Developers Foresight / Mass Effect

Mass Effect does this a lot. Given that there are a high number of variables that carry over through the series, it often leads to unique dialogue choices and gameplay options, even in situations where they wouldn't seem apparent.

---

Mass Effect 1

• If you don't ask Ashley if she's seen Nihilus, she's confused as to why a turian is on Eden Prime when you find his body.
• Most players choose to pick up Liara early on, as she's a valuable teammate. However, if you delay until you have completed the other available main story missions, she reacts accordingly. She starts off certain that she's hallucinating your arrival and, during the post-mission briefing, is understandably bamboozled by all the information you're throwing around. She's even offended that you've figured out in a few weeks something she hasn't in decades of study. How late you leave Therum for also changes her reaction to the krogan battlemaster you fight near the end of that mission. Leaving it after at least a couple of the plot worlds will have her thinking she's hallucinating but not getting frightened by the krogan compared to if you leave Therum for absolute last. On the flip side, there is also unique dialog for Liara on Citadel quests that are received before she's recruited. She notably is not a fan of the asari consort.
• When visiting the Peak 15 Rift Station, you will encounter Captain Ventralis, and at the end of the conversation a pair of rachni soldiers will attack. You can fight with Ventralis and kill them, or simply bolt up the hallway behind him and let him and his lackeys deal with it. If you do that and return, Ventralis will have some select words for you. Almost no one is going to leave Ventralis to fight alone in the first place, as most fans don't even know the option is there to run from that encounter.
• Upon finishing the first priority mission world (Noveria, Feros or Therum), you get a message to meet Nassana Dantius at the Citadel. However, if you put that off and instead chose to explore first, you end up discovering a slave ring on Sharjila run by her sister. When you do eventually show up to meet Nassana on the Citadel, she will ask you to "rescue" her sister from a group of "mercenaries". Shepard angrily reveals that they know the truth about her sister, leading Nassana smugly to reply that she doesn't care, admitting she was planning on having you kill her sister anyway.
• On Virmire, Wrex can possibly be killed if you cannot convince him to help you destroy Saren's genophage cure. However, if you haven't recruited Garrus and Liara, he'll back down even if you don't meet the persuasion requirements and didn't do his quest, since otherwise the player would be left with only Tali as a squadmate at a certain point.
• After you get a certain amount of Assignment requests from Admiral Hackett, Joker will say "Message coming in. Big surprise, the Alliance needs you again!". Similarly, if you hang up on the Council after each planet, both Joker and the Council pick up on it. The Asari Councillor will ask if calling them up is a joke just so that you can hang up on them (to which you can happily oblige), and Joker will then say that "it never gets old..."
• If you talk to Kaidan about Conatix, he will mention that his L2 implants spike higher in power than L3 implants. If, however, you're an Adept, Vanguard, or Sentinel, he'll add that Shepard is unusually powerful for an L3.
• It can be easy to miss, since an eager player might interrupt the conversation, but upon first entering the elcor & volus embassy, Xeltan and Calyn are talking without the usual elcor habit of prefacing their sentences with their emotional intent, since they obviously don't need to in each other's company.

Mass Effect 2

• When Shepard first wakes up in the Lazarus Research Station and is following Miranda's directions, they run across a staff member trapped in a burning room with a YMIR Mech bearing down on him. The man sees Shepard and calls out for help. However, if an Infiltrator Shepard activates Tactical Cloak before entering the man's line of sight, he won't call for help; he'll just yell as the mech kills him.
• If you played the first game and purposely missed recruiting Garrus, Shepard will have special dialogue when Archangel takes off his helmet. Granted, it's a one-line change, but it's still significant.
• When recruiting Archangel, if you stand in the way of his shots, you get hit exactly once, just enough to bring down your shields. Shepard can stand there all day and not get hit again, even while mercs drop like flies around them. This is because Garrus, being Archangel himself, obviously has no intention of causing any lasting harm to his previous commander. If pressed he'll explain that he only fired concussive rounds at Shepard, and that he mainly did it to both get Shepard moving and to prevent the other mercenaries from getting suspicious.
