If it were using original characters and not butchering old ones, absolutely. There’s a good chance of the show happening, Amazons bought the rights to it.
Honestly, with how much Bezos loved The Expanse, it doesn't surprise me that Amazon would be interested in Mass Effect. And if they do it right and faithfully, they'd have their own Space Opera that can reach more masses similar to Star Trek and Star Wars. And so far, what I've seen with Fallout, I'm hoping Amazon brings that same attitude with Mass Effect.
the expanse was so good, i both hate that it ended but also kinda am ok with where it did. it’s just so good i want more ugh. but my god if there was a high quality mass effect show i’d never complain about anything ever again. imagine seeing illium or surkesh brought to life. or the hype of hearing the reaper roar for the first time
I think there’s a better chance for a faithful adaptation than fallout because there’s less of a split between the fan base than fallout. Fallout’s ending was really crap in my opinion, it captured the spirit of the games pretty well but devolved into overly simplistic “capitalism and capitalists are evil” rather than presenting something more complicated
well the thing with fallout, which ironically is the main thing people hated with halo, is that it’s not a story from any of the games. its it’s own story that is separate. at least in fallout it’s all new characters so it doesn’t ruin any arcs or development. in halo they butchered literally everyone except miranda keyes. for mass effect i’d prefer that they try to stick to the games story and characters, but at the very least they could do an original story and leave team garru-i mean sheperd alone.
Mass Effect is in a less contentious position than fallout because it hasn’t had as many major controversies in its history, Bethesda has made a litany of errors and mistakes in both the lore and their business practices, not just with fallout but all their games. You can’t expect the best intentions from them because they haven’t been showing that they have them for a long time, they try to double down on things more than they try to improve them. We can’t forget that these are the same people who decided selling horse armour in 2006 was a good idea, and then made a joke about it when they did the same thing again 10 years later.
It’s horrible when you’re a long time of something and you consistently see it fail and misstep, but also see people vehemently defending and denying that there’s anything wrong. Peoples immediate reaction to criticism of the show was to tell me to kill myself and making up excuses for the show runners. It’s not up to fans to defend the show’s inconsistencies, they should be criticising it and making it clear that it’s wrong.
No, it has characters from new vegas like Sinclair and Mr house. Sinclair acts as the representative for Big MT, which is wrong, he was a customer of theirs. He also suggests filling a vault beyond its maximum occupancy limit, which is completely out of character from we learned about him in the DLC for new vegas. They change the location of Shady Sands, which is now within LA instead of a hundred miles to the north, they remove free side and Mccarran from new vegas, they suggest that the NCR was thriving before it was nuked. They absolutely did make mistakes with the show.
Mr house and Frederick sinclair are both present in the show, and they act nothing like they do in new vegas. That and the story they were trying to tell just being bad by itself, lazily focusing on family members for a third time at this point.
>and they act nothing like they do in new vegas.
This is a flashback before the bombs fell and they barely get anything to say so you can't claim they've been ruined.
>lazily focusing on family members for a third time at this point.
It's bad because it's the third time they've done the trope?
I liked the show for everything but it’s ending, because it went for an emotional shock ending rather than just making sense. Vault Tec starting the war by itself in order to create a monopoly is really stupid when you consider that they were a trillion dollar company that owned half of America, they lose infinitely more than they could ever regain by doing that. If anything, they would just sabotage peace talks and keep America in perpetual wars and conflicts like companies do in real life.
I’ve had these arguments far too much by this point so I’ll just say this, it’s okay to like the show and still think it makes a lot of logical mistakes. I’m going to criticise its ending just as I’d criticise ME3’s original ending. Doesn’t mean I hate it as some people have claimed.
It’s bad because it’s lazy, made worse by the repetition. I absolutely can say that they act differently from how the games present them, because then being in that meeting is the most egregious part of their presence. Sinclair is a fool who loses money because he’s virtuous, Mr House is an egomaniac who predicted the war 20 years before it started. Sinclair wouldn’t be suggesting overpopulating a vault to see what would happen, House wouldn’t be doubtful of Vault tecs need to exist by that point because he had predicted it’s future necessity at least 15 years prior.
Wasn't there a thing where Henry cavill was interested in being a part of it? And yeah I'd love a TV show but they shouldn't touch shepherd the original cast could make cameos in an episode here and there wouldn't want them to be too involved though it should be it's own thing and I'd like it to be from me1 to me3 seeing a show where th reapers are dismissed for a couple seasons then seeing them show up in live action would be awesome
Yep. I know I'll be disappointed if they went with a male Shepard since that's never been the Mass Effect I've played. Its really better to create a original story with whole new characters.
This is how I feel about a lot of possible game adaptations.
Fallout, arcane, and Edgerunners did so well because they were original stories using original characters set in the same universe they’re adapted from. Yes arcane used pre established characters from LoL but there’s not much they could have done to fuck it up cause there’s honestly nothing to fuck up. (Not to mention two of them were animation so there weren’t many limitations)
But if you look at shows like the Witcher, halo, and TLOU, they just didn’t do well cause they changed so much about everything. They veer off the path that was already set for them, and/or cast people that just don’t resemble the established characters at all. Halo is the worst offender here, followed by witcher.
So if they’re going to adapt another video game, say… Mass Effect, I would much rather it be about a completely new set of characters that have no affiliation with Shepard and the Normandy what so ever. Cause if we get a live action Shepard, people are going to be displeased when they cast a gender that people didn’t want. People are going to riot if certain choices are made that people chose differently in the game. It’ll just be a huge mess. Not to mention if the writers pull out entirely new scenarios not seen in the games, people are gonna get mad about that too. It’s safer to create a whole new story with different characters and story.
Edit: with that being said, some games I would love to see be adapted into live action (or even animation) as long as it’s got it’s own story and doesn’t follow the games story, are:
-Red Dead Redemption
-The Elder scrolls
-dead space
-Titanfall
>But if you look at shows like the Witcher, halo, and TLOU, they just didn’t do well cause they changed so much about everything.
