Though players can customize their weapons and characters, most of their options are unlocked via random packs Mass Effect 3 contained one of gaming's earliest loot box mechanics, but it's perhaps one of the best examples of such a system. It's relatively easy to earn enough in-game currency to afford crates with high chances at top-tier loot, and playing it now only emphasizes how much fairer it feels than most modern gacha mechanics. It's still not a great system, in general, but it's better than many others like it. The final wave is the extraction phase, wherein players must get to a specific area of the map before a two-minute timer reaches zero. Related: ME3’s DLC Crewmate Should Never Have Been A DLCįor such a contentious addition, Mass Effect 3's multiplayer mode itself is remarkably unremarkable: a squad-based horde mode where up to four players, as various classes and characters, team up to kill waves of AI enemies. There are 11 waves in total during a standard match, and the third, sixth and tenth waves have additional mandatory objectives (in exchange for extra in-game currency). With the aforementioned DLC, however, the stain of this controversy was slowly worn away. This was thanks to the Galactic Readiness mechanic, which measured the security level of the galaxy and could only be raised by successfully completing multiplayer missions. As the best ending's required EMS rating was 5,000 and the base Galactic Readiness score cut Shepard’s total military strength to 50% of what players had actually attained, this understandably irritated many.
Before the release of the Extended Cut DLC, it was nearly impossible for solo players to achieve the Effective Military Strength rating required for game's best possible ending. Mass Effect 3's multiplayer mode was derided at launch for a variety of reasons, but chiefly for its importance to the game's single-player story. The multiplayer servers are fortunately still up and running, but that doesn't necessarily mean an online mode released all the way back in 2012 holds up in 2021.
It has been nearly a decade since Mass Effect 3 was originally released, and thanks to development constraints in the remaster, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition cut ME3's multiplayer, meaning the original version is the only way to experience that mode.