Mass Effect Legendary Edition appears to be a luxurious package that lovingly restores much of the spirit and content of the beloved BioWare trilogy – except for a missing player DLC.
Pinnacle Station, an add-on that brought a small hub and combat simulator to Mass Effect 1, is not included.
If you’re familiar with the saga of including this DLC in other versions of the game, you may know what’s coming – but if not, BioWare has now confirmed why.
Pinnacle Station was ignored when the original Mass Effect was released late on the PlayStation 3, about five years after it originally arrived on the Xbox 360.
At the time, BioWare admitted that its source code was corrupted and it couldn’t be worked on anymore. Now, and despite BioWare’s new efforts to resurrect the add-on, unfortunately it is still the case.
Speaking to Game Informer, Legendary Edition project director Mac Walters said that trying to remaster the Pinnacle Station was “an emotional roller coaster” after contact was made with its original external developer.
Unlike most Mass Effect DLCs, Pinnacle Station was built by a different company: Demiurge Studios, a small Massachusetts company still some 14 years later.
BioWare was able to contact Demiurge to recover copies of the original Pinnacle Station files – which Demiurge was able to obtain – but they were also found to be corrupted. Recreating the add-on from scratch was also out of the question.
“Basically, it would take us another six full months just to do this with most of the team we have,” Walters told Game Informer. “I wish we could do that. Honestly, just because it was meant to be everything the team has ever created, it brought it back together – all the content for one player. And so, leaving everything in the edit room, it was moving.”
For more information about the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, including the Legendary Cache and our questions to Walters about the return to the franchise that many feared he couldn’t continue, you’ll want to read our coverage of everything that is included in the package.