The Mass Effect television series in the works at Amazon Prime Video is reportedly undergoing some rewrites. This comes as per a paywalled report by The Ankler and accessed by IGN that Peter Friedlander, the new Head of Global TV at Amazon MGM Studios, has requested that the project be reviewed to make it more broadly appealing before it gets a formal series order.
According to the report, the Mass Effect series, which has been in some form of development for at least half a decade, is on “the verge” of getting a series order and entering production. Before that can happen, Friedlander has reportedly requested that the series be rewritten to make it “more appealing to non-gamers.” The series has also been described in the report as a “pricey genre drama“. This is probably unsurprising considering the likely expense to realise BioWare’s expansive sci-fi universe in live-action.
That said, while all shows undergo rewrites, especially huge sci-fi series based on beloved IP like Mass Effect, the particular reasoning behind this rewrite request may raise some eyebrows. The nature of the Mass Effect games as RPGs in which the player can direct the narrative and determine protagonist Commander Shepard’s gender, appearance, and personality will mean that compromises will have to be made in the adaptation somewhere. However, the long legacy of video game-to-movie or TV series adaptations which adapt only the broad strokes of the games in the name of appealing to a wider audience definitely sounds some alarm bells in this instance. While making the Mass Effect series more appealling to non-gamers may just mean adding more necessary exposition for newcomers or making certain elements less fan-service-y, it could mean vaster changes than that.
Adapting a series like Mass Effect is certainly a challenging proposition, especially doing so while appealing to both fans of the games and to newcomers alike. It may well be that they’re aiming at the show being like Prime Video’s own Fallout series, which adapts the setting quite faithfully while telling an original narrative. Hopefully whatever we eventually get is more along those lines, and not an in-name-only mess like the live action Borderlands film from a few years ago.