The Mass Effect universe is vast and full of mysteries, just like Stellaris.
Throughout your adventure as Commander Shepard, you’ll meet different alien species, find ancient precursor civilizations, and fight monstrous lifeforms far beyond human comprehension.
In other words, it’s your average Stellaris playthrough.
What sets these two games apart is simply the level of zoom applied to the story. Whereas BioWare’s Mass Effect follows a single character in a grand adventure, Paradox’s Stellaris shows us the bigger picture.
So if you want to zoom out and look at the world of Mass Effect from a new perspective, then check out these Mass Effect mods tailor-made for Stellaris.
Stellaris doesn’t really need to change much to resemble Mass Effect.
Like Mass Effect, Stellaris features precursor civilizations, ancient robot exterminators, galactic federations, and the risk of mass extinction is never too far off.
For some of you, enriching the background music with this Mass Effect Soundtrack mod might be enough to transform your playthrough into a Mass Effect-ish experience.
Creator Minoris offers two versions of the mod: an Atmospheric pack and an Action pack.
This way you can choose whether to respect the original subdued style of Stellaris’ BGM or turn your game into an intergalactic rave with epic ME tunes.
EDI begins her journey in Mass Effect 2 as the Enhanced Defense Intelligence for the Normandy SR-2.
This complex AI was created by Cerberus to control the Normandy but ends up being 100% loyal to Shepard and his crew. Slowly but surely, she becomes closer to her organic companions.
This mod by Unhealthy87 brings EDI aboard your own electronic systems, replacing the vanilla advisor with her familiar voice. Her lines come from ME2 and ME3, but they match up perfectly with the events an advisor must react to.
More Lawful Evil types might prefer replacing the advisor with a Reaper.
As an ex-pat, it’s hard not to connect with the Quarians – a humanoid species who lost their home to their own synthetic creations and now wander the stars as the Migrant Fleet.
Creator Corsairmarks brings the Migrant Fleet into Stellaris as an oligarchic stratocracy with great military skill and a spiritual edge.
The Quarians’ traits mimic their ME counterparts perfectly. They’re intelligent wanderers who thrive in orbital habitats, but this isolation makes them immunocompromised and nonadaptive, limiting their possible strategies.
The portraits are gorgeous and fully animated, and you’ll notice a variety of clothing styles depending on their jobs.
I know the reason 50% of you like Mass Effect is the opportunity to romance aliens. In fact, make that 69% of you.
When it comes to intergalactic love, nothing compares to the Asari – an all-female species of long-lived blue-skinned bombshells with the ability to reproduce with almost any other intelligent lifeform by linking their nervous systems together.
They call it “melding.” I call it “psychic sex.”
Either way, everyone loves it.
Creator Princess Stabbity brings the Asari to Stellaris as part of two prescripted empires: the Asari Republics and the Illium Corporations.
Both of them have the makings to become dominant figures in your next Stellaris game, and you’d do well to stay on their good side if you’re not the one controlling them.
Also from Princess Stabbity comes the Mass Effect Species Pack – a lightweight mod introducing some of the main species featured in the ME franchise as playable civilizations.
You’ll get animated portraits and a namelist for the Systems Alliance, Turians, Quarians, and Salarians. The mod also features a bunch of galactic regions from the Mass Effect universe as home clusters for these species.
While the animated portraits included in this mod are pretty limited, the mod does include 40 new flags based on Mass Effect factions – available in gold and silver.
You can go one step further into Mass Effect territory with these Animated Portraits & Prescripts by Joshua Yathin.
I love this mod for two different reasons.
The first is, of course, the gorgeous animated portraits. Almost all Mass Effect species you can think of are represented, including the Asari, Salarians, Geth, and even Thorian.
All of them are of the highest quality, and there’s plenty of variety.
The second is 22 prescripted empires that match these portraits. The author used base Stellaris traits and civics to reproduce ME factions to surprising success.
NSC2 is one of the largest and most popular gameplay mods available for Stellaris.
At its core, NSC2 is a New Ship Classes mod introducing Strike Cruisers, Battle Cruisers, Escort Carriers, and several other unique vessel categories – but that’s not all.
The mod transforms combat and navigation by introducing new ship abilities, larger starbases, defense stations, and many new events that’ll make your game all the more thrilling.
This Mass Effect content pack for NSC2 introduces nine new shipsets belonging to the Systems Alliance, the Turian Hierarchy, and even the Reapers!
One thing that can’t be missing from your game if you’re planning on reproducing the Mass Effect universe is Mass Relays.
These mysterious gates were thought to have been developed by the Protheans to move massive fleets and cargo from one place in the galaxy to another in a matter of minutes.
While they can definitely do that, the Reapers actually put them there to influence how life spread across the galaxy and make it easier to come back and harvest them.
This mod just replaces the vanilla Gateways with shiny new Mass Relays. You can also check out this mod to replace the vanilla wormholes too.
You can get as many new ships, new species, and even precursor technology as you want, but as long as you’re playing in Stellaris’ default maps, you’re not really living the Mass Effect life.
MEC – Expanded Galaxy by Princess Stabbity introduces 96 new star systems from BioWare’s space epic into Stellaris.
It’s not just planets and names, either.
This mod includes over 45 anomalies, six archaeological dig sites, and many events inspired by the Mass Effect games.
If you want a Mass Effect mod with truly galactic proportions, you must check out Beyond the Relays.
With a development team of almost 20 people, this Mass Effect mod defines itself as a total conversion that’ll bring Stellaris into a world of Xenophage viruses, Reapers, and Mass Relays.
One of the major additions is a map representing the Milky Way Galaxy, as seen in the ME games. It includes a whopping 384 custom solar systems built from in-game maps and bursting with lore taken straight from the Mass Effect games and the novels.
Of course, there’s also a fully-functional Mass Relay network that serves as your primary means of transportation from one system to another.
Countless new races, ships, and even voiced advisors help this mod give you the most immersive Mass Effect experience within the wonderful framework provided by Stellaris.
Nelson Chitty is a Venezuelan expat living in Argentina. He’s a writer and translator passionate about history and foreign cultures. His ideal weekend is spent between leisurely playing games of Civilization VI and looking for the next seinen anime to marathon.
