Mass Effect™ Legendary Edition

Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.

Very Positive · 91%Very Positive · 91%2021

$59.99

US Steam price, checked 6 h ago

The verdict

A superb, story-driven sci-fi RPG trilogy with all DLC and visual upgrades, but it forces the EA app and account, which often breaks launching, especially on Steam Deck. Skip it if you hate third-party launchers.

Great for

Story-driven RPG fans who want choices, companions and a full space-opera trilogy with all DLC

Main risk

The mandatory EA app/account fails to launch or log in, especially on Steam Deck or Linux

What players love

Outstanding story and worldbuilding

Mentioned in ~2 in 5 positive reviews

“Its insane how good the story is, there is a buildup throughout all the games that keeps you excited.”
Steam review · 68.8 h played ↗

“The lore throughout the games remained so, so, captivating.”
Steam review · 119.5 h played ↗

“story, universe, ending, characters, all of it is written on some other level”
Steam review · translated · 108 h played ↗

Memorable characters and companions

Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews

“The companions are incredible, the locations are memorable, the world feels ridiculously thought-out”
Steam review · 114.3 h played ↗

“I've never met a developer that gives companions this much screen time and quests.”
Steam review · translated · 126.2 h played ↗

“The Normandy became home, its crew became family, Garrus became a friend”
Steam review · translated · 109.1 h played ↗

Choices carry across all three games

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews

“The fact that all of your choices and relationships seamlessly carry over from one game to the next is incredible.”
Steam review · 219.2 h played ↗

“A single choice can produce a real butterfly effect”
Steam review · 134.9 h played ↗

“the consequences of many such actions carry over from game to game, right up to the ME3 credits”
Steam review · translated · 115.7 h played ↗

Great value with all DLC included

Mentioned in ~1 in 7 positive reviews

“the fact that one package gives you all three games is just insane value”
Steam review · 45.5 h played ↗

“The inclusion of all the DLC's for each game makes it worth all the more to play through!”
Steam review · 88.6 h played ↗

“ESPECIALLY if you can get it for $5 like I did”
Steam review · 103 h played ↗

Visual and quality-of-life upgrades

Mentioned in ~1 in 8 positive reviews

“the Mako isn't as much of a pain to control, the graphics are better, the load times are faster”
Steam review · 333.7 h played ↗

“Mass Effect 1 (ME1) sees the most improvements, namely in graphical fidelity and gameplay improvements while driving the Mako”
Steam review · 130.3 h played ↗

Runs well, including Steam Deck and Linux

Mentioned in ~1 in 19 positive reviews

“Played all 3 games on my steam deck. Straight out the box, no tinkering with settings. Battery life and performance were great.”
Steam review · 127.3 h played ↗

“Works perfect on Linux.”
Steam review · 102.2 h played ↗

What players complain about

Forced EA app and account

Mentioned in ~3 in 4 negative reviews

“Why (I mean, we know why: that sweet, sweet datamining that is provided by the EA launcher) does the game simply launch another launcher?”
Steam review · 79.8 h played ↗

“Remove the EA App requirement. It does nothing but punish users who bought the game with unneccessary DRM and reward pirates who didn't pay with a better experience.”
Steam review · 36.8 h played ↗

“The game itself is fine. But the Electronic Arts launcher is garbage. Launching the game is an adventure every time.”
Steam review · translated · 52.4 h played ↗

Offline play blocked, account bans and lost saves

Mentioned in ~1 in 6 negative reviews

“Now,my saves are gone becoz of EA launcher.”
Steam review · 54.5 h played ↗

“EA banned my account and left me with a dead game, no reason was given.”
Steam review · 1.2 h played ↗

“now all of my saves are gone for some unspecified cloud syncing error.”
Steam review · 227.7 h played ↗

Lingering bugs and a light remaster

Mentioned in ~1 in 8 negative reviews

“ME1 is riddled with bugs”
Steam review · 12.6 h played ↗

“They just stuffed three old games into one and didn't even fix the old bugs.”
Steam review · translated · 8.6 h played ↗

“No effort at improving the outdated menu system of the older titles, the inventory system, the gunplay, the physics, the lighting”
Steam review · 1.9 h played ↗

Broken on Steam Deck and Linux

Mentioned in ~1 in 9 negative reviews

“Horrendous setup on steam deck worse than any of hundreds of games before it.”
Steam review · 3.7 h played ↗

“This edition is more often than not unusable on steam deck purely because of the EA launcher.”
Steam review · 36.6 h played ↗

“EA broke its app and now the game won't launch for anyone on Steam Deck.”
Steam review · translated · 22.7 h played ↗

Dated, repetitive gameplay and bad AI

Mentioned in ~1 in 10 negative reviews

“Mass Effect 1 has some of the worst enemy A.I. I have ever seen.”
Steam review · 14.3 h played ↗

“The gameplay becomes repetitive pretty fast: clear hallway using random boxes for cover, door opens, clear next hallway, rinse and repeat”
Steam review · 98.8 h played ↗

“but it has aged in gameplay and needs a full remake of the trilogy”
Steam review · translated · 109.5 h played ↗

Controller and sound problems

Mentioned in ~1 in 15 negative reviews

“The fact that they can't fix the controller detection problem with the launcher bothers the hell out of me.”
Steam review · 23.4 h played ↗

“the Legendary Edition had no option to change field of view.”
Steam review · 0.4 h played ↗

System requirements

From the Steam store page

Steam Deck: Playable

Minimum

OS64-bit Windows 10

ProcessorIntel Core i5 3570 or AMD FX-8350

Memory8 GB RAM

GraphicsGPU: NVIDIA GTX 760, AMD Radeon 7970 / R9280X GPU RAM: 2 GB Video Memory

Storage120 GB available space

Recommended

OS64-bit Windows 10

ProcessorIntel Core i7-7700 or AMD Ryzen 7 3700X

Memory16 GB RAM

GraphicsGPU: NVIDIA GTX 1070 / RTX 200, Radeon Vega 56, GPU RAM: 4 GB Video Memory

Storage120 GB available space

OS64-bit Windows 10

ProcessorIntel Core i5 3570 or AMD FX-8350

Memory8 GB RAM

GraphicsGPU: NVIDIA GTX 760, AMD Radeon 7970 / R9280X GPU RAM: 2 GB Video Memory

Storage120 GB available space

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