• There is a certain sidequest where the player deals with the wreckage of the ship, whose cargo of LOKI Mechs went crazy and killed everything on the ship. Normally after deactivating the distress beacon, the player is encouraged to get to the shuttle as soon as possible, but if the player keeps killing the mechs, the mission will eventually just end automatically, since the player managed to destroy every single mech in the cargo.
• Another, smaller, sidequest has the player help an old krogan who has assassins after him. The paragon solution for the quest is to deal with the assassins in his place, to which he initially responds with hostility, as he thinks you want to steal his glory. However, if you bring in Grunt after his loyalty mission, he rephrases Shepard's words in a way that avoids angering the other krogan, so he agrees to your solution immediately.
• Most characters that are only recruitable after Horizon have dialogue in the game for missions beforehand, even though they are impossible to obtain legitimately and can only be experienced by altering a save file. ^note This is a result of the Xbox 360 using DVDs; it was initially intended that you could recruit every squad member in whatever order you liked, rather than in two groups, so it was possible to have Tali when recruiting Grunt, for example. However the game couldn't fit on a single 360 DVD, so the Horizon mission acts as the bridge between the two discs and splits the Loyalty Missions, with the resulting lines Dummied Out rather than removed outright. Examples include:
  • On Mordin's recruitment mission, you can hear Samara and Thane begin to succumb to the alien plague. (Tali is unaffected due to her suit-itself an example of this).
  • Leaving Legion to keep an eye on Garrus during the latter's recruitment mission has Garrus remark on Shepard's "interesting choice" of assistance (since Legion is a geth), though he states he'll take what he can get. Choosing Tali has her remark on it being "like old times" much to Garrus' amusement. If you never recruited Garrus in the first game, Tali will instead be suspicious and ask "Are you sure that's wise?".
  • All squad members have dialogue for Jack's recruitment mission, regarding the prison's use of torture.
  • Everyone can also complain about the Canned Orders over Loudspeaker on Grunt's recruitment mission.
  • Legion is a very interesting case - they can only be recruited near the endgame, yet there are special dialogues and events for almost the entire game. The most interesting case is the cut dialogue on Korlus. If you have Legion in your party, they will talk to Rana Thanoptis, a character who (depending on your choices) may or may not have survived the first game.
• In Zaeed's loyalty mission, in his rage to get Vido, he triggers an explosion that threatens to burn hundreds of innocents alive. Paragons go through the facility to stop the fire, allowing Vido to escape, but the fire traps Zaeed under some rubble. If you perform this mission after the Suicide Mission - after Zaeed has fulfilled his contract - you can opt to leave him there to die, unless you completed the Suicide Mission with only two surviving squadmates, in which case you can't leave him in order for Shepard to still have two squadmates at the end, which is a requirement to leave the Normandy.
• The easiest way to get into Hock's room during Kasumi's loyalty mission is to tell the guard you have clearance from one of his superiors. However, if you can't find his captain's name, there's a route for you to climb down the terrace and break in through some windows. That's not this trope. The development team thinks of everything regarding an alarm clock you can set off in Hock's room. If you set it off when you lie to the guard, nothing extra will happen. However, if you broke in, the guard and another merc will come in, saying you're not supposed to be in there, prompting a brief firefight. Also, if you snuck in, but did not set off the alarm clock, you still have to kill the guards, but the guards will not know you are there, and the way they are standing means it's all to easy to sneak up to them and shove them out of the window with a melee attack.
• Taking Legion along to Tali's recruitment mission (where you fight other geth) has the effect you'd expect: Kal'Reegar warns Shepard that there's a geth behind them and Tali even shoots at Legion unless a Paragon interrupt is used.
• Attempting to enter the quarian flotilla with Legion initiates a conversation that can get you kicked out without enough charm/intimidate points. During Tali's trial, the dialogue changes in multiple scenes to comment on Legion's presence, and you gain several unique conversation options with the admirals.
• Uniquely among the party in 2, Grunt's defence type is armor rather than shields or barriers. As a result of this, if he's brought on Tali's recruitment mission, he's immune to the shield draining effect of direct sunlight that afflicts Shepard and all other party members.
