The squad members Commander Shepard can recruit on board the Normandy, which is the highlight of theMass Effecttrilogy, and thus, most players will go out of their way to keep them safe. Of course, not everyone can be saved throughout the three games, and there are certain unavoidable fates that these characters will come across. Still, for the most part,the lives of these characters are in the player’s hands.
It makes it especially horrifying whencertain crew membersmeet terrible fates, ones that could have been avoided if the player made different choices. Some of these deaths are awful because of the character implications they carry, while others are straight-up body horror, and others still are a mix of both.These ten fates are among the worst that Commander Shepard’s squad members can suffer during theMass Effectfranchiseif players make certain choices.
10Samara Can Be Murdered By Her Own Daughter
A Tragic Ending For This Galactic Crusader
No matter what, the fight between Samara and Morinth will end in tragedy. The Justicar has been charged with hunting down her murderous daughter, killing her for the genetic mutation she carries. When Samara confronts Morinth on Omega,the two become locked in a biotics battle that Shepard must decide the conclusion of.
While this decision will end with either Morinth or Samara remaining on the crew, the former functions nearly identically to her mother in terms of mechanics and crew interactions.
The player can choose to assist their ally or side with Morinth. The former is sad enough since it finally brings Samara to the moment where she must murder her own daughter. But the latter is arguably even more tragic. IfMorinth kills Samara inMass Effect, not only does the Justicar’s mission remain unfinished, but Morinth will go on to kill again. Even worse,the killer expresses little to no remorse for having to murder her mom, cementing her as the cold, cruel character her mother knew her to be.
9EDI May Be Destroyed By Shepard Themselves
A Cold But Calculated Decision At The End Of The Trilogy
Continuing with the theme of killing one’s loved ones, the “destroy” ending ofMass Effect 3sees Commander Shepard trigger the end of all synthetic life in the galaxy. This stops the Reapers, of course, but also sets galactic society back decades technologically and wipes out the Geth if they manage to survive the war over Rannoch. But on a more personal level,it ensures the death of EDI, the AI built into the Normandy that becomes Shepard’s friend and ally during the third game.
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EDI is the closest the franchise gets to depicting a synthetic life form with a conscience. She expresses her own beliefs about the importance of life and protecting her friends. She even becomes romantically entangled with the ship’s pilot, Joker. ButJoker cannot outfly the EMP the destroy ending sends out across the galaxy,and Shepard’s final decision causes the loss of one of their allies.
8Kelly Chambers & The Crew May Be Melted By The Collectors
Don’t Delay In Reaching These Poor Normandy Crew Members
On the more horrific side of things,Mass Effect 2sees the entire Normandy crew, along with the squadmates and Joker kidnapped in the final act by the Collectors. These insectoid aliens are servants of the Reapers,using human genetic material to create a humanoid version of the genocidal robots.The last mission in the game sees Shepard and the remaining crew set out through theOmega 4 Relay on a suicide missionto stop the Collectors and save their shipmates.
However, players who wait too long between missions may show up too late to save their crew. Doing more than two side missions after the crew is kidnapped and before heading through the relay will ensure at least some of their deaths,including that of Kelly Chambers, the ship’s yeoman, and psychologist. Kelly is a rather static character, but she is kind and undeserving of the terrible fate the Collectors inflict upon her: melting her inside a pod and turning her into sludge. It’s one of the more disturbing sights in the series that players can witness.
7Tali Will End Her Own Life If The Quarians Are Wiped Out
A Gut-Wrenching Ending To This Climactic Conflict
Tali is one of only three squadmates who can join Commander Shepard on missions during all threeMass Effectgames in the original trilogy. She’s a smart but socially awkward engineer who helps the crew on more than one occasion, and in the third game, she requests their help in turn. The Quarians are finally going to war with the Geth in an attempt to reclaim their homeworld of Rannoch. Depending on Shepard’s actions,they may succeed, end up working with the Geth, or be wiped out entirely.
That last option triggers Tali’s heartbreaking death as she watches her people’s flotilla be destroyed by the Geth.Tali backs up and purposefully falls off a cliff,and no matter how hard players try to catch her, she falls to her death. It’s a sad way to end the character’s journey, as she made it so far trying to help her people, only to end up dead on the planet they failed to reclaim.
6Two Companions Can Be Killed By Harbinger’s Laser
A Violent Death In The Home Stretch
These deaths are certainly not as climactic or emotional as Tali’s, though they are gut-wrenching all the same. If Shepard attempts to bring the fight to Earth and end the Reaper’s attack on the galaxy for good butdoes not have the war assets to back it up, there’s a chance they will lose some of their companions during the final stretch. This happens as the player and their crewmates are running towards the teleporter that will take them up to the Citadel, only to be ambushed by Harbinger.
