According to official BioWare data, Mass Effect Legendary Edition players aren’t too fond of Kaiden Alenko, as he's apparently the game's least popular squadmate. Voiced by Raphael Sbarge, who also played the similar Carth Onasi in Bioware’s seminal Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic, Kaiden is one of the first squadmates Commander Shepard comes across in their mission to defend the Milky Way Galaxy from the threat of the evil Reapers, and they can be a recurring ally throughout the Mass Effect trilogy.
However, like many aspects of the choice-driven Mass Effect series, Kaiden's fate can be determined during a climactic mission on the planet of Virmire in 2007's original Mass Effect. During this fateful battle, Shepard is faced with a difficult choice: both human squadmates Kaiden and Ashley are deployed to either protect a bomb or assist the Salarian commander Kirrahe with an assault on Saren’s hidden laboratory. At the end of the mission, Shepard and the rest of the Normandy are forced to leave one of them behind, sealing their fate for not only the first game, but the rest of the Mass Effect trilogy.
On Twitter, Bioware posted an infographic depicting Mass Effect: Legendary Edition player data, cataloguing some of the major choices they made throughout the three-part saga - including which squadmate they chose to save on Virmire. The final results were fairly close, but Ashley ultimately won out with 60 percent of the vote, meaning that poor Kaiden was left for dead more often than not. Not only that, but another figure reveals that Kaiden is actually the least popular squadmate in the first Mass Effect game overall, with Mass Effect fan favorite Garrus coming in first.
The choice of which squadmate to save on Virmire is just one of the many decisions players are faced with throughout the Mass Effect series, as one of the strongest selling points of the games is how Shepard’s many narrative options carry over from one installment to the next. Even Shepard can be fully customized in virtually every way, from their gender to their personality (as determined and limited by Mass Effect’s Paragon/Renegade morality system) to their potential love interests. Players have been digging into these choices all over again thanks to the release of Mass Effect Legendary Edition earlier this year, which updated all three Mass Effect games for modern consoles and PC, complete with almost all series DLC and some notable quality-of-life improvements.
There are many likely reasons why Mass Effect fans chose to forsake Kaiden for Ashley and use him in their party less frequently. Perhaps they felt the admittedly straightforward soldier was less interesting in the face of so many colorful alien teammates, or their version of Shepard was in a romance with Ashley that they wanted to see through. Of course, those that let him die also could no longer use him as a squadmate in a positive feedback loop of sorts. In any case, it looks like Kaiden Alenko won't be receiving any medals of honor by the Mass Effect fandom anytime soon, though players can relive his journey all over again in Mass Effect Legendary Edition.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition is available for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
Source: Mass Effect/Twitter
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