• Throughout most of the game, if you try to ask EDI questions about Cerberus, such as their resources or how they built the Normandy SR-2, she replies that a block has been placed in her systems that prevents her from answering. After Joker gives her full control of the ship because of the Collectors invading and kidnapping the entire crew, she can answer those questions if you ask her again.
• Sending a probe to Uranus will make EDI reply with an exasperated "...Really, Commander?" Do it again and she deadpans, "Probing Uranus." The resources of the planet are also stated to be depleted, meaning the only logical reason you'd scan it is for the laughs. Though, in practice, there are actually often one or two mineral deposits on the planet, seemingly daring the player to launch a probe.
• At least one story mission requires the player to fly to a system with no mass relay, which requires fuel. A sufficiently eccentric player could complete every other available mission (the only way to earn money), spend it all and then squander their fuel resources. This would create a situation where it should not be possible to progress the story due to a lack of fuel or the funds to purchase more. Instead the game just allows players who find themselves in this unlikely situation to take fuel for free.
• Lair of the Shadow Broker:
  • When you speak to Spectre Tela Vasir early on in the mission, part of her dialogue depends on your status. If you didn't save the Council and recommended Udina as a Councillor (the only way to not be given the opportunity to be reinstated as a Spectre) she calls it a pity.
  • If you chose to romance Liara in the first game, then romanced a different love interest in 2, Liara will call you out on your infidelity if you attempt to justify getting back together with her.
  • The Shadow Broker himself changes his stated goal when you confront him. If you haven't taken out the Collectors' base by that point, he'll say he will sell Shepard's body to the Collectors. If the base is captured, he will say he is after Normandy's Reaper IFF in order to salvage the base, or its debris if it was destroyed. He still wants Shepard dead though, allegedly to cripple Cerberus.
  • The Shadow Broker also has different dialogue for every squadmate you bring along with you and Liara to his ship. In the case of Kasumi, however, if you haven't completed her loyalty mission yet, the Broker will comment that she may yet miss Hock's party.
  • Liara's dialogue when she visits Shepard's cabin will change depending on who you've romanced, whether or not you've completed the suicide mission, as well as depending on who you were able to save.
• Arrival:
  • If you let the countdown timer run down to zero right after you wake up (which means waiting two real-time hours) or after the confrontation with the indoctrinated Kenson, a special Game Over vision plays that includes the crashed Normandy (with Shepard's helmet on a pike in the foreground) and the rest of the team standing together (along with the Illusive Man) as the Reapers invade Earth. The timer counting down will also be higher if you haven't finished the suicide mission.
    • You can get the same result by waiting 51 real-time hours from the start of the mission, before Shepard gets knocked out.
  • The hologram during the final conversation with Harbinger will be different depending on if you've finished the suicide mission. If you haven't, the hologram will be of the Collector General. If you have, it will be of Harbinger's true Reaper form, similar to the conversation you've had with Sovereign on Virmire in the first game. Notably, Harbinger doesn't have the normal Power Echoes when speaking to you, in this conversation alone. Since that part of the DLC takes place on the exterior of a Space Base that is being used to Colony Drop a Mass Relay, it's likely that Harbinger is directly connecting to Shepard's helmet since the developers are aware that space really isn't noisy.
  • The final dialogue with Admiral Hackett changes slightly depending on whether you've completed the Suicide Mission, as well as what choice you made at the end. For instance, if you blew up the Collector base, when you comment on how odd it is for Hackett to willingly set foot on a Cerberus vessel, he adds the line, "Besides, I'm not so sure this is a Cerberus ship anymore. Right?"
  • Dr. Chakwas has a brief silent cameo at the end of the DLC where she is seen speaking to Hackett and then leaving the room. On the off chance that you played Arrival after the Suicide Mission and Dr. Chakwas did not survive (because you didn't send someone to escort her) she will be replaced by Joker.
• If you bring Legion into Project Overlord, Gavin Archer will have special dialogue raising concern about you bringing a geth ally into a mission where geth are being hacked and turned hostile by the titular Overlord VI.
• If you don't talk to the quarian admirals during Tali's loyalty mission, Shepard's speech during the trial will be different: Since Shepard doesn't know the political motives behind the trial, they won't be brought up, and instead Shepard will either say how much the Normandy depends on Tali (Paragon) or point out that she's going on a suicide mission to save the galaxy (Renegade).

