Mass Effect shook the gaming world when it launched. It had a great science fiction setting, a memorable and charismatic main character, and an efficient dialogue system making conversations flow better and look more cinematic. All in all, the series is fantastic, well worth playing and sure to be a great fun for every fan of science fiction and space swashbuckling.
The problem is that there are just four Mass Effect games – one excellent trilogy and one spin-off that spun so hard it landed in a different galaxy. That’s not nearly enough to get your fill of the setting, the tactical TPP cover-based combat, and the dialogue system. An obvious solution would be to wait, hoping for a new Mass Effect game.
A simpler and more accessible option is to peek at the games which share some of Mass Effect DNA, be it story presentation, action sequences, or even just the sheer atmosphere. And so we shall. Behold, and rejoice, this is our list of…
| Game | Release | Developer | Trailer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Elden Ring | 2022-02-25 | Action RPG | FromSoftware |
 | Hogwarts Legacy | 2023-02-10 | RPG | Avalanche Software |
 | Cyberpunk 2077 | 2020-12-10 | Action RPG | CD PROJEKT RED |
 | Assassins Creed Valhalla Standard Edition | 2020-11-10 | Action RPG | Ubisoft Montreal |
 | No Mans Sky | 2016-08-12 | Adventure | Hello Games |
 | Destiny 2 Legendary Edition | 2020-11-10 | Shooter | |
 | Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines | 2004-11-16 | Adventure | Troika Games |
 | Alpha Protocol | 2010-05-27 | Action & Shooter | Obsidian Entertainment |
 | Deus Ex Human Revolution Directors Cut | 2013-10-25 | Action & Shooter | Eidos Montréal |
 | Dragon Age 2 | 2011-03-08 | Adventure | BioWare Edmonton |
 | Fallout New Vegas | 2010-10-21 | Action & Shooter | Obsidian Entertainment |
 | Ftl Faster Than Light | 2012-09-14 | Adventure | Subset Games |
 | Gears 5 | 2019-09-09 | Action | The Coalition |
 | Greedfall | 2019-09-10 | Action | Spiders |
 | Halcyon 6 Starbase Commander | 2016-09-08 | Indie | Massive Damage Games |
 | Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic | 2003-11-19 | RPG | BioWare |
 | Shadowrun Dragonfall Directors Cut | 2014-09-18 | Adventure | Harebrained Schemes |
 | Star Wars Republic Commando | 2005-03-01 | Action & Shooter | LucasArts |
 | The Outer Worlds | 2020-10-23 | Action RPG | Obsidian Entertainment |
 | The Witcher 2 Assassins Of Kings Enhanced Edition | 2011-05-17 | Adventure | CD PROJEKT RED |
 | XCOM Chimera Squad | 2020-04-24 | Strategy | Firaxis Games |
 | Dragon Age Inquisition Game Of The Year Edition | 2014-11-18 | Adventure | BioWare |
Cyberpunk 2077
| Release date: | 2020-12-10 |
| Genre: | Action RPG |
| Developer: | CD PROJEKT RED |
If your favorite parts of the Mass Effect games is wondering around the Citadel or the Omega station and soaking in the futuristic atmosphere, maybe you should give a chance to Cyberpunk 2077.
Now free from launch woes it’s ready to engage you in a story about an upstart mercenary called V, and the vengeful, digital ghost of a world-famous rockerboy Johnny Silverhand.
Cyberpunk 2077 is an urban open world action RPG, with all that it entails. There are plenty of side activities for explorers, some crunchy math for optimizers, and an engaging, well-written and well-acted core story for the roleplayers. Instead of Mass Effect’s dialogues with tight camera control, CP77 uses more fluid, on-the-go approach, making even conversations more 1441a10062d24a888c03a9d1immersive.
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Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
| Release date: | 2020-11-10 |
| Genre: | Action RPG |
| Developer: | Ubisoft Montreal |
Yes, a complete change of theme, but if you’re a broad strokes kind of person, there are things to bite into!
You still have a ship, and even though it’s not a cutting-edge space-faring vessel, you’ll still get to pilot it from place to place for plot and fun. You also have a home base with story importance, and a whole bunch of core and side stories, not all of which must be solved with violence.
The story takes place in the late 9th century, during the Viking settlement of England, so you’ll mostly be drinking mead and sword fighting. However, as is typical for the Assassin’s Creed games, there’s also a lot of Prote… Precur… Isu tech involved, injecting some weird science fiction stuff into the story. It’s not as branching or as RPG-y as Mass Effect, but the structure will feel familiar.
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No Man's Sky
| Release date: | 2016-08-12 |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Developer: | Hello Games |
Perhaps it’s not the dashing galaxy-saving adventure that you seek, perhaps it’s the promise of a vast cosmos to explore. It that’s the case, No Man’s Sky should have exactly what you need.
