One of the biggest set piece missions in Mass Effect Legendary Edition is the Suicide Mission that serves as Mass Effect 2‘s endgame and finale. In Mass Effect 2, Commander Shepard forms an uneasy alliance with the pro-human terrorist organization Cerberus to confront the Collectors, an enigmatic race of aliens with sinister designs for humanity. At the end of the game, Shepard and their companions must assault the Collector Base: a challenging multi-stage mission where everyone is considered expendable.
[Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Mass Effect Legendary Edition.]
Players will need to carefully plan and strategize to keep everyone alive, including Shepard, their squadmates, and the Normandy crew. The best approach is to follow Mass Effect 2’s best mission order, tackle missions to ensure all squadmates are loyal, and fully upgrade the Normandy before retrieving the Reaper IFF from the Derelict Reaper. Additionally, players must correctly configure their teams during the Suicide Mission to ensure the whole squad survives.
Recovering the Reaper IFF is considered the start of the endgame, as exploring and completing many missions afterward will have dire consequences for the Normandy crew.
As such, it’s highly recommended that players regard the Reaper IFF mission as an absolute point of no return. To keep the entire squad alive during the Suicide Mission, players must complete two major steps:
Some Loyalty missions can fail if players do not complete certain tasks or do not have a high enough Paragon/Renegade morality score, so it’s a good idea to be mindful of the order in which missions are completed.
During the interlude between the derelict Collector vessel and retrieving the Reaper IFF, players will need to speak to their companions and choose the Investigate dialogue option. This allows Shepard to ask every companion about upgrades for the Normandy.
Each companion will suggest only one upgrade, which can be made as soon as the Normandy has gathered enough materials from probing planets. They will also appear under the Ship Upgrades section of the Research Terminal.
Each ship upgrade has some utility, but for the Suicide Mission, only three upgrades are essential:
Without these upgrades, players will lose up to three companions through the Omega 4 Relay and the Collector Base. Other companions will suggest upgrades that appear under the different categories in the Research Terminal. While useful, these will not significantly change the Normandy and will not affect squad survival.
Players will also need to complete every companion’s Loyalty mission. Usually, these missions give a companion’s backstory more context and offer a chance to earn new weapons, upgrades, credits, and chunks of morality points. There are a few companion quests that can be failed.
It’s worth noting that even if Shepard secures a squadmate’s Loyalty, certain squadmates will fight one another, and Shepard may lose their loyalty again.
Jack and Miranda fight over Cerberus’ involvement in Jack’s torture as a child, and Tali and Legion fight over Legion passing classified quarian data to the other geth. Players will need to pass a difficult Paragon/Renegade check or lose the Loyalty of one from each pair. Tali’s Loyalty can be regained.
The best order to complete these Loyalty missions will vary between players. In general, it is best to leave a gap between Miranda and Jack’s loyalty missions and Tali and Legion’s missions and to save missions requiring difficult Paragon/Renegade checks for last.
Failure to secure or keep a companion’s Loyalty does not necessarily doom them during the Suicide Mission if players choose good team leadership and leave behind a strong defense squad. However, it can have consequences in Mass Effect 3 and may prevent players from completing certain quests or getting good outcomes.
Once players retrieve the Reaper IFF and Legion, a countdown will begin. Players can complete between one and three missions before a cutscene triggers at the Galaxy Map and the Normandy crew is kidnapped by The Collectors.
After that point, if players choose to continue any other missions or assignments rather than heading straight into the endgame, they will lose the crew at the following rate:
This is the main reason players should complete all outstanding missions apart from Legion’s Loyalty side mission before going to the Derelict Reaper.
The Suicide Mission has three parts, and players must make choices for team leaders and their squads in each part. It is usually a good idea to ignore any volunteers or squabbling, as some non-ideal squadmates tend to interject during cutscenes and express interest in taking the lead. If chosen, non-ideal squadmates may be injured or killed.
For the third part of the Suicide Mission, Shepard will need to take two squadmates deeper into the base while everyone else is assigned to hold a defensive line. Here, survival is down to numbers, and the game calculates a score based on the defending squadmates. Players need an average defense score of 2.0 or higher. If this is the case, everyone will survive.