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EA admits remastering Mass Effect would be a way to earn an 'easy buck,' but won't remaster them

Will they or won't they? EA executives are giving conflicting answers.

David Craddock

August 31, 2016 12:41 PM

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Electronic Arts chief competition officer Peter Moore told IGN just yesterday that EA isn't interested in remastering the Mass Effect trilogy. According to Moore, EA wants to move forward rather than keep one foot in the past.

"We're a company that is focused on delivering for the future," he said. "I was asked a question once [about remasters and I said] it's just not what we do. We've got incredibly talented dev studios around the world who are focused on delivering new IP, new experiences, [and] more and more live services."

Among those experiences is Mass Effect Andromeda, the next installment in the series. "Can we make an easy buck on remastering Mass Effect? Yes. Have a thousand people asked me that? Yes, they have," he added. "We just feel like we want to go forward. There's a little thing called Mass Effect: Andromeda that we're totally focused on at BioWare and it's gonna be magnificent."

Moore's answer conflicts with other executives. In an interview with Game Informer earlier this month, EA Studios' Patrick Soderlund did not go so far as to give a definitive answer to the oft-asked inquiry, but did indicate that the company was growing more receptive to the notion of remastering classic games—mostly because Activision, its chief competitor, had steadfastly refused to return wells only to change its stance later.

According to Soderlund, moving forward with remasters will boil down to thoughtful decision-making. "We have to be careful in choosing the right brands for the right reasons at the right time. A remaster is something that you can just do or do it really well. I want to make sure that if we were to do it, we would do it really well and that people feel that it's the same game but it feels so much better in this new shape and form. There have been titles that have come out that have done it really well, and there have been others that maybe haven't done it so well. We just want to make sure that we stay in the 'done it really well' camp.

David Craddock

Long Reads Editor

David L. Craddock writes fiction, nonfiction, and grocery lists. He is the author of the Stay Awhile and Listen series, and the Gairden Chronicles series of fantasy novels for young adults. Outside of writing, he enjoys playing Mario, Zelda, and Dark Souls games, and will be happy to discuss at length the myriad reasons why Dark Souls 2 is the best in the series. Follow him online at davidlcraddock.com and @davidlcraddock.