Mass Effect 3

• If you accepted the Council's offer to reinstate your Spectre status, you'll have immediate access to the Spectre Office during your first visit to the Citadel. If you rejected the offer or was not offered the opportunity, then the office will be blocked off until you are officially reinstated after meeting the Councilors.
• If you chatted up Barla Von, a very minor NPC whose sole purpose is to give you a lead at the beginning of the first game, he'll greet you amicably when you meet him again for another minor sidequest in the third game. If you never spoke to him at all, he'll introduce himself to you as if you never met.
• The memorial wall on deck three of the Normandy automatically updates to add crew and former crew who die in 3, such as Mordin in one ending of "Priority: Tuchanka", and Thane after he is mortally wounded by Kai Leng during the Cerberus coup attempt. It also has anyone who died during the suicide mission in 2, as well as everyone who died during the Collector attack which destroyed the SR-1, but only if their dog tags were collected at the Normandy's crash site.
• Completing the ME2 DLC Lair of the Shadow Broker opens up several additional dialogue options and conversations:
  • If Liara and Garrus are brought on the Priority: Sur'kesh mission, they will have extra dialogue playfully reminding her of the fact that the previous Shadow Broker was a yahg, and the one that just escaped its holding cell could be the next one.
    Shepard: Careful. There goes the next Shadow Broker.
    Garrus: Could've sworn it was muttering "T'Soni!" the whole time.
    Liara: Not funny!
  • If Garrus says the line without Liara there, the other companion will chuckle a funny remark.
  • Watching the terminals in the Shadow Broker base in 2 will mean that during the conversation with Matriarch Aethyta, Shepard informs her that they've seen footage of her looking at a picture of Liara and politely tells her to cut the crap, since it's obvious that she's Liara's father.
  • If the player takes Liara on the Geth Dreadnought mission, she will mortify Tali by revealing that she's aware Tali's suit is equipped with a NerveStimPro Program... the Deluxe Edition.
  • At one point, EDI will mention that she can't get any answers to personal questions from Liara, because Liara knows EDI is a blabbermouth. EDI notes that Liara has become more private and guarded since becoming the Shadow Broker. If Lair of the Shadow Broker wasn't done, this dialog is a couple of lines longer:
    Shepard: She's the what?
    EDI: Oops.
• One sidequest that involves recurring comic relief character Conrad Verner is practically a checklist of things that you did in the first game. He has different dialogue depending on whether or not you hit him or shot him in the foot in the second game, if you found all of the Matriarch Dilanaga writings, if you recovered some data discs for another minor character on Feros and if you purchased an Elkoss Combine License. The entire quest will change completely if a seemingly unrelated other minor character was helped or ignored in the first game. He even apologizes for and lampshades the infamous flagging bug in 1 that 2 error handled into you acting Renegade towards him in the first game, regardless of what actually happened.
• The From Ashes DLC has you retrieving a Prothean artifact, which turns out to be a life pod containing Javik. The artifact is on Eden Prime, where the first mission of the first game starts. Take along the Virmire Survivor on that mission, and they will have some unique dialogue reminiscing about that time. Take any of the first game's returning squadmates with you, they will ask if the pod is like the ones from Ilos.
• Some of Javik's first lines after waking up will change depending on who the third squadmate is. If it's just any of the organic squadmates, he'll sneer about how he's surrounded by primitives. If EDI is the third, he instead grumbles about how the sight of a synthetic doesn't bode well.
• It's possible to do the Eden Prime mission immediately after your first visit to the Citadel, before going to Palaven, but Javik won't be playable until after you've gone there. As a result, the conversation with him ends with him admitting he's not fully woken up yet, and needs a little while longer to get on his feet.
• The Shepard VI you encounter is a caricature of your personality in Mass Effect 2. If you played Paragon, they'll say uplifting heroic things. If you played Renegade, they'll talk about kicking ass and ask to be installed in various mechs and weapons.
