As pointed out by MaxGoods on Reddit and confirmed by many others, the image shows a very human-looking face (albeit for almost all-white eyes) underneath the quarian helmet.įans have reacted mostly positively to the change. The reaction was strong enough for Tali's photo to make it onto IGN's list of Mass Effect 3 controversies.Īs part of its many updates, however, the new Legendary Edition has quietly altered the image, now depicting an actual unmasked Tali using in-engine visuals. In the original version of the game, fans were disappointed to find that, after all three games, the image was a Photoshopped version of a stock image depicting Miss England '05 winner Hammasa Kohistani. In Mass Effect 3, romancing Tali leads to a scene in which Commander Shephard looks at a photograph of an unmasked Tali.
That means, throughout the three games, players are never shown what a quarian looks like – that is unless players choose to romance Tali. One of the ever-present characters throughout the original Mass Effect trilogy was Tali'Zorah, a quarian party member who – like the rest of her race – cannot remove her suit and helmet due to an acute risk of disease.