Once you clear the introductory phase, you can hop from planet to planet as you please, studying alien languages, collecting resources for your crafting or trading endeavors, or documenting wildlife.
Since its memorable launch, NMS has received many updates, turning it into a rich, compelling, and satisfying space exploration sim, which is just as good in multiplayer as it is solo. There is an overarching theme of trying to get to the galactic core and the mystery within, but you are free to ignore it and focus on exploration according to your own whims and ambitions.
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Destiny 2
| Release date: | 2020-11-10 |
| Genre: | Shooter |
| Developer: |
Cool guns? Check. Cool powers on the border of magic and science fiction? Check. Several planets to visit and kill stuff on?
Absolutely. Sure, Destiny 2 is more of a MMO shooter than an RPG like Mass Effect, but it is much better at being a high-powered shooter than Mass Effect is, so if you’re into tight gunplay and fun superpowers, and aren’t against FPP, check Destiny 2 out.
Since its release in 2017 Destiny 2 has received several large expansions, with the latest being The Witch Queen, and many smaller updates. The arsenal gets reshuffled, modes and maps for in and out of rotation, new raids are added, more story elements get integrated, there’s a lot to do and a ton of guns to get. If you want a precise, compelling science fiction MMO shooter, this is it.
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Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines
| Release date: | 2004-11-16 |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Developer: | Troika Games |
Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines widely recognized as one of the best roleplaying video games roleplaying video games in history.
If you want a complex web of consequences, great dialogues, and memorable NPCs, on top of a TPP/FPP action and non-standard take on morality, VtM:B is a perfect game for you to try, as long as you get the latest community patch.
VtM: B puts you in the freshly undead shoes of a new vampire, who awakens to a complex web of factions and conflicting ambitions of LA vampire society. Left without a sire, you’re a wild card, and it’s a status you can greatly benefit from, if you’re smart. With several clans with unique powers to choose from, and extremely branching story, one playthrough won’t be nearly enough.
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Alpha Protocol
| Release date: | 2010-05-27 |
| Genre: | Action & Shooter |
| Developer: | Obsidian Entertainment |
Alpha Protocol takes Mass Effect’s simplified dialogue presentation and discrete missions of Mass Effect 2 and asks “what if we took these things and made a spy RPG?”.
The answer is an interesting game with a complex, reactive story that carries the entire experience with flair expected of spy fiction. You can play it smooth like James Bond, harsh like Jack Bauer, or coldly professional like Jason Bourne.
Thornton gains positive and negative reputation with each character in the story, and the game keeps close track of the values and adjusts the plot in many, sometimes unexpected, ways. Most missions play out as third-person perspective action game leaning towards stealth and using abilities gained as you unlock them from their respective skill lines. Choices are your weapon in every aspect of the game.
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Deus Ex: Human Revolution
| Release date: | 2013-10-25 |
| Genre: | Action & Shooter |
| Developer: | Eidos Montréal |
Deus Ex: Human Revolution can scratch that Mass Effect itch in a few different ways.
One that becomes clear fairly quickly is the dialogue presentation, which is happy to bring just a few options at a time, some inquisitive, others leading towards new dialogue branches. There’s also a lot of sticking to cover, and unlocking new abilities through an augment tree, mildly reminiscent of ME 2 and 3.
The game is a prequel to the original Deus Ex and presents the early days of human augmentations. The protagonist, Adam Jensen, is heavily augmented due to events that play out during the tutorial sequence, and while he should get more resting time, there’s an investigation to conduct. DE:HR also offers quite a bit of flexibility in how you can approach challenges, with solid stealth gameplay and plenty of incentives to explore maps.
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Dragon Age 2 & Inquisition
| Release date: | 2011-03-08 / 2014-11-18 |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Developer: | BioWare Edmonton |
Whereas Dragon Age: Origins borrows its presentation from classic Infinity Engine-era RPGs, the two sequels took hints from Mass Effect in a few ways.
First of all, they were more action-oriented, with quickly accessible abilities, helpful, but not essential active pause system, and basic attacks available with a press of a button. They also adopted the dialogue presentation popularised by Mass Effect.
Dragon Age: Inquisition also captures the essence of gathering powerful allies for a war against an ancient menace threatening the entire world. As the head of the titular Inquisition you have a lot of power available to you, so you get to both weigh in on many events taking place on the strategic map, and go on adventures with your strike team of friends and allies. It’s done really, really well.
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Fallout: New Vegas
| Release date: | 2010-10-21 |
| Genre: | Action & Shooter |
| Developer: | Obsidian Entertainment |
True, New Vegas doesn’t take place IN SPAAAACE, and you don’t get a nifty ship to romp around in, but if you’ve spent any amount of time roaming the moons in Mass Effect 1 you’ll feel right at home in Nevada.