• In the "Grissom Academy: Emergency Evacuation" mission:
  • If the player is using a female Shepard who is currently in a romance with Garrus, Jack's dialogue will change after Garrus sarcastically calls Jack "as charming as ever" (this is after Jack greets Shepard by punching them in the face and berates them for having trusted Cerberus before). By default, Jack will greet Garrus by telling him that his "face still looks like shit." But if Shepard is female and has romanced Garrus, Jack will snap, "Bite me, Garrus! Or better yet, bite her! Probably how she likes it!" There are no other romances that change Jack's dialogue.
  • If Jack did the barrier at the Collector Base, she says she tells the tale of her feat as motivation to her students during endurance exercises. If she didn't do the barrier but was part of your squad during that segment, she will reminisce about throwing husks all over the place with shockwaves (which she most likely did, considering how insanely useful this ability is in any fight against husks). In case Jack wasn't actively involved in that particular mission segment at all, she will instead use the necessity of shooting hordes of Collectors in firefights as the "endurance" motivation.
    Jack: I kept thinking to myself: 'Damn, let the salarian handle this!'. He could talk 'em to death.
  • If a male Shepard hooked up with Jack for a one-night stand in Mass Effect 2 (locking her out of a romance), she will mention it if Shepard comments on her new appearance.
  • If EDI is one of your squadmates, and if you rescued David Archer from Project Overlord, David recognizes her as the Normandy ship's computer and says that he's "sorry" for having tried to hijack her before. EDI says no apologies are necessary.
  • Alternatively, if Garrus is a member of the squad, David recognizes him as Normandy crew, and apologises in the same manner. Garrus responds by saying that the events of Overlord were never his fault."
• When talking about his exploits with James Vega, Garrus's dialogue will be different if you didn't recruit him in the first game.
  • Similarly, Garrus and Tali's kill-count conversation will have different dialogue, with Tali complaining that Garrus bringing up Horizon would be like her bringing up fighting the krogan battlemaster on Therum.
• Delay talking to Garrus after recruiting him, and when you finally head down to the Battery, he'll comment that he was beginning to think that Shepard had forgotten his favourite place on the ship.
• In the second game, if you talked to Mordin enough, you'd hear him sing an odd version of Gilbert & Sullivan's "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General" with salarian-appropriate lyrics. In 3, if Mordin makes the ultimate sacrifice on Tuchanka, you'll hear it again — but only if you heard him sing it in the previous game.
• If you choose to sabotage the genophage cure on Tuchanka, if Wrex is alive and you completed his family armor quest in ME1, Wrex will reference the latter mission while asking why you betrayed him in Citadel Docking Bay 94.
• If Tali was sent through the vents in the Collector Base in the previous game, dialogue will occur with her complaining about having to go through more vents during the mission on the Geth Dreadnought, as well as grumble about what happened last time.
  Tali: I got set on fire!
• If a Male Shepard romanced Tali in the second game, during the Geth Dreadnought mission, they will constantly flirt with each other. When Tali saves Shepard from the collapsing lift, she has a Tsundere reaction to Shepard's joke that she was clearly worried about him. Depending on the third squadmember, EDI will explain to new squadmates that Shepard and Tali started a relationship in the previous game, while if Garrus is on the team, he mentions he was there when they had their thing and says that the two should just get a room already. The Virmire Survivor will also be completely unfazed by the revelation, as though they were expecting it to happen. If Shepard also romanced Liara or Ashley in the first game and brings them along on this mission, they will very tersely tell the two to stop talking.
• If Legion's loyalty mission was completed, Shepard & Joker will make a Call-Back to the "Geth don't use windows" discussion during the Geth Dreadnought mission.
• Admiral Raan will be understandably freaked out when Legion arrives in The War Room unless you brought Legion to Tali's trial in the previous game, in which case she responds, "I see your geth friend has returned."
• If the Rogue VI mission was completed in ME1, EDI will have additional dialogue referencing her development from the program while bypassing one of the doors in the Priority: Cerberus Headquarters mission.
• If Shepard never talks to James Vega in the ship throughout the game until the finale, he'll actually be pretty angry about being ignored. You will also get different lines depending on when you speak to him - waiting until EDI acquires a new body will lead to a discussion of that before sparring, for example.
  [post Priority: Palaven] Shepard? What the hell you doing down here with the grunts? Been down here a while... starting to think you didn't like me.