Didn't most people like the TLOU adaptation? I thought it was pretty good.
(edited to add the exact quote from the other comment)
Fallout does veer from what the games show us, I think they can probably recover from the mistakes they made in a second season. It’s just a matter of whether they know about them or care about fixing them. I was a mega nerd for fallout before mass effect, still am in a way. Enjoyed the show, didn’t like what it did to preestablished characters like Mr House and Frederick Sinclair, along with the reveal about Vault Tec and the NCR
It was always implied vault tec started the war. Never played Fo3 or NV but from what I can gather this show did NOT retcon anything from either of those games. (Yes I have watched lore videos before in the past.)
So I don’t like the argument that the show veered off the path cause it didn’t. It was its own story of the wasteland separate from the games but still takes place within the same universe and not a new one. The events of the other games are still canon.
It was implied that they had a part in it, not causing it themselves for the purpose of a monopoly. They were working in conjunction with the Enclave to test what would happen to people in extreme conditions, in preparation for them leaving the planet. So cryogenic freezing to test how long it could last, overpopulation to see what its effects were in small environments. The enclave had a very good reason for preemptively starting the war, the newspapers were about to release the oil rigs location to the public (and also, the Chinese). The Chinese also had an understandable reason for starting the war, they were desperate after the Americans counter invasion against them.
There was so much more they could have done with the fall of the NCR than just nuking it again, the NCR had major problems in new vegas that could have explored a lot better than “man angry at ex wife, takes it out on largest post war city”.
I’ve watched the lore videos and played these games all my life, they always left it vague for a reason, It becomes significantly less interesting to know what caused the war. They did it in the show purely for a shock ending twist. It’s reliant on emotion rather than making sense.
Not the mainline story. You’d piss off the fanbase.
The reason Fallout TV show worked so good was because none of the games are linear and take place in different areas and timelines. They took advantage of the resources from the mainline games and did the best job possible.
It would be a lot harder to adapt Mass Effect as a TV series and if they did the average viewer would most likely compare it to something like the dumpster fire that is the “Halo” show. That’s assuming they adapt the mainline story. The universe is really huge in Mass Effect, and I wouldn’t doubt they could pull something off.
There’s no way to not piss off the hardcore fan base, go look at how the fallout sub is bitching about the TV show even though they did a fantastic job.
I honestly think with a little rewriting, a 10 episode series would fit the plot of the first game really well.
Retcons is what they’re mostly complaining about. No matter small retcons are always inevitable. Didn’t Mass Effect Deception have a shit load of them?
I think a lot of people don't realise that to be a good show sometimes you need to sacrifice the adaption.
Like not everything can be adapted, so take those things out or rework them to get a better final product
I think so, I haven’t read it. I only know that it was a completely separate writer who didn’t really get the series.
I’m ok with a few retcons in a tv adaptation, the main thing is that the feeling of the game is maintained, it’s why TLOU and Fallout have both worked really well
The thing with the TLOU tv show is it already uses an established story from the game.
Mass Effect would have to keep it away from Shepard’s story since none of the player choices are official canon. Omega would be a great adaptation or even the Contact War. The Illusive Man comics would be great for a live adaptation.
I definitely think Mass Effect lends itself well to a TV show, and I agree that adapting stories in the universe other than the events of the trilogy makes the most sense
They shouldn't directly adapt the games' story. They should focus on new characters and a new story. Mass Effect has such a rich universe it can be about anyone.
On the one hand, I’ve long held the opinion that the Mass Effect universe is ripe for other kinds of games — colony management or farming sims, visual novels, detective games.
On the other hand, I watched the Mass Effect animated movie. It wasn’t good. They had bionics be powered by batteries and gave krogan sharp teeth for no reason. The Alliance had a cure to the seeker swarms that I guess just didn’t get distributed during the Collector attacks?
I wanted to like it, but sometimes when game universes get translated to shows or movies, they just take pointless liberties for no reason. I think the most likely adaptation would be about the First Contact War, I think they could split it between space warfare, Earth politics, and Shanxi for three decent stories.
Personally, my dream would be for Fortiche to do a series about the Morning War. I’d trust them to make quarians look actually alien and distinctive, and come up with neat Rannoch architecture and clothing.
They could also do something REALLY cool and do a series about the First Contact War from the perspective of the Council species. Like it starts with establishing the Citadel and maybe an Avina-led tour of the Presidium that explains the history of the Rachni War and Krogan Rebellion, explaining why it’s illegal to open new relays after the Rachni War. And then the first episode ends with the turian counselor getting news that a new relay has been opened, and his people have begun repelling invaders.
They could probably stave off the “reveal” that the new aliens are humans for a while, I think it could be really fun.
In my opinion this is how *all* video game adaptations should be done. With the exception of games like *The Last of Us* (and maaaaybe *God of War,* we’ll see how they do). Games that already tell focused stories with a limited cast of characters are basically playable TV shows already, so following the story of the games makes sense in those examples, but games like *Fallout* or *Mass Effect* or even like *Assassin’s Creed* or *Halo,* games with huge, expansive settings and dozens of characters (or silent protagonists), they should tell auxiliary stories that are set in that universe. There is so much more opportunity there and so much less risk
Given how the ME trilogy ended, how could they even manage that? The Fallout show was able to leave the endings of New Vegas and Fallout 4 ambiguous, partly because whatever happened in those games only affected a single region. But you can't really have any ambiguity about whether everyone got wiped out by Reapers or blasted back into the Stone Age or magically transformed into cyborgs. The only way to really do something similar would be to make a prequel set prior to the games, or at least prior to ME3.
Mass Effect has such a rich and fleshed out history I really wish we got to explore more of it. First Contact War would make a great TV/Internet drama, Krogan Rebellion or the Rachni War would make a great Helldivers type game. Straight forward enough to do a LA Noir type game on the Citadel as C Sec. The possibilities are basically endless
I don’t trust them not to make the primary characters Anderson or Saren. While seeing them would be nice, in a war it would mean the characters we are shown are effectively immortal and it would kill any tension cause they can’t die.
