Amazon's Mass Effect TV Show Must Happen To Replace This Beloved Sci-Fi With 95% On Rotten Tomatoes

Summary The previously-reported Mass Effect TV show adaptation would be a perfect replacement for Amazon's canceled sci-fi hit The Expanse.

Hollywood previously attempted to adapt Mass Effect into a movie that was ultimately canceled.

Mass Effect and The Expanse share many similtarities, but the former has advantages when it comes to a TV adaptation.

News on the reported Mass Effect TV show has gone suspiciously quiet, but the adaptation would be a perfect way to replace Amazon's canceled sci-fi hit. As an immensely popular video game franchise set within a cinematic fictional galaxy, adapting Mass Effect into live-action seemed like a no-brainer. Hollywood agreed, and attempts were made to bring Shepard and co. into live-action, but the Mass Effect movie was ultimately canceled before entering serious development.

In 2021, reports claimed that Amazon was exploring the prospect of a Mass Effect TV show, but the lack of updates since is a very concerning sign. Mass Effect looks increasingly destined to never get the live-action adaptation it's so obviously ideal for, and that's disappointing for anyone hoping to see the epic game series reimagined as an onscreen space opera. The news becomes doubly disappointing when considering how a Mass Effect TV show would have been Amazon's perfect replacement for The Expanse, which ended in early 2022.

Related How Many Books The Expanse TV Show Adapted (& How Many Are Left) The Expanse TV show adapted the popular sci-fi series into 62 episodes across 6 seasons, but how many of the books did this cover?

The Expanse & Mass Effect Are Very Similar

There's More Than A Passing Resemblance Here

Close

The Expanse is set during a period of human colonization throughout the solar system, with Earthlings stretching across the Milky Way and beyond, bickering over resources and territorial dominance as they go. The story kicks into life when colonists encounter the Protomolecule - the technology of an ancient and advanced race that has since been wiped out. This discovery allows The Expanse's various factions to explore new worlds, create synthetic soldiers, and manipulate living matter, and the Rocinante crew works tirelessly to keep that technology out of the wrong hands.

That is almost verbatim the core premise of Mass Effect, which released four years prior to James S.A. Corey's first The Expanse book. The themes of system-wide political intrigue and colonization are at the heart of both stories, and Mass Effect's Prothean technology is virtually a like-for-like substitute for The Expanse's Protomolecule. The Expanse tones down Mass Effect's reliance on alien species and other more fantastical elements, and the two stories take increasingly diverging paths with each installment, but the broad strokes are extremely similar.

Only two alien species feature in The Expanse: the Protomolecule creators, who are extinct, and the Dark Gods, who never physically appear onscreen.

Even Mass Effect's moral tightrope, where players choose between lighter and darker paths, bleeds into The Expanse's narrative. James Holden and his crew are simultaneously saviors and renegades throughout any given season, and the introduction of Marco Inaros' Free Navy asks serious ethical questions, blurring the show's definitions of "hero" and "villain."

Mass Effect Could Fill Amazon's The Expanse-Shaped Hole

The Expanse Had A Massive Effect On The Sci-Fi Genre

The Expanse found a loyal core audience and was beloved by critics until the very end, but Amazon never properly replaced it. Apple TV+ has rapidly become the go-to streaming platform for sci-fi thanks to shows like Foundation, Silo, and Constellation, but even those releases fail to scratch the militaristic, cerebral space-faring itch left behind after The Expanse's ending in 2022. The Amazon series offered a true alternative to the twin juggernauts of Star Trek and Star Wars, and nothing since has come close to replicating that.

The biggest stumbling block to a Mass Effect TV show would likely be its budget.

Mass Effect feels like the obvious solution. It's an IP that Amazon has an established interest in, according to the reports from 2021, and it ticks all the same boxes as The Expanse. Furthermore, The Expanse's critical success serves as proof that a world as vast and epic as Mass Effect's can be brought into the live-action realm properly. Once upon a time, the so-called "video game adaptation curse" might have posed an obstacle, but after The Last of Us and Fallout, the stigma around game-to-screen transitions isn't as intimidating as it used to be.

Related 7 Movies & Shows That Prove The Video Game Adaptation Curse Is Dead Video games have long been plagued with increasingly terrible adaptations, but there are seven adaptations that prove that curse is dead.

The biggest stumbling blocks to a Mass Effect TV show would likely be its budget and the large-scale production required to do the video game justice. The Expanse certainly wouldn't have looked as good as it did without some expense. If the financial aspect can be overcome, however, Mass Effect could be Amazon's perfect replacement for The Expanse, while also filling a gap within the wider landscape of streaming sci-fi TV shows.

Mass Effect Wouldn't Suffer From The Expanse's Two Biggest Problems

Mass Effect Has Major Advantages That The Expanse Didn't

Making a Mass Effect TV show even more perfect as a replacement for The Expanse, the video game adaptation would completely avoid the latter show's two biggest problems. Firstly, Mass Effect is a far bigger, more widely known franchise, and a TV adaptation would benefit from a substantial audience boost thanks to the immense profile of the games. While James S.A. Corey's The Expanse books are certainly popular, the TV adaptation had to draw interest without relying on the backing of a major preexisting IP.

Secondly, Mass Effect offers a far more convenient ending than The Expanse, which remains unfinished even at the time of writing. The Expanse ran for three seasons on SyFy, then another three on Amazon, leaving three books still to adapt. The Expanse season 6's ending concluded the Free Navy conflict, providing some sense of resolution, but a litany of key storylines remain incomplete.

Mass Effect 3's ending was not well-received, and would likely need altering in any live-action adaptation.

By contrast, Mass Effect could conceivably wrap up within three seasons by simply adapting the first three games. A self-contained three-season arc is something that Amazon could realistically commit to - unlike The Expanse's nine-book saga - and that defined end point would guarantee audiences a sense of closure and certainty from the very first episode.