right? Like why should I care about something being made canon for the tv version? Like my personal canon is sitting comfortably in its save folder right next to my 6 other canons.
This is literally a game about all of us players getting to make our own personal canon. The tv series isn’t going to be functionally different than any streamers let’s play for me.
There’s literally no way to do it in a way that isn’t going to infuriate the majority of the people who played the games.
I'm fairly sure this is true regardless of what anyone does with the license. Fandoms like this are not generally known for being accepting of any deviation from their beloved IPs.
What's funny is that the Halo show was largely panned because they made Mr Chef into a horn dog and he kept taking off his helmet, but Shepard already does both of those things.
I'll take a word-for-word remake over whatever happened to Halo and Witcher, any day.
If they keep it to the plot of ME1, I don't even see what the issue is? It has a classical three-act structure.
ME2 should be a separate season centered around Cerberus (moreso than Harbinger, who ended up a pretty lame villain), and ME3 is difficult to adapt because it's so unfocused. But just straight lifting ME1 sounds ideal.
It can be both. Some games translate well, especially if they are story driven. Last of Us was faithful enough to the source material while looking to capture a larger audience [its also why they made the casting choices they did]. Stuff like Red Dead could easily be made into a faithful series that has a wider audience. It's when you get games that are more action than story that the problem arises, you have to create stories that arent in the game to try to make it work, and then it turns into a convoluted mess with random characters. If its not too serious it just ends up for a niche audience anyhow [like Resident Evil] or if it tries to be genre encompassing like Halo, it ends up as a sci-fi mess. No reason ME can't be faithful and turn out as a solid sci-fi series.
Yeah and it woild suck if they only have a handful of scenes with aliens and mostly humans. Especially since half your squad team are not human in the games.
They’re gonna need to get people in Mocap suits for those, the qurians on the other hand should be easy they can probably just get real actors and actresses in those rather than Mocap
Which means that Wrex, Grunt, and Mordin would be minimized as much as possible. CGI characters are expensive on a per-shot basis.
Live Action Mass Effect is and has always been an outright terrible idea. The technology and budgets just do not support it, and will be a waste of effort for everyone involved.
HAHAHHA true, Walton Goggins has the voice and we’ve already seen him play a not human looking character, I hope they use a mix of practical affect and CG for Garrus.
Honestly, I was hoping for a prequel show about the First Contact War or Anderson's story, leading up to the events of ME1. I would rather not watch a direct TV adaptation of the trilogy about Shepard since it's an RPG series where we make our own choices as a player when it comes to making difficult choices that lead to consequences throughout the story, picking a romance option, etc.
Edited: I'll give this show a chance when it comes out eventually and it could bring new fans who never played the games before, but I'm still very skeptical.
My main concern is Shepard. Every single thing about them is defined by player choice. They can reaffirm it’s non canon up and down, if femshep players see maleshep it is gonna sting a bit.
But honestly I still wouldn't mind seeing mShep only as long as the series is good.
Also we are still grateful for BioWare for creating a female main charracter with a full voice acting for a massive IP. That wasn't really a norm in mid 2000s.
Who is “we”? Lets not be overly grateful for things we should already have when able. Yes, its nice, cool, but we don’t need to overly compliment them for it. “Eh women are used to it”? Nah. Don’t be like that.
Why not? I am talking about 2000s not 2020s. We didn't have fully voiced, customizable female main characters in a big IP back then. Lara Croft, Samus, Bayonetta were rare examples amongst countless male MCs.
Regardless, statistics say mShep was chosen more, it's only fair that mShep exists in a Mass Effect live action series. Choosing fShep wouldn't be fair to them, and vice versa.
Don’t see why…it’s basically like watching another persons playthrough on a livestream or something. It’s not like the show is gonna be definitive canon. ME doesn’t work like that
Agreed. I don’t need the validation of the show’s choices for my own playthroughs. I’m not going to pout if Shep isn’t a pistol, half-nova Vanguard at the end of the series. I’ll just think the showrunners gave us a less than best version of Shep and watch the story anyway. I want ME to enter the cultural zeitgeist like GoT did, and if my Shep isn’t on the screen, so fucking what? Someone else’s is, and I’m cool with that for them.
>if femshep players see maleshep it is gonna sting a bit.
And the opposite. I play the default ME1 FemShep on the og trilogy and the default MELE FemShep on the LE. So the pale redhead we all know and love. I romance Kaidan every time, save my original run on the Xbox 360 where I picked Liara. I usually go Paragorn, with a side of Renegade.
I also have some saves as BroShep, where I play Vanderloo Shep. I romance Tali, still a mix of Paragorn and Renegade.
I'm a Spacer War Hero. I always save the Council, I never let anyone die on the Suicide Mission and I mod my ME3 ending.