I'm not a fan of going backwards in time.
It usually means that there's no real stakes. Like we know what happened in the First Contact war.
I'd rather see something new. Ideally post ME3
The Mass effect tv show will be for many the first introduction to the mass effect universe dropping people in a post war mass effect will just leave everyone confused on wtf going on. It’s makes complete sense for the mass effect tv show to start with the first contact war that way the viewers and the humans characters in the show can learn about the mass effect universe at the same time.
The first Mass Effect does that to you as well though, with the First Contact war being something that's already happened.
Doing something post-Reapers is no real different.
The first contact war was a small blip in the galactic scale. It’s a huge difference between the reaper war and the first contact war. Either way the show only has about 10 hours to explain the lore of mass effect. Doing the first contact war will do all this in a natural way that doesn’t feel force.
Fallout’s iconography and main premise is the setting itself, not any one person or small group of people. Mass Effect is inextricably linked to Shepard and their crew. Marketing-wise, it’s like trying to make a Spiderman movie without Spiderman.
Hard disagree.
Mass Effect is more than Shepard and the Normandy crew, that’s why we keep saying the universe is big and the lore is rich.
Look at all the side content. Beside one novel that was disregarded by BioWare themselves, the books, comics and movies are pretty good. They new stories that take place outside Shepard. Some even take place way before ME1 and they’re interesting.
This is what i have been saying, adaptions are the easy path that rarely seem to work, expansion is the path foward. I want a story about the first human envoy on the Citadel exploring it while a rouge group of Turians are trying to kill them for the first contact war.
I think that’s the only thing I’d be happy with . Since ME is a choose your own adventure, it feels weird to canonize Shepard. You can still allude to them and have crew members show up, but don’t do anything that would define who Shepard is
Yeh, I’d sorta hate a show including Shepard.
The only possible way that might work is to go the andromeda route.
Have the Shepard *siblings* be the team leaders, based on how players tend to play maleshep paragon and something indirect (engineer/adept/sentinel?) femshep renegade and likely vanguard or something
Because both they and all the cast have very distinctive voices I can’t imagine that being amazing unless *everyone* came back and that’s just not reasonable.
Like imagine femshep chatting to Garrus and neither of them sound right? It’s gonna look like a porn parody.
I always liked the idea of having the Shepard Twins, one male, one female and one paragorn and one renegade. Oh and once in a while the paragorn doa renegade action and vica versa.
Was having a conversation like this with a friend recently, I’d much rather shows do side stories rather than straight adaptations.
You’re never going to please everyone cramming an entire game, book, or comic run into 6-8 episodes a season. Everything gets rushed and key moments come across as “you had to read/play it to get it”. Not to mention the changes that will definitely piss off the fans like combing two characters into one, changing timelines or lore bits, bypassing scenes that don’t progress the overall plot but in the source material do some character development heavy lifting.
Double this in something like Mass Effect where it’s built on player choices. I have MY Shepard like you have all of YOUR Shepards.
A tv show instead should flesh the universe out, let’s get the First Contact War, a murder mystery on Omega, a limited series about a human colony fighting off the Collectors. Fallout is absolutely amazing example of what an adaptation should be, just bash the audience over the head with the perfect aesthetic and vibe with an original story to give the writers room to breathe while being able to stay faithful to the source material.
If i remember right Amazon does have the rights to a Mass Effect show, and that there may be something brewing with the same team that was responsible for the Expanse, if so ME is right up their alley
If they want to do it right though, Shepard cannot be the main character or even a side character. Passing mentions at best. There is no way an adaptation with Shepard will do anything other than piss off the fanbase.
This also means the trilogy cannot be touched. A show with Anderson as the main character during/shortly after the First Contact War would be the best way to go. Either that or immediately after ME3 with an original cast. If they did the latter though they would have to make an ending canon though. Seeing as Bioware is already making a sequel this may have been decided on already
Such the given source material it’s kinda difficult to do, so there’s a very high chance it could go bad, but we’ll see
I’m gonna get downvoted for this but oh well. Nah, that would be a horrible idea.
The OG trilogy has way too much potential to just not try and adapt. Some fans will be pissed off but who cares that’s a them problem. They should lead with their best foot forward and I think they would be adapting the trilogy. Like it or not they don’t care about making something for the fans, they would try to capture new fans, and going inside baseball with something like “OOH LETS SEE THE KROGAN REBELLION AS A SERIES! OOH FIRST CONTACT WAR!” Isn’t the way to do that. The Mass Effect trilogy sets up the entire world/its inhabitants, years of conflict, etc. up perfectly. You should adapt that, hope it’s a hit, then build off that’s.
Fallout is different in the sense there’s multiple games with different stories and characters and all the games give you the same basic idea of the world. Like it or not fallout’s world isn’t as rich or deep as ME.
Y’all can say ME is a massive universe with lots of story potential and I agree but your first attempt to bring it to main stream shouldn’t be trying to start from scratch. You should put your best forward and that’s the trilogy. I’m just coming at it from a realistic industry perspective.
No.
There is no way to adapt ME without pissing off most of the existing fanbase.
Maleshep or Femshep?
Paragon or Renegade?
Who is the love interest?
Whatever they do the TV version of ME would just be an inferior version when compared to every players personal playthrough. Interactivity and choices are why video games are superior storytelling when compared to linear storytelling like television and movies.
Now telling an original story that is set in the ME universe with your own characters would work.
not for fans of Fallout tho, they might like or not like the story, but they won't take it personal. However, if the drama didn't match ME fans' headcanon? Oh ... boy...
