Mass Effect: Legendary Edition Comparison Trailer Released, Over 30,000 Textures Improved

BioWare has released a new comparison trailer for Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, showcasing all of the graphical improvements made over the original games. In a separate post, it also detailed the different processes, from improving over 30,000 individual textures to upgrading its version of Unreal Engine 3 to make it more unified. Check out the trailer below.

Though physically based rendering or PBR hasn’t been used, various materials like metals, fabrics and so on will react with light “in a more convincing way.” Significant work has also been done to improve skin, hair and eye shaders while new environmental particle effects were added throughout each game. All of the pre-rendered cinematics have been re-rendered in 4K and for those that couldn’t be re-captured, an AI upscaling program was used for the original videos. Numerous cutscenes and conversations have also had “dozens, if not hundreds” of bugs, though some – like the “What’d you just say?” bug – still remain.

The post also highlights upgrades to shadows, the implementation of screen space ambient occlusion, anti-aliasing and bokeh depth of field, and bringing features like dynamic volumetrics from Mass Effect 3 to the first two games. Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is out on May 14th for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. It recently went gold.