Jokes aside, Fallout New Vegas does a great job at tossing you into a world of disagreeing factions, weird monsters, and making you the only person who can do anything about upsetting the status quo.
You’re a Courier, not a Spectre, and you start the game at a doctor’s house, because you had a bullet put in your head after a precious package you carried was stolen. Now you can freely roam a massive region, untangling people’s problems, being many factions’ problem, and collecting a troupe of followers drawn to your wild-card charm.
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FTL: Faster Than Light
| Release date: | 2012-09-14 |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Developer: | Subset Games |
You don’t have to squint too much to view FTL as the unseen side of commanding a ship in the Mass Effect universe.
Your ship carries info crucial to winning a war against a human-first rebel group (Cerberus much?), and you have to get it to the allied fleet through eight sectors full of dangers which include, but aren’t limited to, pirates, asteroids, and hard-to-contain fires.
You have some crew to assign duties to, resources to manage, and challenges to overcome, and quite a few waypoints to clear. FTL is a roguelike, so no two runs are going to be the same, with procedurally generated events and encounters. You also get to unlock more ships by conducting research, and each alien species can offer its own spacecraft, catering to different playstyles.
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Gears 5
| Release date: | 2019-09-09 |
| Genre: | Action |
| Developer: | The Coalition |
Sure, not an epic science fiction RPG, but if you need more cover-based shooting in your life you could go to the series that made it an industry standard in the first place.
The Gears of War series, including the latest main instalment, has cover-based shooting down to a science. As a bonus it’s an Xbox 360 original, much like Mass Effect. Gears 5 is a new generation sequel to the original trilogy.
Gears 5 follows Kait Diaz, first met in Gears of War 4 as a friend of its protagonist. Diaz has discovered some secrets about her family in GoW4, and in G5 we’re following her on a journey of discovery and lots (LOTS) of shooting on behalf of the army mounting a counterattack against the invading species referred to as the Swarm. And you can play it all in co-op multiplayer.
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Greedfall
| Release date: | 2019-09-10 |
| Genre: | Action |
| Developer: | Spiders |
Greedfall could be broadly described as Dragon Age of the Caribbean, so, by extension is shares some DNA with Mass Effect, notably in the cinematic cutscenes and the way it does dialogue.
It’s also a third-person perspective action RPG with tactical pause lending you a bit of time to unleash your abilities more precisely. Despite different setting, some elements will absolutely feel familiar.
The story involves a weird illness affecting the continent your character is from, and a mostly uncolonized island of Teer Fradee with its own native population. Your mission begins with you trying to find a way to cure the illness, but it quickly branches out into a story of successions and supernatural phenomena. It’s a very fun game with an underexplored setting inspiration.
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Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander
| Release date: | 2016-09-08 |
| Genre: | Indie |
| Developer: | Massive Damage Games |
Halcyon 6 should sound familiar to everyone who played Mass Effect. The titular Halcyon 6 is a space station left by a precursor species.
Kind of like the Citadel, isn’t it? An evil force is approaching Earth at speed, and you need to get chummy with other species, restore the station and work on technology capable of stopping the invaders. It’s a familiar tune but played on new instruments.
There’s a lot to do in Halcyon 6, both as thr station and the game itself. You’ll be dumping a lot of resources into making the station fully operational, and you’ll explore nearby systems to get necessary materials. There will be be many tactical battles in space and on the ground, and a lot of emergent storytelling as you pull event triggers by goofing around in the game. There are even consequential choices to make!
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Knights of the Old Republic
| Release date: | 2003-11-19 |
| Genre: | RPG |
| Developer: | BioWare |
Knights of the Old Republic was something of a proto-Mass Effect.
It was BioWare’s first attempt at a more cinematic presentation of dialogues, for example, and brought the camera closer to the characters with a convenient control scheme. But, importantly, it’s also an excellent adventure set in the Star Wars universe, albeit a few thousand years before the events of the movie trilogies.
You begin the game confused, on a spaceship attacked by the Sith fleet. And that’s just the tutorial. Soon enough you’ll find yourself tangled in the business of Jedi, appear on the radar of a powerful Sith Lord, become a swoop racing legend, and have many, many conversations with your companions and NPCs populating the planets you visit on your journey. KotOR is an absolute classic.
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Shadowrun: Dragonfall
| Release date: | 2014-09-18 |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Developer: | Harebrained Schemes |
Shadowrun is an interesting setting.
On the surface, it’s a cyberpunk version of our world, with hacking kits, cybernetics, and megacorporations. But it also has dwarves running guns through the underground, trolls hired as bodyguards, and literal dragons running the aforementioned megacorporations. It’s not a epic galactic adventure, but it might give a sense of life in the less shining parts of the ME-verse.