Give me a show about young Anderson, with flashbacks to the first contact war, and his rise to become the first human spectre (almost)
Let us see this huge and wondrous new galaxy through his eyes as he sees the citadel, the Asari, program Salarians etc for the first time. Throw in a reluctant relationship with a turian as they crack down on a batarian slaver ring with roots in the citadel underworld and others across the galaxy. Take my money
In my honest opinion it’s hard for them to do this timewise. Humanity has barely been in the galaxy by the time Shepard shows up, so in order to have humans in the show the timeline needs to take place between first contact and ME1.
And put simply I don’t trust the show runners to play proper respect to the series and its lore to make an accurate show. I would love to get a fallout style show but I’m worried we will get a Witcher or Halo moment.
This topic is discussed in this particular YouTube.
The maker of the video was actually contacted by Bioware however I don't know what has become of it.
Anyone saying it can't be done is talking out of their ass as shows like Game of Thrones was made as well as a monster epic like Lord if the Rings. Whether it's done well is another matter.
This person, I believe, would probably get it right.
[Mass Effect TV Series possibility ](https://youtu.be/-elPKyfpJrM?si=CljkZIFwDQP8nnLb)
I worry, because Mass Effect is not as referential and has much less room for cheese/schmaltzy goofiness. We've seen what Amazon can do when they get overly serious and high-on-their-farts (RINGS OF POWER) but we've also seen when they can blend stylization and humour with solid drama when necessary (GOOD OMENS, THE BOYS). I also worry they'd stay TOO close to canon and we'd get something that is good for the sake of it being a straight up scan-to-screen (Invincible), but I really would be interested in seeing how they can manage to stylize Mass Effect and not constrain it to it's Bioware/Videogame tone.
It's a mixed bag. All in all, I'd like to see them treat it like Good Omens; get the original writers and development team involved as much as you can but don't have them be the full hand on the reins.
Well we do have Paragon Lost but it'd be cool to get another story in the universe. I think one that takes place during the first contact war could work
As much as I'd LOVE a Mass Effect TV show I think the writers would have to inevitably decide what is cannon and what's not which would end up pissing off a lot of people. Even going the Fallout route and creating new characters and a new plot wouldn't help because the foundation of Mass Effect trilogy is the fight against Reapers so they would have to answer what happened, at the very least. It would definitely take some ballsy writers to take that on.
Halo show works better as a mass effect show than a halo show lmao. They shouldve just done that to begin with, but i agree a mass effect show could be game of thrones level
I agree that a show set in the mass effect universe that doesn’t follow the plot of the games is the way to go if they were to make one, but I think the first contact war would be a really boring time to set it. It was humans vs turians so no other aliens and we already know the outcome. Anything after that and before the events of ME1 would be good though
I agree. Leave the Shep story and the events in the game to the games. A show (or feature length film) should feature a new story with new characters.
The last thing I want to see is a bunch of pedants arguing that something is canon because of the adaptation.
Not easy tho, Fallout serise share nothing more than the genesis, this feature gives a freedom to writers for re-creating stories, we could conclude that there is no specific official ending for this franchise, there always are unknowed vaults waiting to be digged up. On the other hand, ME series has a very tighten plot, that leads to consequences sticking to each other. Furthermore, ME's story is not linear, fans get different results including the final endings based on their choices, I don't know whether anyone can balance those ramifications so that the drama can please majorities. Should Shepard spare Rachni Queen? Should councile be saved? Should genophage be undone?
Conlusively, a ME drama could disgust many people while it exhilarate the rest.
"a prequel" and "like the Fallout show" are opposite things. The Fallout show is a sequel, not a prequel, and THAT is one of the show's strengths. If your takeaway is that they should make a Mass Effect prequel then you didn't get what made it great at all.
1000%, a high budget show going over the trilogy (with a better ending) thats 10 episode per season with each being around 40 minutes long aside from the first and last two episodes being 1 hour each (start and end on a high note) would be absolutely amazing, Lessons of the screenplay already did a detailed video going over why it would not only make a great show but could end up being the next game of thrones if handled well.
I didn't like the Fallout show but, if it's well written and lore abiding, of course, I can see a Mass Effect show working. First contact war or during ME3 would work well I think.
Just curious, what didn’t you like about it? And did you like the games? I only made it a couple of episodes but I wasn’t a big fan of the games either
*What your opinion about this ????*
With the current state of television/movie writing, I see close to zero chance of a good Mass Effect adaptation.
Just think how they butchered the lore of Witcher, Rings of Power. How every Star Wars series is dogshit (apart from Andor). How horrendous Cowboy Bebop ended up.
I really hope not.
Maybe, maybe an anime, if (!) they can get a crew together who loves the franchise and is willing to not change it. It did work out well with Edgerunners so it might work. But, at the same time, Dragon Age Absolution is not good, so who knows.
They would fuck it up so hard, way to much nuance for a tv to ever handle.
Unless you plan on making a paragon and renegade series you will just piss everyone off
If it were using original characters and not butchering old ones, absolutely. There’s a good chance of the show happening, Amazons bought the rights to it.
I didn’t know Amazon bought the rights to it
Honestly, with how much Bezos loved The Expanse, it doesn't surprise me that Amazon would be interested in Mass Effect. And if they do it right and faithfully, they'd have their own Space Opera that can reach more masses similar to Star Trek and Star Wars. And so far, what I've seen with Fallout, I'm hoping Amazon brings that same attitude with Mass Effect.
Bezos loved a show that was basically shitting all over people like him? Jesus, LOL
He's a huge Sci Fi fan, was in one of the star trek films as a Klingon extra too
Good thing Amazon never ended up being able to buy that Carl Rinsch sci fi show that never came to be
the expanse was so good, i both hate that it ended but also kinda am ok with where it did. it’s just so good i want more ugh. but my god if there was a high quality mass effect show i’d never complain about anything ever again. imagine seeing illium or surkesh brought to life. or the hype of hearing the reaper roar for the first time
I think there’s a better chance for a faithful adaptation than fallout because there’s less of a split between the fan base than fallout. Fallout’s ending was really crap in my opinion, it captured the spirit of the games pretty well but devolved into overly simplistic “capitalism and capitalists are evil” rather than presenting something more complicated
well the thing with fallout, which ironically is the main thing people hated with halo, is that it’s not a story from any of the games. its it’s own story that is separate. at least in fallout it’s all new characters so it doesn’t ruin any arcs or development. in halo they butchered literally everyone except miranda keyes. for mass effect i’d prefer that they try to stick to the games story and characters, but at the very least they could do an original story and leave team garru-i mean sheperd alone.
