Mass Effect Legendary Edition: ME2 Ep 1 – Prologue
We are back with Mass Effect, and this time we are beginning a full 100% playthrough of Mass Effect 2. It is one of my favourite game series, so the plan is simple enough: every mission, every side quest, every useful conversation and every suspiciously clickable object we can find.
Of course, Mass Effect 2 does not exactly give us a gentle return. Before long the Normandy is gone, Shepard is dead, Cerberus is rebuilding her, and I am trying to remember which button puts me into cover.
🌌 About the Game
Mass Effect Legendary Edition brings together the single-player content from Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3, along with more than 40 pieces of DLC, promotional weapons, armour and other content, all remastered and optimised for 4K Ultra HD.
The trilogy follows Commander Shepard across a galaxy filled with different species, political alliances, old conflicts and the growing threat of the Reapers. Choices carry forward between games, so relationships, deaths and decisions from our first playthrough are still very much part of the story as we move into Mass Effect 2.
🛰️ Where We Are in the Journey
We imported our level-57 Sentinel Shepard from the first game and checked that everything had carried across properly. We are continuing on the Paragon path: Wrex survived Virmire, the Council was saved, Anderson became humanity’s councillor and Liara was our romance.
Kaidan, meanwhile, did not survive Virmire, which immediately brought back the running conclusion that nobody saves Kaidan because he is a bit of a wet blanket.
This episode takes us through the complete opening of Mass Effect 2, Freedom’s Progress, our introduction to the Normandy SR-2, the Normandy crash-site assignment and the first bit of planetary exploration. By the end of the stream, the prologue is finished and the proper recruitment phase is ready to begin.
⚠️ What Happens in This Episode
Things begin with one of the least gentle sequel openings imaginable. After checking that our imported level-57 Sentinel Shepard had arrived intact — Paragon path, Wrex alive, the Council saved, Anderson in place, Liara as the romance and Kaidan still very much the person we left behind on Virmire — we settled in for the opening of Mass Effect 2. There was also the small matter of the Mass Effect Genesis recap, which went on long enough for me to joke that everyone had basically sat through a three-hour catch-up session before the new game had properly started.
Once it did, the Normandy was immediately in trouble. An unknown vessel tore through the ship, forcing Shepard to make for the cockpit while the crew evacuated. Joker, naturally, had no intention of abandoning the Normandy, so we had to physically get him out before the ship was lost completely. Shepard managed that part, but not the journey home: with the Normandy breaking apart around her, she was blasted into space with a ruptured suit and left drifting above the planet below.
So, within the opening minutes, Mass Effect 2 had destroyed the Normandy and killed Commander Shepard.
Two years later, Cerberus had apparently decided that death was more of an inconvenience than a permanent condition. Project Lazarus had spent those two years reconstructing Shepard, and the early sections of the facility gave us plenty of terminals detailing exactly how unpleasant that process had been. I described it as Cerberus slowly gluing her back together, which was probably not the terminology used in the medical reports, but it was not entirely inaccurate either.
When Shepard finally woke properly, the Lazarus facility was already falling apart around her. Security mechs had been hacked, staff were under attack, and we had the slightly inconvenient problem of having to relearn how Mass Effect 2 actually controls while people were shooting at us. Cover, reloads, thermal clips and biotic powers all needed reacquainting, and I spent a fair amount of time checking buttons, testing controller paddles and trying to work out which ability I had been remembering from previous playthroughs.
Throw quickly became the main obsession. I knew there was a biotic power I used constantly in these games, but remembering exactly which version of it belonged to which Mass Effect became part of the evening’s challenge. Skill points were spent, powers were tested, buttons were remapped and, eventually, enemies started flying through the air in a manner that felt much more familiar.
The facility also introduced Jacob Taylor, who gave Shepard the slightly difficult news that she had been dead for two years and that practically the entire galaxy believed she was still dead. He also confirmed that most of the Normandy crew had survived the original attack, although they had long since moved on. That made the situation stranger rather than easier: Shepard was back, but the life she had left behind had carried on without her.
Wilson, meanwhile, was becoming increasingly suspicious. After finding him wounded and helping him back onto his feet, we continued toward the evacuation area while he remained extremely keen to leave Miranda behind. Jacob eventually admitted that Project Lazarus belonged to Cerberus, the same organisation Shepard had encountered during the first game, which did very little to improve the trust situation.