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Players will start the run alongside their crew mates, whichever two they bring beforeHarbinger fires a laser that takes them all to the ground.Shepard reaches out to save their friends but cannot, as Harbinger obliterates them with a harsh laser blast. It’s a quick and brutal death that comes right before the player potentially achievesvictory over the Reapers inMass Effect, making it sting all the more.
5Commander Shepard Gets Blown Into Space
A Painful Death For The Player Character
This entry is a bit of an outlier on this list, asthis death is both unavoidable and not really a death.But it remains both brutal and terrible, especially since it’s so shocking when players first experience it. The secondMass Effectgame opens with the Normandy being attacked by the Collectors, and while most of the crew manage to make it off, Commander Shepard is left on board when the SR-1 explodes.
The player character is sent spiraling off into space,a hole in their suit causing the oxygen to stream out, and Shepard eventually suffocatesbefore falling to a nearby planet’s surface. It’s a violent way to startME2, and while Shepard is eventually brought back from the brink by the Lazarus project, it’s a slow and grueling procedure that takes years and leaves all of Shepard’s friends thinking they are dead.
4Mordin May Be Shot In The Back
Dying Moments Away From Redemption
While many of these deaths are heartbreaking, this one is absolutely cruel. Mordin Solus, a Salarian doctor and fan-favorite character, spends most of his time inME3trying to make up for his past mistakes.He regrets his involvement in theKrogan Genophage restoration projectand wants to make things rightby giving Krogan a cure. However, players going through the game as a renegade version of Commander Shepard may have other plans.
The decision to kill Mordin is one of the only choices that even renegade Shepard seems to regret, throwing their gun away in disgust after committing the murder.
The Salarian government offers Shepard military aid if they can prevent the cure from working. This can be done while keeping Mordin alive if players have enough paragon points. But far more often,they must shoot their ally in the back to prevent him from activating the cure.This ending sees Mordin betrayed and prevented from fixing his greatest mistake while only moments away from doing so.
3A Betrayed Wrex Dying On The Citadel
No Side Quest Will Quell This Krogan’s Wrath
As if the choice to stop the Genophage cure couldn’t get any more evil, it can also result in the death of Urdnot Wrex, another fan-favorite squad member from the first game. IfWrex survives the mission of Virmire, he’ll go on to lead the Urdnot clan on Tuchanka, and is a fierce proponent of the Genophage cure. He trusts Shepard and Mordin to help get it done, butif the player stops Mordin, Wrex will eventually find out about their betrayal.
Unlike inME1, where retrieving Wrex’s family armor before the Virmire quest can prevent the Krogan from turning violent, nothing can stop this Urdnot from trying to kill Shepard if they sabotage the cure.
The Krogan comes to the Citadel to confront Shepard, bringing a shotgun to gun down his old Commander.Shepard can attempt to talk Wrex down, but he is far too enraged to listen,and for good reason. It takes Shepard putting this Krogan down to stop him, a final nail in the coffin of Shepard’s morals.
2Morinth May Be Made Into A Banshee
This Companion Has Her Very Sanity Taken Away
While Morinth is certainly not the most likable or moral character inMass Effect, there’s no denying how awful her fate can be in the third game. If the player sides with her to spare her life inME2, she won’t be seen for much of the third game until the player goes to the temple of the Ardat-Yakshi to answer a distress signal. There, they find several asari being attacked bytheir Reaper-ized counterparts, the tall and ghoulish figures known as the Banshees.
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To the player’s surprise, this is where Morinth ended up, presumably after returning to the temple to either make up with or take out her sisters. But it seems the Reapers got to her first, andtheir indoctrination has transformed her into one of these lanky monsters. Morinth may be a murderer, but being twisted and warped like this is truly monstrous, an example of how evil the Reaper’s indoctrination techniques truly are.
1Jack Getting Turned Into A Cerberus Phantom
The Absolute Worst Possible Fate For This Rebellious Character
Finally, to cap off the body horror themes of the last entry, there isJack’s fate inMass Effect 3. Jack is another edgy, murderous squadmate fromME2, but her loyalty mission and redemption arc give her more likability than Morinth. Still, for players who didn’t complete Jack’s loyalty mission,there’s a chance the biotic woman gets kidnapped by Cerberus during the Grissom Academy mission.
This at first seems like the end of her, until players storm the Cerberus base toward the end ofMass Effect 3. There, they can find evidence thatJack survived her capture, falling back into the Illusive Man’s sadistic hands.She endured harsh torture and cybernetic modifications, eventually ending up as a Phantom, one of Cerberus’s biotic soldiers. Shepard has to put her down during the mission, essentially an act of mercy after Cerberus’s terrible reprogramming.
