Mass Effect 1

When playing Mass Effect 1 there’s a few things you’ll want to do to avoid missing certain important events and possible outcomes.

1. Choose either Paragon or Renegade and stick to it. Certain events require a Paragon or Renegade persuade option, and you’ll need to have a certain amount of Charm (Paragon) or Intimidate (Renegade) to succeed and get the optimal result. You cannot get these results doing half Paragon and half Renegade. You need to respond to about 80% of all dialogue options as your chosen morality in order to be able to upgrade your Charm/Intimidate to a high enough level to pass those important speech checks.

2. Make sure someone on your team has Decryption and Electronics upgraded. It’s okay to bring different squadmates with you, but you will want to always have a “tech” squadmate with the two abilities I mentioned above upgraded. This is to allow you to unlock crates and hack computers.

3. If you’re going to choose a romance option, stick to that romance across the trilogy to avoid unpleasant drama. Here’s a breakdown of who can be romanced across the trilogy:

Male Shepard - Ashley, Liara, Jack, Miranda, Tali (From ME2 onward), Kaiden, Steve Cortez and Diana Allers.

Female Shepard - Kaiden, Liara, Thane, Jacob, Garrus (From ME2 onward), Traynor, Diana Allers, Javik and James.

Samara, Morinth and Kelly Chambers can all also be romanced, though these are more like romance-lite options and I don’t recommend them for a first playthrough.

Most romances across the trilogy have one game where they get the most attention, and then get less attention in subsequent games. So keep that in mind. By choosing a romance option who only appears in ME2 or ME3 you’re not missing out as much as you may think. My personal recommendation is to romance Liara, Tali or Garrus on your first playthrough, as they have the most fleshed out and heartwarming romances across the trilogy.

4. Try to complete as many assignments on hub worlds (The Citadel, Feros, Noveria, Virmire etc) as you can. There are some interesting lore tidbits and character interactions you can come across doing this. There will also be a number of assignments that ask you to travel to other planets, and while many of them can be interesting, it’s these missions that suffer from reused level design, boring enemies and the tedious driving of the Mako. The small payoff for completing all of these missions is not likely to be worth the effort for you on your first playthrough.

Mass Effect 2

There’s more optional side content in ME2 that can affect certain outcomes both within itself and also within ME3. I highly recommend doing the same thing you did for ME1, and rolling around the Hub worlds talking to people and completing their missions.

1. Every squadmate has a special mission that you can unlock by speaking to them frequently. It’s important to complete all of these special missions.

2. There are upgrades that can be made to your ship, acquired by talking to certain squadmates and asking about upgrades, and then by using resources to purchase said upgrades. These upgrades (specifically the ones to your ship) can affect the outcome of the game, be sure to do them.

3. There is a certain mission (it feels to be about midway through the game) where you will be tasked with finding an IFF from a derelict ship. This mission sets a countdown to the final events of the game. After completing it you can complete one more side quest before you must head to the final mission. If you do any more, you get a suboptimal result. So before you do the IFF mission you must complete all missions that you want to get done before finishing the game. On top of that, I mentioned there being space for one mission between, well that space is taken up be a mission that can only be acquired after completing the IFF mission, from a squadmate. Let me visualise this a bit more digestibly for you:

Complete all Side Missions

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IFF Mission

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1 Side Mission (The one you acquire after the IFF Mission)

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Final Mission

4. There are a couple specific tasks you should complete in order to get a certain ideal result to a very big mission in ME3. These are:

• Complete Tali’s special mission (Using a paragon/renegade persuade option to get the best end result)

• Complete the above mentioned Side Mission that you acquire after the IFF Mission. During this, you must Destroy the Heretics.

• Use a Paragon/Renegade persuade option to make peace between Tali and the squadmate she argues with after this.

Now, you can get the desired result in the ME3 mission I mention without destroying the heretics, but you have to do all the other tasks perfectly (Including some in ME3), which you may accidentally not do for some reason or another. So I recommend this option just in case.

5. Save before you go on the final mission. This one should be a no brainer, but it’s very important. Make sure you keep a save from before you’ve started the final mission, and then if you’re unhappy with what happens you can potentially try again to get different results.

Mass Effect 3

ME3 has less conditions for you to fulfil than ME2, but there’s still a few things to keep an eye on:

1. Main missions (usually called “Priority: <name>) will sometimes lock out previously available side missions, so it’s a good idea to knock out all side missions before you move forward in the main storyline

2. Within each story arc there is a predictable pattern. An introduction mission, 2-3 related side missions and a conclusion mission. The related side missions are often (but not always, so check your journal!) on the same planet and available at the same time as the conclusion mission. It will be fairly easy to tell what I’m talking about. Make sure you complete all the related side missions before you start the conclusion mission. These related side missions directly influence the outcome of each story arc.

3. Do the rounds on your ship after every mission. This is slightly different than in the previous games, as characters will move around the ship and have new dialogue after every big mission. So even if you’ve exhausted all dialogue options, still have a look around the Normandy.

That sums up all the important advice I can give you for your first time playing Mass Effect. Admittedly there are some things I could have gone into greater detail about, however by the same token I do think you should try to preserve some of the mystery and allow yourself to just play the game. If you follow all of my advice (even when it’s a bit vague), you won’t be left slapping your forehead in frustration over not being able to achieve the result you wanted.

Have fun, Commander.