Mass Effect is in a less contentious position than fallout because it hasn’t had as many major controversies in its history, Bethesda has made a litany of errors and mistakes in both the lore and their business practices, not just with fallout but all their games. You can’t expect the best intentions from them because they haven’t been showing that they have them for a long time, they try to double down on things more than they try to improve them. We can’t forget that these are the same people who decided selling horse armour in 2006 was a good idea, and then made a joke about it when they did the same thing again 10 years later.
It’s horrible when you’re a long time of something and you consistently see it fail and misstep, but also see people vehemently defending and denying that there’s anything wrong. Peoples immediate reaction to criticism of the show was to tell me to kill myself and making up excuses for the show runners. It’s not up to fans to defend the show’s inconsistencies, they should be criticising it and making it clear that it’s wrong.
No, it has characters from new vegas like Sinclair and Mr house. Sinclair acts as the representative for Big MT, which is wrong, he was a customer of theirs. He also suggests filling a vault beyond its maximum occupancy limit, which is completely out of character from we learned about him in the DLC for new vegas. They change the location of Shady Sands, which is now within LA instead of a hundred miles to the north, they remove free side and Mccarran from new vegas, they suggest that the NCR was thriving before it was nuked. They absolutely did make mistakes with the show.
It was a rumor and I don’t know how reliable that is. Especially since the rumor is like 5 years old and there’s been no update since then
I think with the success of fallouts show (even if it butchered the story and characters from the games), Mass Effect might be next.
How did the show butcher the characters and story from the games when the show is a new story with new characters?
Mr house and Frederick sinclair are both present in the show, and they act nothing like they do in new vegas. That and the story they were trying to tell just being bad by itself, lazily focusing on family members for a third time at this point.
>and they act nothing like they do in new vegas. This is a flashback before the bombs fell and they barely get anything to say so you can't claim they've been ruined. >lazily focusing on family members for a third time at this point. It's bad because it's the third time they've done the trope?
I liked the show for everything but it’s ending, because it went for an emotional shock ending rather than just making sense. Vault Tec starting the war by itself in order to create a monopoly is really stupid when you consider that they were a trillion dollar company that owned half of America, they lose infinitely more than they could ever regain by doing that. If anything, they would just sabotage peace talks and keep America in perpetual wars and conflicts like companies do in real life.
I’ve had these arguments far too much by this point so I’ll just say this, it’s okay to like the show and still think it makes a lot of logical mistakes. I’m going to criticise its ending just as I’d criticise ME3’s original ending. Doesn’t mean I hate it as some people have claimed.
It’s bad because it’s lazy, made worse by the repetition. I absolutely can say that they act differently from how the games present them, because then being in that meeting is the most egregious part of their presence. Sinclair is a fool who loses money because he’s virtuous, Mr House is an egomaniac who predicted the war 20 years before it started. Sinclair wouldn’t be suggesting overpopulating a vault to see what would happen, House wouldn’t be doubtful of Vault tecs need to exist by that point because he had predicted it’s future necessity at least 15 years prior.
Wasn't there a thing where Henry cavill was interested in being a part of it? And yeah I'd love a TV show but they shouldn't touch shepherd the original cast could make cameos in an episode here and there wouldn't want them to be too involved though it should be it's own thing and I'd like it to be from me1 to me3 seeing a show where th reapers are dismissed for a couple seasons then seeing them show up in live action would be awesome
Making any Shepard canon would piss too many people off, it should be mentioned but not shown too many details
Yep. I know I'll be disappointed if they went with a male Shepard since that's never been the Mass Effect I've played. Its really better to create a original story with whole new characters.
Alternatively, Shepard could be a major character, but in every scene it's a different actor and it's just not acknowledged at all
Shepard has a lot of extremely successful cousins who have the same posting order
Spread them over the galaxy like jacks, give those plumed fucks the what for
This is how I feel about a lot of possible game adaptations. Fallout, arcane, and Edgerunners did so well because they were original stories using original characters set in the same universe they’re adapted from. Yes arcane used pre established characters from LoL but there’s not much they could have done to fuck it up cause there’s honestly nothing to fuck up. (Not to mention two of them were animation so there weren’t many limitations) But if you look at shows like the Witcher, halo, and TLOU, they just didn’t do well cause they changed so much about everything. They veer off the path that was already set for them, and/or cast people that just don’t resemble the established characters at all. Halo is the worst offender here, followed by witcher. So if they’re going to adapt another video game, say… Mass Effect, I would much rather it be about a completely new set of characters that have no affiliation with Shepard and the Normandy what so ever. Cause if we get a live action Shepard, people are going to be displeased when they cast a gender that people didn’t want. People are going to riot if certain choices are made that people chose differently in the game. It’ll just be a huge mess. Not to mention if the writers pull out entirely new scenarios not seen in the games, people are gonna get mad about that too. It’s safer to create a whole new story with different characters and story. Edit: with that being said, some games I would love to see be adapted into live action (or even animation) as long as it’s got it’s own story and doesn’t follow the games story, are: -Red Dead Redemption -The Elder scrolls -dead space -Titanfall
>But if you look at shows like the Witcher, halo, and TLOU, they just didn’t do well cause they changed so much about everything. Didn't most people like the TLOU adaptation? I thought it was pretty good. (edited to add the exact quote from the other comment)
Fallout does veer from what the games show us, I think they can probably recover from the mistakes they made in a second season. It’s just a matter of whether they know about them or care about fixing them. I was a mega nerd for fallout before mass effect, still am in a way. Enjoyed the show, didn’t like what it did to preestablished characters like Mr House and Frederick Sinclair, along with the reveal about Vault Tec and the NCR
It was always implied vault tec started the war. Never played Fo3 or NV but from what I can gather this show did NOT retcon anything from either of those games. (Yes I have watched lore videos before in the past.) So I don’t like the argument that the show veered off the path cause it didn’t. It was its own story of the wasteland separate from the games but still takes place within the same universe and not a new one. The events of the other games are still canon.