The story is never going to be mine. What's the point in watching it? Are they doing it for non-gamers? Then why the hell adapt the game story, which changes based on players because...it's a game with choices??
Exactly. I’m a maleshep player, but I’d be lying if I said femshep wasn’t just as popular as maleshep. Hell, she might even be more popular thanks to Jennifer Hale’s performance.
Oh we have proof that BroShep is still what the majority of people play. Bioware released the stats. It's just that online people are really vocal about FemShep. But while in the og trilogy Male Shep was like more than 80%, in the LE it was still 68% or something like that.
Jokes aside they’ll probably just do the popular picks and choices for their decisions.
My problem with video game adaptations is always the voices. You grow to love the character, and their voice is a big part of it. Garrus isn’t the same without his voice, same with Shep
Weirdly the fact that the game is an RPG makes me less nervous about the story idk. Like since there is no singular story for Shepard I feel like I can just go in thinking of this as another iteration of them rather than being worried about deviations like for stories with a singular path.
To me the thing I’m most worried about is how they will make the aliens look. Regardless of the story if species like the Krogan or the Turians look like cheap CGI or halloween costumes it will ruin the experience for me.
Same, I think prequels and/or side stories are the way to go. Those would enrich and enhance the games, but if they follow the exact script of the games it would feel a bit like they’re deciding cannon choices and minimizing the story.
Prequels and side stories aren’t the best stories they can produce. Shep vs. The Reapers is, and that’s what any studio that likes profit is going to give us. Yeah, as the hardcore fans of the property, a lot of us are welcome to seeing the lesser stories get some airtime to flesh out the universe, but there’s a reason that Peter Jackson didn’t make the first live action bit of Tolkien legendarium one of the stories in the Silmarillion.
Not to sound selfish but...Mass Effect is my story. My Shepard is my Shepard. The story that was crafted and reflected with the choices and decisions I made in it make it feel personal to me. I'm not interested in watching an "official" Shepard that may and will do things different. It will feel wrong to me. Does anyone else feel the same?
I feel the same way with my Male Shepard character, who is a full Paragon War Hero and a Soldier and the love of his life who I always romance every playthrough is Ashley.
Exactly, everyone views and experienced these characters differently.
Even the most basic details are different, to me shepherd's the little gang kid from earth who joined the military to escape. They would use that experience of growing up in street gangs to rally the colonists and lead them in urban combat during the skyllian blitz, earning them fame and recognition.
These moments set up the subtle background story for shepherd throughout all the games, they were once a member of a human supremacist gang, they were the soilder fighting a battle against alien slavers seeing the worst the galaxy has to offer.
But its this person the one raised by racists and saw the horrors of batarian pirates, they are the one that goes on to build a diverse crew, creates a found family and unite all the species of gakaxy the together against a common foe.
And that's just from the character creation screen and I can do more, with narrative reasons to explain why i switch classes between me1 and 2. That's the story of my shepherd, there's no way any series could do them justice, and even if they tried too your still going too have a ton of fans saying "they picked earthborn war hero, wtf?"
the only real question is male or female, and how often adrenaline rush is going to be used. hate it or love it or hate it, that's how it's going to be
And whatever hope I had for the show is gone, fans are going to compare it to the games which the show will inevitably fail to stack up to, new watchers "might" find enjoyment but the fast pacing of craming the entire first game into a 6-12 episode run time will most likely ruin it
Fans will be mad the second there's a choice they don't agree with. Even Shepard's hairstyle, let alone sex, will spark bemusement. New watchers might enjoy the story, but then come into our spaces and are met with people complaining that this is not their story.
Would new watchers buy a 10yo trilogy just to play the same story but with their own choices? Some, but I don't think it would make millions.
And if this is a prelude to ME4, it could be seen as a way to "solidify" that game's story and that would piss off fans even more, as it could potentially ignore choices from the trilogy.
Only thing I dropped is Feros; and that's just because I dislike Feros relative to the others. You could fit in the Feros bits of lore elsewhere in the dialogue or whatever. I'm not a screen writer. I just don't think it's a terrible approach if they get decently long episodes and really concise writing.
Eh.... I think Illos could be also in the final episode, not that much of note happen on it by itself with having no character. As much as Feros is sorta ignored on the long run, I think seeing the effects the Thorian on people could be interesting on TV.
Good. About time someone realized we liked the story and wouldn't mind seeing it in a different medium. It'd be nice if creators could do original stuff with these but the RE movies, DOOM, the-Paramount-show-which-shall-not-be-named, etc. keep proving it's nigh impossible.
For the love of all that is good let the showrunners actually have played the game and not "I didn't wanna play the game to muddy my direction" bullshit.
She's the most popular LI option(and probably the most popular character overall behind Shepard) with the most content to use from the games and can be romanced by both genders. It's the safest and most popular choice to go with.
