Mass Effect's Long Elevator Sequences Have Been Changed in the Legendary Edition

Bioware's Mass Effect: Legendary Edition will bring updated visuals, refined gameplay, and plenty of other tweaks and upgrades to the classic series, and that includes a welcome change to what became a common complaint from the trilogy. Those who played the original games know that elevators were a way for the game to load the next area, and as a result, they were a bit long. Bioware did include some delightful banter and exchanges to help break them up, and in a new interview, Bioware reveals that we'll get the best aspects of those sequences without the time delay.

Project Director Mac Walters and Character and Environment Director Kevin Meek spoke to GameInformer about elevators in the Legendary Edition and actually revealed a side by side comparison of the new version and a sequence from the original. The original version lasted for around a minute, while the remaster cut that load time down to just 14 seconds.

The best part about it is that we won't miss out on all the great dialogue either, as those clips will just be triggered quicker in the sequence to get it all in, and the player dictates how much they want to hear.

"At a certain point the level loads in and you can choose whether or not you want to skip the rest of the banter, the news feed, or the awkward silence," Meek said. "The load times are obviously hard drive dependent but with this part, I went in and was out in 14 seconds and I'm halfway across the bridge by the time it took Shepard to get out of the elevator in the original trilogy."

It's little changes like that and others that should make longtime fans happy and give new players the best possible first experience with the franchise, and we cannot wait.

You can find the official description for Mass Effect: Legendary Edition below.

"One person is all that stands between humanity and the greatest threat it's ever faced. Relive the legend of Commander Shepard in the highly acclaimed Mass Effect trilogy with the Mass Effect™ Legendary Edition. Includes single-player base content and over 40 DLC from Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3 games, including promo weapons, armors and packs — remastered and optimized for 4K Ultra HD.

Experience an amazingly rich and detailed universe where your decisions have profound consequences on the action and the outcome."

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition releases on May 14th. Details on pre-order options are available here.

What do you think of the changes? Let us know in the comments or as always you can talk all things Mass Effect with me on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!