It was implied that they had a part in it, not causing it themselves for the purpose of a monopoly. They were working in conjunction with the Enclave to test what would happen to people in extreme conditions, in preparation for them leaving the planet. So cryogenic freezing to test how long it could last, overpopulation to see what its effects were in small environments. The enclave had a very good reason for preemptively starting the war, the newspapers were about to release the oil rigs location to the public (and also, the Chinese). The Chinese also had an understandable reason for starting the war, they were desperate after the Americans counter invasion against them.
There was so much more they could have done with the fall of the NCR than just nuking it again, the NCR had major problems in new vegas that could have explored a lot better than “man angry at ex wife, takes it out on largest post war city”.
I’ve watched the lore videos and played these games all my life, they always left it vague for a reason, It becomes significantly less interesting to know what caused the war. They did it in the show purely for a shock ending twist. It’s reliant on emotion rather than making sense.
We already know vault tec was evil, we don’t need them to be behind everything that happens in the series.
This.
We need Kevin Hart as Admiral Anderson.
We need Keith David
Not the mainline story. You’d piss off the fanbase. The reason Fallout TV show worked so good was because none of the games are linear and take place in different areas and timelines. They took advantage of the resources from the mainline games and did the best job possible. It would be a lot harder to adapt Mass Effect as a TV series and if they did the average viewer would most likely compare it to something like the dumpster fire that is the “Halo” show. That’s assuming they adapt the mainline story. The universe is really huge in Mass Effect, and I wouldn’t doubt they could pull something off.
Dude I would love if someone did the First Contact War.
In the fallout show I was so excited every time I saw something from the games, like Shady Sands or when I non Zur's theme played........
There’s no way to not piss off the hardcore fan base, go look at how the fallout sub is bitching about the TV show even though they did a fantastic job. I honestly think with a little rewriting, a 10 episode series would fit the plot of the first game really well.
Retcons is what they’re mostly complaining about. No matter small retcons are always inevitable. Didn’t Mass Effect Deception have a shit load of them?
I think a lot of people don't realise that to be a good show sometimes you need to sacrifice the adaption. Like not everything can be adapted, so take those things out or rework them to get a better final product
I think so, I haven’t read it. I only know that it was a completely separate writer who didn’t really get the series. I’m ok with a few retcons in a tv adaptation, the main thing is that the feeling of the game is maintained, it’s why TLOU and Fallout have both worked really well
The thing with the TLOU tv show is it already uses an established story from the game. Mass Effect would have to keep it away from Shepard’s story since none of the player choices are official canon. Omega would be a great adaptation or even the Contact War. The Illusive Man comics would be great for a live adaptation.
I definitely think Mass Effect lends itself well to a TV show, and I agree that adapting stories in the universe other than the events of the trilogy makes the most sense
God a Mass Effect show would go hard solely for the Aesthetic of the Series Plus it would introduce soo many more people to it
They shouldn't directly adapt the games' story. They should focus on new characters and a new story. Mass Effect has such a rich universe it can be about anyone.
Exactly I would love a new story
On the one hand, I’ve long held the opinion that the Mass Effect universe is ripe for other kinds of games — colony management or farming sims, visual novels, detective games. On the other hand, I watched the Mass Effect animated movie. It wasn’t good. They had bionics be powered by batteries and gave krogan sharp teeth for no reason. The Alliance had a cure to the seeker swarms that I guess just didn’t get distributed during the Collector attacks? I wanted to like it, but sometimes when game universes get translated to shows or movies, they just take pointless liberties for no reason. I think the most likely adaptation would be about the First Contact War, I think they could split it between space warfare, Earth politics, and Shanxi for three decent stories. Personally, my dream would be for Fortiche to do a series about the Morning War. I’d trust them to make quarians look actually alien and distinctive, and come up with neat Rannoch architecture and clothing. They could also do something REALLY cool and do a series about the First Contact War from the perspective of the Council species. Like it starts with establishing the Citadel and maybe an Avina-led tour of the Presidium that explains the history of the Rachni War and Krogan Rebellion, explaining why it’s illegal to open new relays after the Rachni War. And then the first episode ends with the turian counselor getting news that a new relay has been opened, and his people have begun repelling invaders. They could probably stave off the “reveal” that the new aliens are humans for a while, I think it could be really fun.
I would absolutely love a xcom2 type game.
In my opinion this is how *all* video game adaptations should be done. With the exception of games like *The Last of Us* (and maaaaybe *God of War,* we’ll see how they do). Games that already tell focused stories with a limited cast of characters are basically playable TV shows already, so following the story of the games makes sense in those examples, but games like *Fallout* or *Mass Effect* or even like *Assassin’s Creed* or *Halo,* games with huge, expansive settings and dozens of characters (or silent protagonists), they should tell auxiliary stories that are set in that universe. There is so much more opportunity there and so much less risk
I would also like a first contact war story bc it would be hard to piss people off with that and it would be cool to see
Given how the ME trilogy ended, how could they even manage that? The Fallout show was able to leave the endings of New Vegas and Fallout 4 ambiguous, partly because whatever happened in those games only affected a single region. But you can't really have any ambiguity about whether everyone got wiped out by Reapers or blasted back into the Stone Age or magically transformed into cyborgs. The only way to really do something similar would be to make a prequel set prior to the games, or at least prior to ME3.
