If real-life astronomy can reveal such stunning ideas and imagery, that gives us a certain creative license to suggest that reality will continue to be stranger than fiction. The underlying idea was that real-life scientific discoveries consistently create imagery and concepts that blow away previous notions of what is possible, from the surprising effects of dark matter on the universe, to the thick veils of purple atmosphere around Titan. Part of the goal with the Mass Effect universe was to set it in the real world, so that even as we created storylines of epic scale and exotic science-fiction themes, it would all appear to be an extension of the astronomy that you can read about today. How did you choose the objects to include in the game – real and fake?Ĭasey Hudson: We tried to include real-life locations wherever possible, such as famous nebulae, stars, the moon etc. Many others appear to be made up entirely. Some of the places that you can zoom through or visit are real astronomical objects (like the Horsehead Nebula, Eagle Nebula, and Hourglass Nebula). Sara Mitchell: The “geography” of Mass Effect is an interesting mix of realism and fiction. Increasingly curious about the astronomy within the Mass Effect universe, I contacted BioWare and had my questions answered by the series’ Executive Producer, Casey Hudson. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI) The Carina Nebula, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope Some of the astronomical objects featured in the game are even real ones! I began to suspect that the game’s developers may have had some serious NASA-based inspiration.

Compare the fictional “Kite’s Nest” from the game (above) to Hubble’s shot of the Carina Nebula (below). You can explore nebulae and star systems, collect data about exoplanets… and so much of the imagery looks like something straight from a NASA press release. While the plot of the games is solidly science fiction, the setting has an impressive level of realism. The first time I caught a glimpse of the astronomical imagery in the Mass Effect video games, I was blown away by how realistic everything looked. Each system contains at least one object that the player can travel to, such as a planet, moon, space station, starship, or mass relay.įor an alphabetical list of systems see Category:Systems.The fictional Kite’s Nest from Mass Effect 3 This portion of the article lists the various star systems in Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3 accessible via the Galaxy Map organized by cluster. Systems are sets of gravitationally bound non-stellar objects in orbit around one or multiple stars.

Mass effect 1 maps