I’ve never been so bummed and so hyped at the same time. Hyped because Bioware is finally remastering the Mass Effect trilogy and it finally has a release date. Bummed because my biggest gaming obsession of the Xbox 360 generation – Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer – isn’t included in the release.

Anyone who has tried to go back and play Mass Effect 1 recently knows that, as good as the story and characters and world building is in that game, the graphics, combat, inventory management and performance has NOT held up well. I mean, it’s a 13-year-old game…

Mass Effect 2 and 3 hold up better, but could still use some touching up, and that’s what this release is for. The devs have said work has been done to make the experience more consistent across the three games. And that’s great!

The Mass Effect series is my favorite game series, but it has been one that’s hard to go back to. Fortunately, this remaster is going to make the performance and many other little odds and ends better. That’s going to make it more fun to go back to, even as the next generation of console games start to melt our faces with their amazing graphics and performance.

The Mass Effect trilogy was originally made on Unreal Engine 3, but Bioware says it would have required too much time and resources to bump up the game to Unreal Engine 4.

I completely understand, given the scope of the project and its likely sales volume and the fact that Bioware has a lot of other projects they’re juggling. But there will always be a part of me that wishes Bioware would have committed to a full-on Final Fantasy 7-style remake of the entire trilogy (or that some other team had been entrusted with it). Obviously having Bioware do that would mean they’d likely have to halt all development on new Mass Effect and Dragon Age games. So it’s probably best to be satisfied with a remaster and hope that future games will be every bit as epic as the original trilogy.

For more on the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, head over to the official site.