  [post Priority: Citadel II] Shepard? take a wrong turn at the elevator? I didn't think you knew where to find me... or cared to know.
• During the Conduit Run, after getting shot by Harbinger, if you go to the squad screen — which is highly unlikely, as you have no reason to level up any more — Shepard's armor is the burned version they're currently wearing. You'll also notice that Shepard has no shield stat, or even any of the stat bonuses that the armor granted.
• Any squadmates brought with you to the final run to the conduit will be killed by Harbinger and their names added to the memorial wall if Shepard's Effective Military Score rating is too low. The exception is EDI. Her name will not be added to the wall if her physical platform is destroyed as her personality still exists within the Normandy's AI core.
• In the Extended Cut, shooting the Catalyst's avatar automatically selects the Refuse ending.
• During Tali's loyalty mission in the previous game, you can turn in the evidence involving her father, which can lose her loyalty to you. However, on the off-chance she survived the suicide mission, when you meet her again, she'll apologize and admit Shepard was right.
• If you're romancing Kaidan as a male Shepard in 3, when you tell Cortez you prefer the male dancers to the female (which normally starts the Cortez romance), Cortez will laugh then state he knows you're romancing Kaidan and won't take it as a come-on. All female love interests instead get the same line about how Cortez knows Shepard has a lady waiting for him, which obviously doesn't work for the other Gay Option.
• One way to encounter Balak while obtaining the batarian codes is to rescue the hostages in 1's Bring Down the Sky DLC while letting him go. However, you can still encounter him if you opt to spare him if you go after him at the expense of the hostages, either by arresting him or leaving him for dead.
• If you don't have enough Relationship Values with the Virmire Survivor they will die during the Citadel coup no matter what; if Shepard doesn't shoot them, a Squadmember will. When discussing their death afterwards with Garrus and Liara, their dialogue will change slightly if they were the one to pull the trigger. Garrus feels guilty and will be comforted by Shepard, while Liara will be apologetic and say that she saw no other way.
• "Priority: Thessia" has different dialogue if the "From the Ashes" DLC is included. At the museum, Javik will note with increasing irritation how blatant the evidence of Prothean involvement in asari development is. If Javik isn't included, the other teammate will do the honors instead (Tali in particular gets pretty cranky with Liara's Selective Obliviousness).
• Omega:
  • If the player interacted with Harrot (and obtained a discount) in ME2, Harrot will have extra dialogue mentioning that Shepard looks familiar, and Shepard will remark briefly on their prior dealings.
  • The first instance in the series where a new plot option becomes available depending on your class and not your background or accomplishment, during the sequence to disable a force field, where taking the Renegade interrupt to overload it will kill thousands of innocent civilians. Aria keeps telling you to go for it, but you then have the option of ignoring the Renegade interrupt three times so you can simply re-route the power instead. If you do that, Aria berates you for putting her and Nyreen Kandros' lives at risk. However, if Shepard is an Engineer, a Paragon interrupt allows Shepard to re-route the power without killing people right away, so Aria won't scold you for taking so long that her life was at risk.
  • When at the wreckage of Mordin's old infirmary, Aria will humorously state she misses him shooting up mercs. If Mordin is dead, Shepard will sadly tell her, "Mordin is dead."
• Citadel:
  • There are two instances where an Adept/Vanguard Shepard will use their biotic abilities in cutscene - a scripted quick kill from behind cover at the start of the DLC, and a renegade interrupt to block a biotically charged attack at the start of the battle with the Shepard clone. The clone will also use biotics to knock Shepard's weapon out of their hands, as opposed to shooting it out like the other classes.
    • The Sentinel Shepard also uses biotics in the scripted quick kill rather than their omni-blade, like they do when they're out of their armour in the prologue.
  • When Shepard is rescued by their squadmate near the beginning of the DLC, all five potential rescuers will use a character appropriate means of taking out the mooks they're fighting. Ashley and Garrus simply shoot them as would be expected, Kaidan and Liara will use their biotics, and Tali will zap them with her Omni-tool.
  • Engineer Shepard has unique lines during the casino infiltration, with Brooks even admitting that she'd momentarily forgotten that you probably know at least as much about spoofing security as she does.
