Mass Effect: Legendary Edition – Everything that Carries Over in Each Game

The Mass Effect trilogy tells a single, cohesive story about Commander Shepard saving the galaxy from the Reapers, and a player’s decisions and actions in each game have consequences in the next. Throughout the series, players are faced with decisions, many of which can lead to a number of NPC deaths. Players can easily import their unique Commander Shepard between Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3 in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, keeping the narrative consistent across the trilogy. The decisions players make as Shepard carry over when importing a character between games and affect the dialogue and story.

While some of the major plot points in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, like Wrex’s fate and Kaidan’s or Ashley’s fates, will obviously impact the sequels, players may not know that some of their smallest decisions do have an impact later. The NPCs they choose to speak to or ignore, their morality scores, and even some credits, levels, and XP all follow their Shepard across the trilogy. Here’s everything that carries over when importing Shepard across games in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition.

Everything That Carries Between Games in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition

When a player imports their Shepard across each game in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, they can expect some of the choices they make to carry over and often have consequences in the later games. No decision made in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition affects Mass Effect: Andromeda, however, and save files cannot be imported to Andromeda.

Below are a list of decisions Shepard will make, as well as stats and collectibles, that carry over to or have consequences in each game in the trilogy:

All Games

• Shepard’s First Name
• Shepard’s Appearance
• Shepard’s Class (can be changed between games if desired)
• Shepard’s Background and Psychological Profile
• Shepard’s Love Interest (can be changed)
• Fate of Ashley or Kaidan on Virmire
• Garrus’ morality
• Ashley’s feelings about aliens
• Kaidan’s feelings about aliens
• Fate of Colonists on Feros
• Fate of the Rachni Queen
• Fate of Captain Kirrahe
• Fate of Balak, Bring Down the Sky DLC
• Appearances of Conrad Verner
• Temperament of journalist Khalisah Al-Jilani in conversation
• Conversation paths taken with minor NPCs
• A percentage of Shepard’s Paragon/Renegade scores

Mass Effect 1 to Mass Effect 2 

• Wrex’s fate on Virmire
• Fate of the Council
• Fate of Asari Commando Shiala
• Fate of the Rana Thanoptis
• Fate of Fist
• Helping, Ignoring, or Betraying Gianna Parasini
• Whether Shepard gave Tali Geth Data for her pilgrimmage gift
• Whether Shepard helped find Wrex’s Family Armor
• Completion of side mission UNC: Rogue VI
• Selected Human Councilor
• Some credits
• Shepard’s ending level (translates to XP in Mass Effect 2)

Mass Effect 2 to Mass Effect 3

• Squadmates recruited
• Fate of the Normandy Crew
• Fate of Squadmates during the Suicide Mission
• Squadmate Loyalty
• Fate of Maelon’s Data (final decision during Mordin’s Loyalty mission)
• Whether Shepard exposed Tali’s father
• Whether Tali was exiled
• Fate of Aresh Aghdashloo (final decision during Jack’s Loyalty mission)
• Fate of Morinth
• Whether Shepard deleted or rewrote the Geth heretics
• Fate of the Collector Base
• Temperament of The Illusive Man in conversation
• Shepard’s ending level (carries over exactly to Mass Effect 3)
• Shepard’s Skills (can re-spec later)
• Some Normandy Ship Upgrades
• Some purchased collectibles (Shepard will need to find Model Ships and Space Hamster around the Normandy and their fish by finding Kelly Chambers in Mass Effect 3)
• Rare minerals from Mass Effect 2

Gear Shepard collects during missions or by purchasing from vendors does not transfer, so players will need to find or purchase it again in the next game. Additionally, while most DLC missions do not have major story impact, any decision made in DLC will affect dialogue and result in some emails at Shepard’s private terminal in the sequel or sequels.

If players do not want to import a character at any point in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, they can instead choose to complete Mass Effect: Genesis. This short, fully voiced interactive comic allows players to input the most major decisions from each game and alter the default world state before starting a new campaign. Most of the decisions that carry over will not appear in Genesis, however, and players will lose the opportunity to do everything from saving their squadmates and earning their Loyalty to finding collectibles and helping NPCs from past games.

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is available for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

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