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Mass Effect 2’s suicide mission—which you’re about to read some spoilers for, by the way—is a much-loved finale to an excellent RPG. Forced to split your squad and assign appropriate specialists for a series of dangerous tasks, it’s a test of how well you got to know your team over the course of the game. (And whether you completed all their loyalty missions.) Going in blind, it’s entirely possible to make choices that result in some of your beloved squadmates dying, meaning they’ll be absent in Mass Effect 3. Which is a pretty big consequence for failure.
If you’re not following the suicide mission flowchart (opens in new tab), you might think there’s one choice that’s a bit unfair. During a section called The Long Walk, where you have to choose a biotic specialist to maintain a force field bubble as you walk through a swarm of killer bugs, picking Miranda will get somebody killed. Unless you install the Miranda’s Long Walk (opens in new tab) mod for Mass Effect Legendary Edition, that is.
Cards on the table: I picked Miranda to be the biotic specialist when I played Mass Effect 2 for the first time. She’s reliable, follows orders, and her backstory is that she was genetically engineered to be superior at everything. Plus, in combat she’s as powerful as any other biotic in your squad. And that’s how I got Thane killed.
You’re not supposed to be thinking of the mechanical balance of Mass Effect 2’s fights, you see. In cutscenes, Jack has abilities well beyond what’s possible for anyone else, and either Samara or Morinth, whichever asari is on your squad, has special cutscene powers too. Still, if you want to choose Miranda and not have anyone die, this mod lets you do exactly that.
To install it, first you’ll need the ME3Tweaks mod manager (opens in new tab), which lets you back up your game files as well as modify all games in the Legendary Edition. Then you’ll need the Unofficial LE2 Patch (opens in new tab), which you’ll want anyway. After that, you can download Miranda’s Long Walk (opens in new tab).
Since dialogue for the suicide mission was recorded before it was decided who the best choices would be, the mod restores Miranda’s unused lines as well as altering the consequences for choosing her.
If you’re planning to return to the trilogy, here’s our list of the best Mass Effect Legendary Edition mods. And if you thought this story would be about a mod to restore the butt shots removed by the Legendary Edition, don’t be ridiculous. That was done years ago.