How artificial intelligence made the remastering of 'Mass Effect Legendary Edition' possible

BioWare used artificial intelligence to enhance the textures and art of the original trilogy in 'Mass Effect Legendary Edition'.

The announcement of the Mass Effect Legendary Edition release date revealed some interesting facts about the remastering. The BioWare team chose to use artificial intelligence to increase the resolution of the textures in the original games.

According to VentureBeat, BioWare used an AI algorithm and custom tools to increase resolution. According to Kevin Meek, art director at BioWare, all visual effects, user interface, environments, characters, and textures were adjusted using two methods.

First, the developers increased the texture size limit in the game engine. The Mass Effect trilogy uses Unreal Engine 3 and texture optimization was a crucial topic to ensure performance on the Xbox 360 and PS3. With new consoles on the market, BioWare can do without that restriction.

According to Meek, all the game art in its original, uncompressed format was sent to the AI-based program to increase the resolution. The manager confirms that there were tens of thousands of textures with an increase of four, or in some cases, up to 16 times the original resolution.

The process, although automated, was tedious as it ran in all three games. Later the art team made adjustments and corrections to the files. The advantage of BioWare was having the source files for all the original Mass Effect games. This guarantees better final quality than when it is made from a compressed texture already in the game.

Using artificial intelligence to improve classic games

We have seen the technique of using artificial intelligence to improve the textures of a game applied in other classics. In 2019 the FF7 Remako HD Graphics Mod was published, a modification for the original Final Fantasy VII that used neural networks to multiply by four the size of the textures of the game.

The end result is surprising, considering that the developer team relied on the game's compressed files. The pre-rendered backgrounds of the game, some in the resolution of 320 x 240 pixels, were scaled maintaining the level of detail by means of a program called Gigapixel AI.

Topaz Labs uses deep learning and image recognition algorithms to increase file resolution by up to 6x. Although in some cases - such as compressed or very low-quality images - the result is not so good, in the case of Final Fantasy VII and other PlayStation games with pre-rendered backgrounds, it has worked perfectly.

Currently, there are other programs and services that use AI to enhance your photos, such as Pixelmator Pro, BigJPG, or LetsEnhance.io. BioWare did not reveal which programs it uses, although knowing EA they are likely proprietary tools.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition is coming to PC, PS4, and Xbox One on May 14, 2021. If you have a PS5 and Xbox Series X | S, the game will be compatible and optimized for 4K play. The remastering includes the original Mass Effect trilogy and more than 40 downloadable content.