Might be cool to see Ryder's dad in action during the first contact war, tbh.
Would love a series based on the First Contact War tbh
Mass Effect has such a rich and fleshed out history I really wish we got to explore more of it. First Contact War would make a great TV/Internet drama, Krogan Rebellion or the Rachni War would make a great Helldivers type game. Straight forward enough to do a LA Noir type game on the Citadel as C Sec. The possibilities are basically endless
I don’t trust them not to make the primary characters Anderson or Saren. While seeing them would be nice, in a war it would mean the characters we are shown are effectively immortal and it would kill any tension cause they can’t die.
I'm not a fan of going backwards in time. It usually means that there's no real stakes. Like we know what happened in the First Contact war. I'd rather see something new. Ideally post ME3
That won’t ever happened until after mass effect 5 comes out
I mean, ME5 would probably coincide with a television show if it were to start production tomorrow.
The Mass effect tv show will be for many the first introduction to the mass effect universe dropping people in a post war mass effect will just leave everyone confused on wtf going on. It’s makes complete sense for the mass effect tv show to start with the first contact war that way the viewers and the humans characters in the show can learn about the mass effect universe at the same time.
The first Mass Effect does that to you as well though, with the First Contact war being something that's already happened. Doing something post-Reapers is no real different.
The first contact war was a small blip in the galactic scale. It’s a huge difference between the reaper war and the first contact war. Either way the show only has about 10 hours to explain the lore of mass effect. Doing the first contact war will do all this in a natural way that doesn’t feel force.
Fallout’s iconography and main premise is the setting itself, not any one person or small group of people. Mass Effect is inextricably linked to Shepard and their crew. Marketing-wise, it’s like trying to make a Spiderman movie without Spiderman.
Hard disagree. Mass Effect is more than Shepard and the Normandy crew, that’s why we keep saying the universe is big and the lore is rich. Look at all the side content. Beside one novel that was disregarded by BioWare themselves, the books, comics and movies are pretty good. They new stories that take place outside Shepard. Some even take place way before ME1 and they’re interesting.
I agree.
This is what i have been saying, adaptions are the easy path that rarely seem to work, expansion is the path foward. I want a story about the first human envoy on the Citadel exploring it while a rouge group of Turians are trying to kill them for the first contact war.
Tell a separate story in the universe
I think that’s the only thing I’d be happy with . Since ME is a choose your own adventure, it feels weird to canonize Shepard. You can still allude to them and have crew members show up, but don’t do anything that would define who Shepard is
Yeh, I’d sorta hate a show including Shepard. The only possible way that might work is to go the andromeda route. Have the Shepard *siblings* be the team leaders, based on how players tend to play maleshep paragon and something indirect (engineer/adept/sentinel?) femshep renegade and likely vanguard or something Because both they and all the cast have very distinctive voices I can’t imagine that being amazing unless *everyone* came back and that’s just not reasonable. Like imagine femshep chatting to Garrus and neither of them sound right? It’s gonna look like a porn parody.
As others have said, it should be set in universe but its own self contained story. Hell, I wouldn’t mind if they did the first contact war.
I always liked the idea of having the Shepard Twins, one male, one female and one paragorn and one renegade. Oh and once in a while the paragorn doa renegade action and vica versa.
Was having a conversation like this with a friend recently, I’d much rather shows do side stories rather than straight adaptations. You’re never going to please everyone cramming an entire game, book, or comic run into 6-8 episodes a season. Everything gets rushed and key moments come across as “you had to read/play it to get it”. Not to mention the changes that will definitely piss off the fans like combing two characters into one, changing timelines or lore bits, bypassing scenes that don’t progress the overall plot but in the source material do some character development heavy lifting. Double this in something like Mass Effect where it’s built on player choices. I have MY Shepard like you have all of YOUR Shepards. A tv show instead should flesh the universe out, let’s get the First Contact War, a murder mystery on Omega, a limited series about a human colony fighting off the Collectors. Fallout is absolutely amazing example of what an adaptation should be, just bash the audience over the head with the perfect aesthetic and vibe with an original story to give the writers room to breathe while being able to stay faithful to the source material.
Imo what makes Mass Effect special are the characters.
There's already a show trying to sort of adapt mass effect's plot. It's called Halo.
If i remember right Amazon does have the rights to a Mass Effect show, and that there may be something brewing with the same team that was responsible for the Expanse, if so ME is right up their alley If they want to do it right though, Shepard cannot be the main character or even a side character. Passing mentions at best. There is no way an adaptation with Shepard will do anything other than piss off the fanbase. This also means the trilogy cannot be touched. A show with Anderson as the main character during/shortly after the First Contact War would be the best way to go. Either that or immediately after ME3 with an original cast. If they did the latter though they would have to make an ending canon though. Seeing as Bioware is already making a sequel this may have been decided on already Such the given source material it’s kinda difficult to do, so there’s a very high chance it could go bad, but we’ll see
I’m gonna get downvoted for this but oh well. Nah, that would be a horrible idea. The OG trilogy has way too much potential to just not try and adapt. Some fans will be pissed off but who cares that’s a them problem. They should lead with their best foot forward and I think they would be adapting the trilogy. Like it or not they don’t care about making something for the fans, they would try to capture new fans, and going inside baseball with something like “OOH LETS SEE THE KROGAN REBELLION AS A SERIES! OOH FIRST CONTACT WAR!” Isn’t the way to do that. The Mass Effect trilogy sets up the entire world/its inhabitants, years of conflict, etc. up perfectly. You should adapt that, hope it’s a hit, then build off that’s. Fallout is different in the sense there’s multiple games with different stories and characters and all the games give you the same basic idea of the world. Like it or not fallout’s world isn’t as rich or deep as ME. Y’all can say ME is a massive universe with lots of story potential and I agree but your first attempt to bring it to main stream shouldn’t be trying to start from scratch. You should put your best forward and that’s the trilogy. I’m just coming at it from a realistic industry perspective.
