Mass Effect Dev Reveals A Decades-Old Lie To Players

A developer from the original Mass Effect game has revealed a 17-year deception to gamers. Similar to Dragon Age's infamous horse boost, sprinting in Mass Effect doesn't actually increase the player's speed.

Ex-BioWare developer John Ebenger revealed this in a Twitter post, shocking gamers with the Mass Effect revelation. Instead of increasing the player's speed, the game changes the FoV and adds speed lines to create the illusion of faster movement.

Mass Effect's sprinting illusion was implemented to address loading time restrictions. Designed for the Xbox 360, the game couldn't load models and textures quickly enough for a sprinting player. However, it was easy to trick players into believing they were moving faster.

"In Mass Effect 1, when you try to run on the Citadel, there's no change in speed, just in the FOV of the camera to give the illusion you're moving faster," Ebenger explained.

Fans of the series immediately responded to Ebenger's revelation, expressing disbelief that they had been deceived for 17 years.

"This is a games crime," one fan responded.

"BioWare has successfully tricked me twice on speed," said another. "First in ME1 with running on the Citadel and then in DEI with the horse sprinting."

The game's speedrunning community had previously discovered the fake sprinting. Since the game's combat sprint does slightly increase player speed, speedrunners use a grenade trick to deceive the game into thinking they're in combat to move faster than the fake sprint allows.

This fake sprint was changed in Mass Effect's sequels and the game's Legendary Edition. Mass Effect Andromeda also featured a functional sprint. Will Mass Effect 4 have a real run? Nobody knows yet.

BioWare is currently working on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the long-awaited follow-up to Inquisition. With Inquisition being the last game from the studio to deceive players with its infamous fake horse gallop, fans will be watching to see if the trick makes a return.