I imagine it’d be a mix
Personally I think it’d be good to be paragon for the most part for the plot of 1
Maybe a bit more renegade is 2 after trauma of the attack feeling frustrated and probably some influence from Cerberus
Then 3 returning to a more paragon shep as they want to make things right in the galaxy and maybe feel he needs to be better to not be Cerberus
its literally not been written yet, they just found a showrunner....anything "being sent around" is fake, also I really would not mind it following the trilogy, amazon can just market it as their own playthrough and not hard cannon. Still piss some off but id still find it enjoyable if written well. Problem with doing it fallout style is its harder with a game like mass effect, every fallout game follows a new story, the whole reason the mass effect games exist was this main story. To do something else would be hard.
TLoU doesn't have multiple choices and it's the prototype for the Sony "cinematic games"
It's one story with an emphasis on movie-like direction. It makes sense to adapt it. But Mass Effect, where even its main character is different based on players? I don't know if that's the right call
To introduce and expand the Mass Effect universe to a potential new group of fans, same reason they did the TLOU series, same way they did Fallout, Twisted Metal, etc.
The same reason you can just replay any video game adaptation instead, read every manga instead of their anime adaptation or read every book instead of watching the movie adaptation
They aren’t making the show for the people in this subreddit, they’re making it for everyone else who might like the story who haven’t played the game. That’s like saying “why make Game of Thrones? People can just read the books.”
Does it matter? If you ever watch a livestream of someone playing ME they might make choices you don’t like or choose a different path. Just treat this as if we are watching a new player make their own choices and experiencing the world their own way for the first time. That’s an amazing thing about ME, that you can watch other people play and it can be a different experience.
I think if they write it well, and the actors can act, then it'll be fine.
What i am worried for however, is the aliens, planets/cities, tech and biotics. The amount of money they'd have to spend to make all of that look good has to be astronomical. If there's anything that'll hold this show back, it would be that.
Now if they do follow the games, then im excited for Omega and Aria. The whole setting of that is probably one of my favorite things from the Mass Effect series.
We have no evidence of that. This is saying because a description of the TV show used the game description but all game products do that early on.
Anyway Hollywood would literally never use Male Shepard but I don’t really like Femshep for the story as much personally but I know I would get hate for that.
Please do not do this. Please do not copy the game script. This will flop so hard if they do. This game is too character driven and when characters show up on screen and don’t look exactly how they should look or sound exactly how they should sound, pretty much every player will be turned off.
They shouldn’t do anything with Shepard at all imo. It needs to be new characters in the same world. They can tie into the game story and reference characters or events but they can’t depict anything from the game without it flopping hard.
The only possible way I can see a character being depicted on the show is Miranda Lawson because you can get her actress to play her. Could be cool to follow her before she meets Shepard in her early Cerberus days.
Too much cgi will be required to make this a decent adaptation. At the same time, cgi in excess lends itself to losing audience connection. So, as much as I hope it'll be good, the chances are slim.
So this is how Mass Effect dies, huh? That's a damn shame. This is a game that definitely shouldn't be a TV-show. It doesn't even make any sense because it was heavily determined by player customization and choices they made during the gameplay. There's no way they can translate that into a linear storyline that will make sense to people. This is so unnecessary.
But add in downtime scenes with the crew we never got. Cards, Awful Food, Good Food, Training, Chakwas yelling at Shepard to stop driving the Mako over cliffs to do a 360 flip.
Nobody wants to watch Mass Effect AU, the series has lasted this long because its story was top tier.
But uh, are they a femshep player or maleshep?
Both are cool but if they're going for recognisability, just like with Geralt, they'll probably pick default femshep because of hair. Characters these days are like 50% their colour palette.
I don't want this, Hollywood sucks at these right now. They keep putting people in charge that drive these type of IP's into the ground because they don't like the source material or want to tell their own story.
I hope this is fake, but if it's not then it might just be a skip for me, I'd much rather just play the story my way than watch someone else's interpretation of it.
This ends up being the case, I'm actually very cool with it; introducing people to one of the outcomes and encouraging people to play the trilogy to make their own stories? Very much on board!
This could actually really work given how ME plot isn't that long and can easily fit into 10 episodes
Episode 1: Eden Prime gets attacked by the Geth
Episode 2 Sarens Trial
Episode 3 find Liara
Episode 4 Feos and Tails side quest
Episode 5 Noveria part 1
Episode 6 Noveria part 2
Episode 7 Virmire
Episode 8 ilos
Episode 9 Citadel attack part 1
Episode 10 Citadel attack part 2
Move the Doctor guy Garus is after too peak 15 and Put Wrex Grandfather amour on the same world as Liara. You pretty much get everything important in.
Then add in some new stuff. Like seeing what was happening behind the scenes. Give the supporting cast side quest, so you don't have everyone on the mission together.
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u/popileviz Jun 23 '25
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