Go to NexusMods and you'll find mods for each game in the Mass Effect trilogy. There are over 1,000 of them, the most popular being the graphics overhaul "A Lot of Textures" and "A Lot of Videos" BioWare is aware of these mods and used them as benchmarks during the development of "Mass Effect Legendary Edition" used them as.

"We actually looked at some of these mods early on and said, 'Okay, that's our minimum, and we're going to use them in the future. Obviously, as modders, they have limited access to the assets that are out there. We have full access to them."

Environment Director Kevin Meek concurred, stating that he was initially skeptical of AI's upscale mods, but upon closer inspection was impressed. He said, "With A Lot of Texture Mods and other upscale mods, they're getting great results. We knew we could give all our textures a base level AI up-res and get visual upgrades equal to or better than the mods. Because we have many advantages that they don't have. What they have, on the other hand, is compressed, put on disc, and up-resolved from there."

BioWare also looked at mods that were not intended to improve graphics. Meek said, "Mods that add different types of hair to Shepard are really popular. That kind of thing gave us a lot of confidence. Yeah, it's worth spending a little time to create some new hair options and some new clothing options"

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Other popular mods include bringing back cut content and tweaking unused dialogue, such as adding same-sex romance to "Mass Effect 2" for example. While the Legendary Edition does not go that far, will modders have access to unused assets to recreate these mods? I don't think any content has been explicitly removed from the depots we have," Walters said, "but he couldn't confirm 100% that mods like these are possible. 'Hopefully they still have access to do all that,' he said. 'That's the hope.'

BioWare is eager to modify the Legendary Edition as well as the original game, and has spoken privately with several modders about what is important to them and how they can work together. Meek said, "Mods have the advantage of not having to be constrained by certification requirements, size issues on disk, and spillover effects from pushing some effects too far or not far enough."

The full interview with Walters and Meek will be available later this week; Mass Effect Legendary Edition is scheduled for release on May 14.