Mass Effect' TV series is headed to Amazon Prime Video

[Admin]

After more than a decade of waiting for a big-screen project that never materialized, Mass Effect is headed to Prime Video.

Mass Effect' TV series is headed to Amazon Prime Video : Read more

 

[Viking]

So far it sounds boring!

 

[fj.torres]

So far it sounds boring!

Have you played any of the games?
Even ANDROMEDA is still pretty much a SF action game.

What makes the franchise suitable for live action is the game world with a dozen+ alien races, strange deadly creatures, renegade AIs, and depending on the chosen time period, there are ongoing wars, terrorist organizations, and criminal bands. And the protagonist is typically a special ops hardcase. No Picard types need apply.

Hopefully they follow the blueprint of FALLOUT and do an original story with different characters than the games against the established background. And hopefully they take advantage of the options the game offers; notably, in the games you can play as a pureheart "paladin" or ruthless, ends-justifies-the-means "renegade". Or anything in between. Whichever way you play, there is no shortage of gunplay and explosions.

So good, bad, or indifferent, boring is the one things it is unlikely to be.

 

[Viking]

Have you played any of the games?
Even ANDROMEDA is still pretty much a SF action game.

What makes the franchise suitable for live action is the game world with a dozen+ alien races, strange deadly creatures, renegade AIs, and depending on the chosen time period, there are ongoing wars, terrorist organizations, and criminal bands. And the protagonist is typically a special ops hardcase. No Picard types need apply.

Hopefully they follow the blueprint of FALLOUT and do an original story with different characters than the games against the established background. And hopefully they take advantage of the options the game offers; notably, in the games you can play as a pureheart "paladin" or ruthless, ends-justifies-the-means "renegade". Or anything in between. Whichever way you play, there is no shortage of gunplay and explosions.

So good, bad, or indifferent, boring is the one things it is unlikely to be.

No interest in video games, however I will give the show a try.

 

[fj.torres]

No interest in video games, however I will give the show a try.

If they do it right, you don't have to like or know anything about the games.
That's how FALLOUT did it.

That said, the gaming genre to which both FALLOUT and MASS EFFECT belong to--western action role playing games, aka WRPGs--are meant to be a movie where the player is the protagonist and who's choices shape the outcome of the story. Sort-of a modern version of the old choose-your-own-adventure books.

The original Mass Effect Trilogy is more about strategy, choice and (oddly) emotion than about blowing things up. But there is no shortage of the latter.

We'll have to wait and see how the show plays out.

 

[Rickycardo]

I'm still waiting for live action series of the original RPG space games, Descent and Freespace. Or maybe just step all the way back to the original decision making space game Master of Orion.

 

[fj.torres]

I'm still waiting for live action series of the original RPG space games, Descent and Freespace. Or maybe just step all the way back to the original decision making space game Master of Orion.

Who owns the IP these days?
Most of the big publishers are looking to exploit their IP in video when possible.

 

[avk]

Is it just me or does it feel like Amazon is rushing head first into too many game-based series at once so that they can disappoint us by cancelling them later at the first chance they get?

 

[fj.torres]

Is it just me or does it feel like Amazon is rushing head first into too many game-based series at once so that they can disappoint us by cancelling them later at the first chance they get?

They've been talking about a MASS EFFECT series since 2021.
That doesn't sound like "rushing".

Netflix, on the other hand...

 

[avk]

They've been talking about a MASS EFFECT series since 2021.
That doesn't sound like "rushing".

Netflix, on the other hand...

They've been talking about a MASS EFFECT series since 2021.
That doesn't sound like "rushing".

Netflix, on the other hand...

Well, it's not just prime but streaming platforms in general. I hope this turns out well and doesn't go the way Halo did. While it wasn't perfect I did quite enjoy that series and was disappointed with its cancellation.

 

[fj.torres]

Well, it's not just prime but streaming platforms in general. I hope this turns out well and doesn't go the way Halo did. While it wasn't perfect I did quite enjoy that series and was disappointed with its cancellation.

The Halo show only looked like Halo but it ignored the basics.

Two biggest mistakes were trying to do Master Chief and putting it on the smallest streamer this side of Apple. Paramount is too small to support a pricey niche show. It can barely support STAR TREK and that is usually light on CGI. They might have done better with a prequel without aliens or a show on the ODST HELLJUMPERS. Or other Spartans before the Covenant war. Hopefully that is a mistake MASS EFFECT will avoid.

For those niche shows you need to be on Netflix (Like ARCANE, CASTLEVANIA, etc), PRIME, or MAX. You need a subscriber base of well over 100M and that is not Paramount. Even Peacock is still too small for pricey niche shows in the F&SF sphere and they know it.