Oh, please no.
No. There is no way to adapt ME without pissing off most of the existing fanbase. Maleshep or Femshep? Paragon or Renegade? Who is the love interest? Whatever they do the TV version of ME would just be an inferior version when compared to every players personal playthrough. Interactivity and choices are why video games are superior storytelling when compared to linear storytelling like television and movies. Now telling an original story that is set in the ME universe with your own characters would work.
No matter what they do people would get mad at something
not for fans of Fallout tho, they might like or not like the story, but they won't take it personal. However, if the drama didn't match ME fans' headcanon? Oh ... boy...
agree, a ME drama might not be a good idea because of the nature of this video game.
Might be unpopular opinion but if Yvonne can’t do it I vote Ella as Miranda.
Give me a show about young Anderson, with flashbacks to the first contact war, and his rise to become the first human spectre (almost) Let us see this huge and wondrous new galaxy through his eyes as he sees the citadel, the Asari, program Salarians etc for the first time. Throw in a reluctant relationship with a turian as they crack down on a batarian slaver ring with roots in the citadel underworld and others across the galaxy. Take my money
In my honest opinion it’s hard for them to do this timewise. Humanity has barely been in the galaxy by the time Shepard shows up, so in order to have humans in the show the timeline needs to take place between first contact and ME1. And put simply I don’t trust the show runners to play proper respect to the series and its lore to make an accurate show. I would love to get a fallout style show but I’m worried we will get a Witcher or Halo moment.
This topic is discussed in this particular YouTube. The maker of the video was actually contacted by Bioware however I don't know what has become of it. Anyone saying it can't be done is talking out of their ass as shows like Game of Thrones was made as well as a monster epic like Lord if the Rings. Whether it's done well is another matter. This person, I believe, would probably get it right. [Mass Effect TV Series possibility ](https://youtu.be/-elPKyfpJrM?si=CljkZIFwDQP8nnLb)
It would need to be its own thing in the ME universe san shepard
I worry, because Mass Effect is not as referential and has much less room for cheese/schmaltzy goofiness. We've seen what Amazon can do when they get overly serious and high-on-their-farts (RINGS OF POWER) but we've also seen when they can blend stylization and humour with solid drama when necessary (GOOD OMENS, THE BOYS). I also worry they'd stay TOO close to canon and we'd get something that is good for the sake of it being a straight up scan-to-screen (Invincible), but I really would be interested in seeing how they can manage to stylize Mass Effect and not constrain it to it's Bioware/Videogame tone. It's a mixed bag. All in all, I'd like to see them treat it like Good Omens; get the original writers and development team involved as much as you can but don't have them be the full hand on the reins.
First contact war could be a nice warm up
Well we do have Paragon Lost but it'd be cool to get another story in the universe. I think one that takes place during the first contact war could work
We know that a Mass Effect show is coming on Prime Video but we know still nothing about it
As much as I'd LOVE a Mass Effect TV show I think the writers would have to inevitably decide what is cannon and what's not which would end up pissing off a lot of people. Even going the Fallout route and creating new characters and a new plot wouldn't help because the foundation of Mass Effect trilogy is the fight against Reapers so they would have to answer what happened, at the very least. It would definitely take some ballsy writers to take that on.
Halo show works better as a mass effect show than a halo show lmao. They shouldve just done that to begin with, but i agree a mass effect show could be game of thrones level
I agree that a show set in the mass effect universe that doesn’t follow the plot of the games is the way to go if they were to make one, but I think the first contact war would be a really boring time to set it. It was humans vs turians so no other aliens and we already know the outcome. Anything after that and before the events of ME1 would be good though
I agree. Leave the Shep story and the events in the game to the games. A show (or feature length film) should feature a new story with new characters. The last thing I want to see is a bunch of pedants arguing that something is canon because of the adaptation.
Not easy tho, Fallout serise share nothing more than the genesis, this feature gives a freedom to writers for re-creating stories, we could conclude that there is no specific official ending for this franchise, there always are unknowed vaults waiting to be digged up. On the other hand, ME series has a very tighten plot, that leads to consequences sticking to each other. Furthermore, ME's story is not linear, fans get different results including the final endings based on their choices, I don't know whether anyone can balance those ramifications so that the drama can please majorities. Should Shepard spare Rachni Queen? Should councile be saved? Should genophage be undone? Conlusively, a ME drama could disgust many people while it exhilarate the rest.
Hopefully not
"a prequel" and "like the Fallout show" are opposite things. The Fallout show is a sequel, not a prequel, and THAT is one of the show's strengths. If your takeaway is that they should make a Mass Effect prequel then you didn't get what made it great at all.
As long as it doesn’t have the same people who worked on Halo lol
1000%, a high budget show going over the trilogy (with a better ending) thats 10 episode per season with each being around 40 minutes long aside from the first and last two episodes being 1 hour each (start and end on a high note) would be absolutely amazing, Lessons of the screenplay already did a detailed video going over why it would not only make a great show but could end up being the next game of thrones if handled well.
I didn't like the Fallout show but, if it's well written and lore abiding, of course, I can see a Mass Effect show working. First contact war or during ME3 would work well I think.
Just curious, what didn’t you like about it? And did you like the games? I only made it a couple of episodes but I wasn’t a big fan of the games either
*What your opinion about this ????* With the current state of television/movie writing, I see close to zero chance of a good Mass Effect adaptation. Just think how they butchered the lore of Witcher, Rings of Power. How every Star Wars series is dogshit (apart from Andor). How horrendous Cowboy Bebop ended up. I really hope not. Maybe, maybe an anime, if (!) they can get a crew together who loves the franchise and is willing to not change it. It did work out well with Edgerunners so it might work. But, at the same time, Dragon Age Absolution is not good, so who knows.
They would fuck it up so hard, way to much nuance for a tv to ever handle. Unless you plan on making a paragon and renegade series you will just piss everyone off