Mass Effect LE comfortably smashed BioWare’s Steam player record

Mass Effect Legendary Edition’s PC version has enjoyed a strong debut on Steam, reaching a concurrent player count of 59,650.

The figure means Legendary Edition now holds the record for the most concurrent players of any BioWare game on Steam. For publisher EA, only free-to-play shooter Apex Legends (330,879) has achieved a higher number of concurrent players.

However, it’s worth noting that between 2011 and 2019 EA’s releases were mostly restricted to its Origin platform, and many of its modern games did not release on Steam until recently.

The original Mass Effect games, released around a decade ago, only managed concurrent player counts of 2,792 (ME1) and 2,275 (ME2), according to Steam Charts. Mass Effect 3 (659) and Andromeda (3,590) were only added to Steam last year.

In the UK, the console versions of Mass Effect Legendary Edition helped it reach the number one position in the latest box games chart, according to GI.biz.

“It’s not a huge boxed launch for the collection, selling half of what last week’s Resident Evil: Village managed. However, digital data is not available until later in the week, and it’s likely the game performed far better than the physical numbers suggest,” the publication wrote.

EA has big plans for the Mass Effect series going forward. Developer BioWare announced last year that an original Mass Effect title has started development, made by a “veteran team” at the company.

Project director Mike Gamble, who’s tasked with envisioning the future of the Mass Effect franchise, introduced several team members on Twitter following the release of the first Mass Effect 4 teaser trailer in December.

Dusty Everman, principal narrative designer for the next Mass Effect, and creative director Parrish Ley, both rejoined BioWare this year to work on the series. Gamble also singled out Brenon Holmes, a 20-year BioWare veteran and producer working on Mass Effect Legendary Edition too.

Earlier this year, Superman and The Witcher actor Henry Cavill appeared to tease a potential live-action Mass Effect project on his Instagram page.