Miranda Lawson then arrived and resolved the Wilson problem in the most Miranda way possible: she shot him. According to her, Wilson had sabotaged the station and turned the security mechs against everyone. Shepard questioned whether killing him immediately had been necessary, but Miranda was entirely confident in the decision. That set the tone for our relationship with Cerberus nicely — they had brought Shepard back from the dead, but that certainly did not mean we were going to agree with how they operated.
The Illusive Man made that relationship even more complicated. He revealed that entire human colonies had been disappearing without bodies, signs of battle or any clear explanation. While the Alliance and Council were unwilling to accept another Reaper connection without proof, Cerberus believed something much larger was happening. Shepard agreed to investigate, rather than simply joining the cause unquestioningly, and Freedom’s Progress became our first real mission outside the prologue.
The colony was immediately unsettling. Buildings were standing, equipment had been left behind and there was no obvious evidence of a conventional attack, yet almost everyone had vanished. The only things particularly interested in welcoming us were hostile security mechs, apparently programmed to attack anything that moved.
This was also where my newly recovered command of the controls was tested rather more aggressively. There were more moments of button confusion, some adjustments to the controller layout, an unfortunate death that demonstrated the importance of autosaves, and a particularly unpleasant fight against a heavily armoured mech. Overshields became considerably more attractive once bullets started arriving in our direction, squad powers were put to better use, and eventually the grenade launcher came out when subtlety stopped being useful.
None of that interrupted the 100% instincts, of course. If there was a room slightly away from the objective, we checked it. If there was a terminal, we clicked it. If there was something to hack, loot or investigate while the colony was supposedly in immediate danger, then the galaxy simply had to be patient for a moment.
Freedom’s Progress also delivered our first major reunion of Mass Effect 2: Tali.
She had arrived with a quarian team searching for Vitor, a young pilgrim who had been living at the colony. The quarians were considerably less pleased to see the Cerberus personnel standing beside Shepard, and their history with the organisation quickly made it clear why. Tali, however, recognised Shepard and managed to keep the situation from becoming another firefight.
Both teams eventually reached Vitor, who had survived by hiding while the colony was taken. He was badly traumatised, but he had spent his time recording and studying what happened. His security footage finally gave us the first proper look at the enemy behind the disappearances: the Collectors.
Vitor described swarms of tiny machines spreading through the settlement, finding the colonists and freezing them in place before the Collectors carried them away. The seeker swarms appeared to be specifically targeting humans, and Vitor’s Omni-tool contained readings that could finally give Cerberus something concrete to work with. Rather than hand a traumatised man over for interrogation, Shepard let Tali take him back to the flotilla for treatment while we kept the data.
The decision preserved that old trust with Tali, even if she could not rejoin us yet. She had a mission of her own in geth space and made it clear that it was too important to abandon, but the reunion at least proved that some pieces of Shepard’s old life were still out there.
Back with the Illusive Man, the investigation finally gained direction. The Collectors were confirmed as the force behind the colony abductions, and their ability to disappear beyond the Omega-4 Relay made them an even bigger problem. Cerberus had already begun assembling dossiers on people Shepard could recruit, with Omega and the salarian scientist Mordin Solus becoming one of our obvious next destinations because of his potential ability to counter the seeker swarms.
Before any of that, though, we got something I had been waiting for: Joker.
The reunion immediately felt familiar. Joker explained what had happened after Shepard’s death, how the old crew had scattered, and how he had eventually ended up working with Cerberus. Then came the bigger reveal waiting behind him — the Normandy SR-2.
That was the point where the stream shifted from surviving the opening to feeling like we were genuinely back in Mass Effect. The new Normandy might have Cerberus logos on it, but it was home, which meant there was only one sensible thing to do: stop progressing the main story and talk to absolutely everybody on board.
The first full ship tour became as thorough as expected. Joker introduced us to EDI while making it very clear how he felt about having an artificial intelligence monitoring the ship. EDI, for her part, calmly explained her role and the restrictions Cerberus had placed upon her. Jacob was questioned about his past, his time with the Alliance and why he eventually chose Cerberus, while Miranda received an even longer interrogation about the organisation, the Illusive Man and her own background.
Kelly Chambers introduced herself as Shepard’s assistant and crew observer, and that conversation became noticeably flirtier almost immediately. Miranda also became the subject of some very serious photo-mode investigation, with chat naturally taking a completely mature interest in the camera controls. This was defended as being “for scientific purposes,” which I am sure convinced everybody.
