The Five Most Wanted Mass Effect Spinoffs

As the Mass Effect series comes to its conclusion, including its “and-this-time-I-mean-it” ending, it’s a good time to examine where the series can go without being about Commander Shepard.

The Mass Effect universe is open enough that we can have a lot of fun here...

Massive Alliance

Mass Effect Tactics

Mass Effect III is pretty fun, and it’s also awesome to see different races and classes, all working together against a common foe. You know what would be even better? If it was single-player. Oh, and also if it was turn-based. With an isometric view. Yeah. Mass Effect Tactics, a true successor to X-COM and Jagged Alliance. 

You can even conceive of an overarching strategic goal. You’re the Illusive Man’s counterpart, a group dedicated to alliances and integration with alien races in order to ensure Humanity’s survival. So you back Shepard up in her wars against the Geth, the mercenaries and Collectors, and the Reapers and Cerberus. You are responsible for the most daring raids to put together the Crucible, and it ends with you clearing a path in London.

Secrets Of The Citadel: A Garrus Vakarian Adventure

Mass Effect Adventure

The Sol system is tense following the final defeat of the Reapers. The Humans are rebuilding, but the Council fleets and much of their power are trapped in-system, with military and little else. They settle on the cleaned-out Citadel, but just as tensions rise, the new Human ambassador ends up dead.

Garrus Vakarian, former detective, trapped on Earth in the final battle gets caught up in the case. He’ll travel between Earth, the fleet, and the Citadel, looking for clues, interrogating witnesses, and solving puzzles. It’s the latest and greatest in the famed traditional Garrus Vakarian adventure series!

Goddess Of Vengeance

Goddess of Vengeance

Maada decapitates her fiancé. She’s just getting started. See, he’d known her sister. Her sister who had an Ardat-Yakshi gene. And he knew a guy in Cerberus, and Cerberus was looking for Ardat-Yakshi. Looking with a lot of money and a free ride to Sanctuary. He’s not going anywhere now, though. But Maada is. She’s on a ship to a secret Cerberus base. She’s got a pair of pistols. She’s been trained in hand-to-hand combat biotic use. And she’s being guided by the Asari Goddess Of Vengeance.

Visceral action-packed combat. Combo bonuses. Stylish executions. Quick-time events. Massive boss battles. It’s the gritty underbelly of the Mass Effect universe, filled with all the gore you’ve been craving.

Shin Megami Tensei: Mass Affection

Mass Effect Persona

Your parents were killed in the battle for earth, but you discovered that you had powerful biotic abilities to keep yourself safe. Now you’ve been sent to a school for biotics, housed on a Japanese-style Human colony. But something’s very wrong at the colony. Students are disappearing, and the teachers don’t seem to have any idea what’s going on. But you do—you and a few of your new friends have found a nightmare world filled with monsters.

Investigating the nightmare world is hard enough, but you also have to balance your schoolwork, social life, and romantic interests. And above all, beware when your favorite teacher calls on you to answer questions in the special “You Don’t Want To Know Jack” trivia game.

Master of Effect

Master of Effect

It’s 250 years since the mass relays were destroyed. Galactic powers, new and old, are crawling out of the dark ages, having rebuilt their economies, their fleets, and scientific abilities. It’s time for a new galactic civilization, where the time to travel between systems makes expansion slow and strategic planning necessary.

And conflict is inevitable. The Sol Alliance, comprised of Humans and the alien survivors, is slow, powerful, and bureaucratic, with an enforced respect for diversity and belief in their right to rule the universe. The Quarians on their homeworld have created a hyper-xenophobic, ruthlessly scientific new empire. The Tuchanka Krogan, led by Wrex and Eve, have created a stable society, but some colonies are expanding too quickly and have broken away. Asari, Salarians, Hanar, Elkor, Volus, xenophobic Humans from former colonies, a surprise nest of Collectors, and more await in this, the spiritual sequel to the classic Master Of Orion II.

Volus Merchant Prince/Pyjak Crossing/Tuchanka: Total War/Mass Calibur – Yeah. I want these too.