Dragonfall’s progression system will also look familiar to people who liked Mass Effect 1 and working towards new perks and abilities by levelling up specific skills, rather than working up a skill tree from ME 2 and 3. The story involves a mysterious presence that fries the brains of hackers, with guest apperances from monsterslayers, and weird cults – an interesting blend of ideas and tropes from both fantasy and science fiction.
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Star Wars: Republic Commando
| Release date: | 2005-03-01 |
| Genre: | Action & Shooter |
| Developer: | LucasArts |
Like Gears 5, Republic Commando’s main similarity to the Mass Effect series is through the tactical shooter aspects of both series.
RC goes for the first-person perspective, rather than third, but the game puts strong emphasis on giving orders to your squad to get through difficult combat scenarios. Each clone in your squad has a different speciality, like sniping, or setting up and defusing explosives.
The story takes place during the Clone Wars-era of Star Wars, and the missions are discreet deployments, with about two years of difference between the first deployment and the last. You’ll visit several familiar places, like Kashyyyk, the homeland of Wookiees, or Geonosis, known from Episode II, where clone appeared for the first time. It’s a solid tactical shooter from a slightly different era.
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The Outer Worlds
| Release date: | 2020-10-23 |
| Genre: | Action RPG |
| Developer: | Obsidian Entertainment |
The Outer Worlds is the action-RPG that could fill the void left by the Mass Effect franchise.
It has a spacefaring, science-fiction setting, cool weapons, and plenty of people that need to be knocked down a peg. You also can stomp around with up to two companions, which is another similarity to ME. On the whole, however, The Outer Worlds benefits from a more flexible gameplay.
TOW is set in year 2355 of an alternative timeline, which diverged from ours in 1901. You play as a prospective space colonist, who got stuck in cryostasis for a long while before being recovered only a few decades too late, and you emerge to a world that’s ruled by megacorporations. How you proceed from there is mostly up to you, despite solid shooting and exploration it’s still a proper RPG.
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The Witcher 2
| Release date: | 2011-05-17 |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Developer: | CD PROJEKT RED |
While The Witcher 3 was already a committed open-world game, The Witcher 2 was more contained, with more forwards momentum, and cutscene-dialogues which felt a lot like Mass Effect’s, just short of coming in a neat wheel-friendly form.
The choices can also play out in big ways, up to splitting the game into two separate storylines in one key moment.
The game’s story involves Geralt being framed for the murder of a king and having to prove his innocence, in addition to an escalating conflict with Scoia’tael rebels and increasing distrust of spellcasters. There is also plenty of monsters to kill, of course, and hunting them requires a fair bit of preparation, including doing research and drinking potions before the fight.
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Tom Clancy’s The Division 1 & 2
| Release date: | released_date} / 2019-02-07 |
| Genre: | Tactical shooter |
| Developer: | Massive Entertainment |
The Division falls mostly into the “tactical shooter” side of Mass Effect similarities, but it does so with aplomb.
Instead of a future removed by a century or two, The Division shows a modern world, albeit one devastated by a deadly disease called “The Dollar Flu” because of the way it was transmitted. The first game takes place in Manhattan, while the second moves to Washington D.C.
Although The Division isn’t inherently class-based, it does have skills and talents to unlocks, as well as specializations you unlock in the second game upon reaching level 30. You also get to use your skills to deploy useful items or support your team-mates. Speaking of team-mates, The Division is an MMO, and your best chance of surviving is finding a group of people, be it just a raiding party of a full clan.
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XCOM: Chimera Squad
| Release date: | 2020-04-24 |
| Genre: | Strategy |
| Developer: | Firaxis Games |
XCOM: Chimera Squad is a spin-off from the main XCOM series, set a few years after the conclusion of XCOM 2: War of the Chosen.
Freed from the mind control of the Elders, many aliens and hybrids seek to live peacefully with humans. Of course, there are some elements who want to take over the city and undermine the coexistence efforts, and the Chimera Squad is a joint task force trying to stop them.
Chimera Squad is very similar to the mainline XCOM games from Firaxis but playing out on a city-scale rather than worldwide. The battles are turn-based, and each begins with the Breach phase. It lets you position your operatives at points of entry so that they can burst into the room firing off abilities and neutralising especially dangerous enemies before they even get to act.
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Beyond the mass effect relays
That concludes our list, and hopefully you’re found something that can provide the kind of sustenance you need in absence of new ME games. There are options for combat, some options for cinematic action RPGs, even a share of compelling science fiction worlds and stories. Nothing here is “literally Mass Effect”, but there’s plenty to enjoy anyway.
Of course, if somehow NONE of that scratches your itch, you can go with the old reliable option and play the Mass Effect legendary edition, a remastered version of the series released as a single convenient pack.