Mass Effect

Mass Effect is a military science fiction media franchise created by Casey Hudson. The franchise depicts a distant future where humanity and several alien civilizations have colonized the galaxy using technology left behind by advanced precursor civilizations.

The franchise originated in a series of video games developed by BioWare and originally published by Microsoft Game Studios on the first two games and its expansions. Later on, the series was taken over by Electronic Arts through its acquisition of BioWare. Each installment is a third-person shooter with role-playing elements. The first three games form a trilogy in which the player character, Commander Shepard, attempts to save the Milky Way galaxy from a race of ancient, hibernating machines known as the Reapers. The inaugural video game in the series, Mass Effect (2007), follows Shepard's investigation of Saren Arterius, one of the Reapers' agents. Mass Effect 2 (2010) begins two years later and sees Shepard's forces battling the Collectors, an alien race abducting human colonies to facilitate the Reapers' return. The original trilogy's final installment, Mass Effect 3 (2012), depicts a war between the Reapers and the rest of the galaxy. A fourth game, Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017), featured a new setting and cast of characters, and a fifth is in active development.