  • The Big Bad is a clone of Shepard. Whose class and face will correspond with that of the player's Shepard. This is notable in case of the face, because you'd perhaps think that the game just uses Shepard's face code to determine how the clone will look. It doesn't. Even a modified Shepard, with hair not available through normal means for example, will be looking at a direct copy of themselves.
  • In the final battle of the DLC, the clone will be wearing standard N7 armor, just like what Shepard starts the second mission with^note Unless doing New Game+, when Shepard will start the second mission with whatever armor the imported save had set to equip. and is featured with in all of the game art. However, if the player has Shepard wear their own standard N7 armor, the clone's armor will have a blue marker beside the N7 logo and a blue stripe on the right arm instead of the details being red, like Shepard's. Because the clone and Shepard are identical in appearance, even with mods, this allows the player to tell the two apart in the action-heavy cutscenes. The color change only occurs when Shepard is wearing the completely default armor, down to detailing and color choices.
  • When choosing companions just before the "Retake the Normandy" section, the companion that has been used most throughout the game^note  Of the ones being left behind will say they wanted to go, while the squadmate that was used least will complain about never getting picked.
  • When you arrive to the captured Normandy, your teammates will open the door by hacking it with an omni-tool. Unless you took Wrex and/or James, in which case James will kick the panel or Wrex will shoot it. Immediately after, when discussing how to get the emergency hatch open, Kaidan, Liara, and Javik will mention the possibility of using a biotic field but not having the necessary fine control, while everyone else will just say that a very precise mass effect field might work.
  • You enter the Normandy by crawling through an emergency escape hatch that opens in the CIC. Until you open the hatch, the enemies don't know you're there... unless you use a power or fire a shot. If you do, they'll immediately sound the alarm and go to the hatch's exit, waiting for you to open it.
  • If Garrus was brought during Mordin's loyalty mission from the previous game (during which he makes a comment about it being fun to have a firefight in an antique shop... "but only if it's classy"), and if he's brought up on the "Retake the Normandy" section of the main mission, he will reference the same dialogue during the firefight in Normandy's CIC.
  • If Wrex and Ashley/Kaidan are Shepard's squadmates on the "Retake the Normandy" section, and if they had the "Who would win in a fight?" conversation on the elevators back in the first game, Wrex will reference that conversation (while on the elevator down to the cargo hold, no less!), saying that they're finally about to get an answer.
  • In the Normandy elevator, if the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC was completed and Liara had the discussion with Aethyta, and if Wrex is also present, she will remark on the fact that she is technically part-krogan and Wrex commenting with approval.
  • When meeting with Jacob at the Castle Arcade, a female Shepard who romanced him in the previous game can be hostile towards him over their broken relationship. If Shepard romanced Kaidan or Liara in Mass Effect 1, Jacob will call her out on it.
  • Depending on the type of party Shepard throws, James and Liara can be found bickering over biotics being better than sheer physical strength. If Kaidan and Jacob (who are also biotic and account for all three biotic classes when counted with Liara) are alive, they'll throw in their two cents. Jack or Miranda will also be present if the other one is not, and a biotic Shepard will bring up their status as a biotic as well.
  • The music that plays for the "waking up with sex partner" after the party is the same for everyone, including James (despite being a one night stand.) All the same except for Javik. A hilarious rendition of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony plays instead.
  • The banter as Shepard, Brooks, and the chosen squadmate walk to the casino not only takes into account whether or not the squadmate was romanced, but also if Shepard's face has the scarring from consistent Renegade choices.
  • Possible people to talk to during the Casino Infiltration are Jonah Ashland, and his daughter Aishwarya-"Aish". Shepard's dialogue when he mentions Aish changes depending on whether or not you talked to her.
• After the Ardat-Yakshi Monastery mission, you can talk to Samara on the Citadel. One of the dialogue options is to ask her for advice on fighting Reapers. Her answer changes depending on when you ask her. If you ask her after that mission but before "Priority: Rannoch", she'll say that you've killed two Reapers: one on the Citadel and one on Tuchanka. If you ask her after the conclusion of the Rannoch arc, she'll point out that you just killed your third Reaper on Rannoch.
