Three games and a truckload of books, comics and supporting material supplied the Mass Effect universe with heaps of amazing-looking alien planets, moons and space stations. Over the course of the trilogy, we visited planet-sized cities, tropical beaches, and space-stations the size of moons.
Some visits were short, others lengthy, but each place we visited had its share of secrets to discover.
Just as Commander Shepard travelled through the Milky Way to save mankind from the Reapers, for Mass Effect week, let’s revisit the most beautiful alien worlds the series had to offer. (We didn’t include Earth, because hey, it’s not alien to us, anyway.)
The Citadel
A gigantic deep-space station, capital of the Citadel Council.
Noveria
A small, frozen, abandoned world with some of the most advanced research facilities in the galaxy.
Ilos
Once the finest example of Prothean glory, Ilos is now nothing but a devastated, rusty world.
Illium
The commerce planet of Illium is a melting pot of various culture and races.
Thessia
The Asari homeworld is one of the most powerful political centres in the galaxy.
Sur’Kesh
The lush, jungle Salarian homeworld. Its climate and the Earth’s have a lot in common.
Virmire
Purely based on its high number of tropical beaches, Virmire could be the best place in the whole universe.
Tuchanka
After a planetary nuclear war, the krogan homeworld is deserted and in ruins. Also, compared with Virmire, possibly the worst planet in the entire universe.
Menae
The largest moon of the Turian homeworld Palaven, Menae hosts nothing but military bases around its surface.
Mars
The Prothean Archives are on Mars, making the planet an important destination during the war with the Reapers.
Shadow Broker Base
The tough atmosphere of the planet Halagaz makes it an ideal hiding place for the Shadow Broker’s ship.
Eden Prime
Eden Prime is a human colony with a very Earth-like environment, and one of the earliest destinations for the Mass Effect series.
Minuteman Station
An enormous orbital station, home of the Illusive man and his Cerberus network.
Those aren’t all of the worlds we visited in the Mass Effect games, but it’s a lot of them. What were your favourite locations? How about some of the more obscure planets we left off? Show us more in the comments.
Sources: Bioware, screenshots by Tullis, RobertM525, Raith Mano, Mass Effect Database, Mass Effect Wiki
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