Elsewhere on the Normandy, Dr. Chakwas returned to the crew, Ken Donnelly and Gabby Daniels appeared down in engineering, and we started collecting the sort of assignments that prove even an interstellar suicide mission cannot escape errands. The engineers wanted improved FBA couplings, Dr. Chakwas had an interest in acquiring some proper ice brandy, and Rupert Gardner turned keeping the crew fed into a request for better supplies.
My plan from here is to repeat that full ship tour after major missions, because conversations change as the story moves forward and this is supposed to be a 100% playthrough. Nobody aboard the Normandy is getting away with having new dialogue without us finding it.
Chat effectively became another department of the crew throughout all of this. Frodo spent much of the evening being accused of bad influences, general mischief and possibly cutting brake lines, while the definition of “VIP” somehow evolved into “very inebriated person.” Eris became involved in that particular discussion for reasons that were entirely predictable.
The tangents ranged from Satisfactory factory rebuilding and upcoming map changes to old Vodafone disputes, The Mandalorian, Buffy, Halo, Euro Truck Simulator and retro Command & Conquer. There was also an important discussion about whether Friday required green socks. None of this prevented me repeatedly reminding everyone that there would be a test on the Mass Effect story later, so I expect detailed notes.
Later in the stream, we were raided while we were heading through the Normandy crash-site assignment, which naturally led to welcoming everyone in and briefly turning a memorial mission into a tea-and-biscuit gathering.
The crash site itself provided a much quieter ending to the episode. We returned to the remains of the original Normandy expecting a relatively short assignment, but the snow-covered wreckage turned into something much more reflective. Pieces of the ship were scattered across the landscape, and the main task was recovering the dog tags of 20 crew members who had been lost when the Normandy was destroyed.
Naturally, the moment the game told me there were 20 of them, all 20 were going to be found.
What should have been a quick walk around the wreckage became a proper sweep of the entire area, checking debris, following every glow in the snow and making sure nothing had been missed. Along the way we recovered element zero and examined pieces of the old ship, including reminders of the places and people that had been part of the first game. There was still room for the usual completionist frustration when one more tag had to be somewhere, but once all 20 were recovered the assignment was finally complete.
Back aboard the SR-2, there was enough time for a little planetary exploration before finishing. That mostly involved scanning worlds for resources and enthusiastically “eating this planet dry” until the number of probes started becoming something we might actually need to think about.
By the end of the night, the prologue was finished, Freedom’s Progress had revealed the Collectors, Shepard had the Normandy SR-2, the currently available crew had been thoroughly interrogated, the original Normandy crash site had been completed with all 20 dog tags recovered, and the first recruitment dossiers were waiting.
The next stage of the journey is now properly open. Omega is out there, Mordin Solus is on the list, more recruits need finding, and there are already side assignments accumulating aboard the ship. We also established Mass Effect as our regular Friday-night journey, so this was very much the beginning rather than a one-off return.
And, given how this first episode went, it is probably safe to assume that no dialogue option, suspicious crate, hidden terminal or badly behaved member of chat will be getting past us unnoticed.
🎬 Watch the Episode
You can watch the complete opening of our Mass Effect 2 playthrough here: Mass Effect Legendary Edition: ME2 Ep 1 – Prologue.
If you enjoy the episode, leave a like, let me know your favourite moment in the comments and subscribe over on Dr Ravenholm on YouTube.
You can follow the complete playthrough through the Mass Effect Legendary Edition playlist.
🔴 Join the Adventure Live
The Normandy is back, the recruitment dossiers are waiting, and chat has already demonstrated that it cannot be trusted around photo mode or brake lines.
Come and join us live on Twitch or YouTube and become part of the next stream as it happens.
We were joined by a raid during this episode, and when we finished for the night we sent everyone onward with a raid into bartdoe.
🌐 Community & Links
The stream may end, but the conversation rarely does. If you want to keep up with everything between episodes, there are plenty of places to find us.
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🚀 Twenty Dog Tags and a New Normandy
We started the evening aboard one Normandy, lost it almost immediately, and finished the stream aboard another with all 20 crash-site dog tags safely recovered.
Now the proper recruitment begins. Omega is waiting, Mordin is on the list, and there are already plenty of side assignments competing for attention before we even get there.
— Dr Ravenholm
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