• Skipping or ignoring the Grissom Academy mission results in a minor dialogue change with Admiral Anderson after the coup. If you did take the mission, he recounts how he and Kahlee Sanders ran into Kai Leng before. If you didn't, he doesn't refer to Kahlee by name, just as "a friend".
• Just before the attack on Cerberus, Admiral Hackett has an extra line of dialogue if you did the "N7: Cerberus Lab" mission given right at the start of the game.

Mass Effect: Andromeda

• On Habitat 7, the scene where Ryder meets up with their father alters depending on whether the player did the optional objectives, such as exploring the cave and the ruined kett base. Should they explore the opening to the pillar, and then come back, they'll note kett corpses left in Alec's wake weren't there when they passed through.
• Also on Habitat 7, the game also tracks how long it takes for you to engage the kett after they begin beating Fisher if you attempted to make peaceful first contact. If you immediately engage when the beating occurs, the cutscene proceeds as normal. If you hesitate (or just have trouble drawing your weapons), Ryder will desperately apologize at the start of the cutscene when they check Fisher's injuries.
• When Drack is met, the scene plays out differently depending on whether Vetra's in the party. Without her, Drack nearly attacks Ryder, then brushes off Liam's offer to join the team with "you're human, you spoil". If Vetra's there, she'll tell him she's with the Pathfinder right in front of him, with Drack deciding that if Ryder's with Vetra, they're alright, though he still refuses to join.
• Ryder can wear N7-brand armor despite not being an N7 themselves. Bradley will comment on this, and note that some Alliance soldiers might disapprove.
• On Eos, audio logs can be found of the Invictor which are initially unintelligible. After SAM manages to translate the kett's language, they can be listened to again. If listened to before the Invictor's fought, Ryder and co. will comment on how horrible they are. If listened to afterward, Ryder will say how glad they are they killed him.
• If Jaal is brought to Havarl and Voeld, cutscenes and dialogue play out differently, with characters recognising Jaal.
• Likewise, bring Drack to New Tuchanka, and he'll vouch for Ryder with the krogan guards at the front door. Likewise, bring him along to Ark Parchero, and he and Birtak will talk to one another, since Drack's his boss. Also, during the fight with the Behemoth, Drack will try ordering it to stop attacking, to no avail.
• If Jaal is brought to Khi Tasira, the cutscene in the Development area will play differently, what with Jaal, an angara, learning the truth of the angara's origins.
• Early on in the game, it's possible to talk with Drack about his distrust of SAM. Should Drack be in the Firefighters mission on Kadara, and Ryder will bring Drack's anti-AI sentiment up again.
• Complete the Firefighters side-quest before the Hive Mind mission on Kadara, and Ryder will tell the scientists that Knight told them about Cerberus and its unethical experiments.
• When Ryder catches a space hamster, the casual option leads to them gushing over it being the cutest thing they've found in Heleus. If the player has locked in a romantic relationship, there is an additional line about their love interest being more handsome/beautiful than cute.
• The mission "Dissention in the Ranks" plays out very differently if put off until after the game's over. Instead of Ryder finding messages from the Primus extoling the kett to dump the Archon, Ryder instead finds the kett at the Eos base executed and left lying in a row as a warning. The messages have the Primus detailing what her plan of action is now that she's in charge, and Ryder doesn't talk with her.
• The assignment Task: Excess Baggage has Ryder find a message from the chief of the Tempest's construction team to the original four Pathfinders. The game keeps track of how many arks Ryder has found by then and what decision was made on the Archon's flagship. Ryder's response to the message will change depending on how many Pathfinders are confirmed to be dead.
• Some missions can have their dialogue altered slightly depending on when the player takes them:
  • If Jaal's loyalty mission is done after Khi Tasira, where the characters learn the Jardaan created the angara, then the dialogue as they approach the Forge changes to speculating as to who created the columns in the area.
  • One or two late-game missions have minor dialogue tweaks if left till after the game, such as Cora's loyalty mission, where the Valiant proclaims their Undying Loyalty to the Archon, or "Truth and Trespass", where the salarian quisling will defend his actions on the grounds that kett reinforcements are coming with the Archon dead.

---