The Mass Effect Remastered Trilogy is rumored to be set for a reveal on this year’s N7 Day, AKA November 7, if not sooner in October. Fans will likely have strong opinions about what should or should not be changed in the game, with purists insisting that the remaster be a purely graphical upgrade while other fans will be hoping that a remaster could make changes to things as big as Mass Effect 3’s controversial ending.
It is likely, however, that if BioWare goes ahead with the Mass Effect Remastered Trilogy, then fans could see unobtrusive cut content originally planned for retail release get restored. This could see DLC companion characters like Javik the Prothean from Mass Effect 3 get integrated in the main narrative far more, and there is one big change the Mass Effect Remastered Trilogy could easily make to Javik that could make many fans of the character even more excited for the remaster.
Javik was originally intended to be more integrated into his game’s main narrative, with cut content from Mass Effect 3 showing that the Prothean was originally intended to be the only character who was able to decipher the Prothean AI which would reveal the true nature of the Citadel. He was cut from these moments and made less necessary to the game in order to make to it possible to repackage Javik as an add-on DLC character. Javik was also originally intended to have a completely different introduction, first found in a crater surrounded by the dead bodies of Cerberus agents.
It is unlikely that the Mass Effect Trilogy Remaster will go so far as to change already established plot-points like Javik’s actual reveal in the retail release of Mass Effect 3. On the other hand, it is far more likely that little details like his interaction with the Prothean AI could be restored in a version of the remaster where all the remastered Mass Effect DLC characters are included in the package as a given.
The Mass Effect romances are well known, but easily missable is one interaction between Female Shepard and Javik. In one hilarious exchange from the Mass Effect 3 Citadel DLC, an unromanced Female Shepard will wake up next to Javik in bed after the big companion party. “Turns out there is one thing primitives are good at,” he will say as he stirs, while Shepard faces the wall and simply sternly says “not a word” before leaving.
One way that BioWare could make the Mass Effect Remastered Trilogy feel fresh without it intruding upon the experience of players who want to play the games through in a similar fashion to their original releases is by making more followers romanceable. More romances could be made accessible for both a male and female Shepard as an easy start, especially in the first two games where all available relationships are still heterosexual, even though some are between different species.
While the one-night stand with Javik is a funny detail in Mass Effect 3, the joke also in part relies on his status as a relatively peripheral DLC character who is only introduced via DLC. In a remastered trilogy where Javik is restored to his original, more necessary status in the main story, BioWare should also consider making him a fully romanceable character.
The original Mass Effect trilogy was produced under tight time constraints that caused a lot of content to be cut and other aspects – like Tali’s infamous face reveal – seem rushed in the eyes of many fans. BioWare should take advantage of the remaster as an opportunity to realize their original vision for the games while still respecting the experience fans came to love the first time around.
There are some great reasons for Javik to be a romanceable character in Mass Effect 3. Unlike the first playthrough, fans will now be going into the series knowing that, ultimately, things don’t exactly work out for Shepard at the end of Mass Effect 3. While it is implied that a purely renegade Shepard may survive the Destroy ending, there is no explicit ending for the game where they ever get to live happily ever after with their love.
This could take the wind out of the sails of some fans planning to play Shepard again as they play through the remaster with knowledge of the character’s fate, but an optional romance with Javik could give that dramatic irony more of a bitter sweet taste. In Mass Effect 3, both Shepard and Javik are presented as the last of their kind, and their mission to destroy the reapers is not only their sole motivation, but it is hard to imagine what either of them would do after that victory was achieved. Furthermore, both Javik and Shepard were revived into an unfamiliar world, Javik into the world of Mass Effect 3 and Shepard into the service of Cerberus after the success of the Lazarus project in Mass Effect 2.
In other words, though Javik is quite possibly the most “alien” alien of all the Mass Effect companions, he is also distinct in quite a few ways that are similar to Shepard. While leaving behind romanceable characters like Tali or Garrus can make the end of Mass Effect 3 feel unrewarding to some players, a romance with Javik could feel less anticlimactic as Shepard approaches their fate, with both characters ultimately willing to destroy themselves to take down the Reapers.
In any case, it is these sort of additions that could make the Mass Effect Remastered Trilogy feel like more than just a graphical upgrade, and it is through that that BioWare could hold onto player attention throughout a full playthrough, even when the player knows the broad strokes of the story. For now, however, fans of the series just have to wait and see how much water the rumors hold.
The Mass Effect Remastered Trilogy is reportedly in development.
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