With the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition set to remaster all three games in the beloved original trilogy, Mass Effect 2‘s lead writer Mac Walters recently shed some light on some of the early ME character concepts that didn’t make it into the final game, or were reworked into other characters. There’s no doubt that countless sci-fi stories have been inspired by Star Wars ever since the iconic film series hit the silver screen in 1977.
Considering the many differences between Mass Effect and Star Wars, however, many fans may be surprised at just how much influence was taken from the series during the game’s early development. Star Wars influenced Mass Effect 2‘s initial character concepts in many, many ways.
Mac Walters recently discussed the “legacy party members doc,” which contained many initial concepts for the characters who would accompany Shepard on Mass Effect 2‘s suicide mission to the Omega Relay. These character concepts were very early stages. Many didn’t have their relationships with other characters or the player fleshed out in any way yet, and some didn’t even have a species, being listen simply as “NEW ALIEN.”
Many of these early ideas make direct reference to real people or characters from other media. There’s a “classic stoner” Salarian scientist influenced by Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong fame. Others took influence from characters like The Princess Bride‘s Inigo Montoya, Stephen the Irishman from the movie Braveheart, and the titular main characters of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. There are a few key references to Star Wars throughout the doc that show just how often the writers turned to the iconic series for inspiration.
One cut character that any Star Wars fan will immediately recognize from the name alone was the “Cordial Smuggler.” The idea with this Han Solo-esque Mass Effect 2 character was that, instead of being recruited by Shepard, he would seek the player out himself after hearing rumors of Shepard’s return from death itself and their exploits across the galaxy. This character would have opened the door to a vast criminal underworld and would be the player’s guide in “the dark underbelly of black market society.”
The brief description of the Cordial Smuggler given in the doc even directly describes him as having the “free spirit of Han Solo with [the] naive enthusiasm of Luke Skywalker.” Like Han, he would have been a source of comic relief as well, bouncing off of the hard-headed characters of Shepard’s crew.
The second major Star Wars-influenced character would have been “the Fallen Paragon.” The Star Wars link is once again made clear in the doc, where they are found in a “wretched hive of scum and villainy” like Mos Eisley in A New Hope. Although this character didn’t make it into the final game, the desire for a black market and a “wretched hive” certainly did.
Mass Effect 2‘s Omega may not be on an isolated desert planet, but it seemingly helped realize some of the Star Wars-influenced ideas that were bouncing around in the early development of Mass Effect 2. It seems quite likely that the Fallen Paragon would have been found on Omega, and that the Cordial Smuggler might have been able to help Shepard find their way around the space station. The resemblance between Omega and Star Trek‘s Deep Space 9 station from the show of the same name is another reminder the mixing and matching of influences that helped bring Mass Effect 2 to life, and which many fans will be looking forward to seeing once again when the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition hits the shelves later this year.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition will be available May 14 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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