Anthem adds new Mass Effect-themed skins for N7 Day

Tomorrow is November 7, and November 7 is N7 Day, the annual event in which we all come together to celebrate the magic of Mass Effect and try not to be sad about, well, pretty much everything at this point. To mark this year's remembrance, BioWare has added new Mass Effect-themed cosmetics to its latest game, Anthem, including four Javelin skins, a new wrap, and a new emote.

As reported by Gamespot, each class of Javelin—that's the power armor you run and fly around with in Anthem—has a its own skin based on a non-human species from Mass Effect. The Ranger Javelin gets the Turian treatment, the Storm is Asari, the Interceptor is Quarian, and the Colossus is—no surprise here—modeled after Krogans.

Despite the celebratory nature of N7 Day, these skins and such are not being given out as gifts. Each skin goes for 61,000 coins, the in-game currency, or 850 Shards, the premium currency; Shards cost $10 for a pack of 1050, which puts the real-money cost of the skins at a little north of $8 each. The Andromeda Initiative wrap is 36,000 coins or 600 Shards, and the emote is 23,000 coins or 475 Shards.

Based on the image below, courtesy of redditor CptnCASx, I think the skins look pretty good (although it's not exactly a huge leap from Mass Effect's armor suits to Anthem's), and the class-to-species match-ups hit the mark too. But there's also a vague sense of melancholy to it, for me at least: Andromeda spun out so hard that it killed a studio, and Anthem's most notable impact may have been to remind us all that Andromeda could've been a lot worse. It's been a tough few years for BioWare, and my very fond memories of the original Mass Effect trilogy, KOTOR, and Baldur's Gate seem awfully far away these days.

Regardless of how you feel about it, BioWare appears to be taking a fairly low-key approach to N7 Day this year: It's tweeted about it a couple of times today on its main account, but the actual Mass Effect account has been conspicuously silent about it.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.