Mass Effect: Legendary Edition Has a Big Install Size

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is on its way, releasing in just over a week, and fans couldn't be more excited. Since going gold last month, Mass Effect fans have had plenty of time to consider their upcoming choices in BioWare's sprawling space opera. But before they take the helm of the Normandy, they might need to go through their hard drive and do a little spring cleaning.

Twitter account PlayStation Game Size recently revealed just how big a download the PS4 version of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition will be, and it's a doozy. All in, the game will take up around 80GB of space on US consoles, while European fans will be looking at a whopping 101GB, likely due to localization and incorporating more languages in the latter version. For comparison, the original PS3 versions of the Mass Effect games ran to a measly 7.04GB, 12.62GB, and 14.1GB respectively.

The base game alone, comprising all three games from the Mass Effect trilogy, will be around 68GB (87GB for Europe), and that's before factoring in the day-one patch to update the game to version 1.01. The patch notes are vague, citing improvements to performance, stability and visuals, but its size has been revealed to be 11.7GB (13.3GB for Europe), so those updates to lighting and ambient occlusion, it seems, will not come cheap. Thankfully, fans will be able to pre-load the game from May 12, two days before release, giving them a healthy 48 hours to scrounge together enough hard drive space to fit Commander Shepard and his pals.

It's a hefty download, to be sure, but all things considered, 80GB isn't actually too bad for three beloved and fully remastered games, along with all but one of the pieces of Mass Effect DLC. Many fans will surely be willing to clear the space to revisit their favorite planets and romance their crewmates, with the fate of the universe hanging in the balance. After all, the importance of 80GB probably fades into insignificance with the Reapers on the warpath.

In fact, it only barely breaks into the list of the biggest PC game file sizes, with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare comfortably sending it packing at a colossal 231GB. When getting three times the game for that amount of hard drive space, it actually starts to seem like something of a bargain.

One way or another, Mass Effect fans will find the space to install their hotly-anticipated Legendary Edition, and the effort will no doubt be worth it. With all the graphical improvements and performance enhancements that the game promises to deliver, hopefully players will have a little space left to take some excellent pictures with Mass Effect: Legendary Edition's included Photo Mode too.

The Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is not shying away from change. The upcoming remaster of the original Mass Effect trilogy will see a unified character creation system spanning all three games, changes to the designs of certain locations, tweaked combat and vehicle mechanics, and changes to take advantage of the remaster's greater graphical capabilities.

There's one major quality of life change coming to the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, however, which has largely flown under the radar. Here's an explanation of the changes coming to morality checks, and why it might have one of the single biggest effects on the way players roleplay in the Mass Effect remaster.