Preparing Your Profile For Mass Effect 2 - Mass Effect Wiki Guide - IGN

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New ChecklistAll ListsMy ChecklistsAllAll ListsMy ChecklistsHow creative can you get with your first free checklist?Create a free accountAll Interactive Maps and LocationsPreparing Your Profile for Mass Effect 2By KBABZ, IGN-GameGuides, Jason Burton, +5.3k moreUpdated: Jun 10, 2024 10:21am UTC

This page of IGN's Mass Effect wiki guide is all about what you need to do and keep in mind when finishing up Mass Effect 1 and preparing your Profile for importing into Mass Effect 2.

• Why Importing Your Profile Is Important
• When You Should Start Working Towards Mass Effect 2
• Level Bonuses
• Rich Bonus
• Morality Bonuses

Want more Mass Effect help? Check out the following pages:

• Legendary Edition Changes
• How-To Guides
• Key Choices and Consequences
• Romance Options
• Side Quests

Why Importing Your Profile Is Important

There are many very important reasons you'll want to import your Mass Effect 1 save to Mass Effect 2 over starting 2 fresh or using the Galaxy add-on:

• Story and Choices. The most obvious reason, by importing your old save you get to continue your specific Shepard, their reputation, their choices, their Romance and more. While Mass Effect 2 does let you use the Genesis comic to make important choices, it's nowhere near as granular as playing Mass Effect 1 outright.
• XP Bonuses. If your Shepard is a particularly high level, you'll be able to start at Level 3 or Level 5 when starting Mass Effect 2, giving you a significant leg up as you'll be able to spend Talent Points very early on.
• Credit Bonuses. Similarly, importing a high level Shepard will give you bonus Credits, allowing you to spend them at stores very early in the game to get equipment you want. It's actually impossible to buy everything in Mass Effect 2 without doing this!
• Resource Bonuses. A high level Shepard will receive bonus Resources at the start of Mass Effect 2, allowing you to spend them on Research upgrades, and minimizes the time you spend having to Survey and Probe planets.
• Morality Bonuses. Importing an ME1 Shepard will give bonus Morality Points at the start of Mass Effect 2. This is a huge boon because ME2 unlocks Charm / Intimidate choices more for your ability to keep up with the Paragon / Renegade options you can choose. Having extra Morality Points to start the game with relaxes this a bit in the early game.

When You Should Start Working Towards Mass Effect 2

Because of the way Mass Effect 1's endgame works, you start having limited exploration of the galaxy towards the end. After completing all four Mission Worlds you can only explore the Citadel one last time. After that, you have one last window to explore all other non-Ilos levels before the game funnels you towards the end and rolls credits.

Most importantly, there's no post-game: once you finish, you can either load an earlier save, or return to the final boss, but you cannot return to before the finale without loading a manual save you made yourself. So, PLAN ACCORDINGLY.

With that in mind, the best point in time to prepare for Mass Effect 2 is just before you start your final Mission World (in our guide, it's Virmire). That's the last point in time you can freely access both the Citadel and the rest of the Galaxy Map at the same time, which is required for certain CitadelSide Quests.

Level Bonuses

The main thing to think about when importing a Mass Effect 1 save to Mass Effect 2 are the Import Bonuses. The first of these is the Level Bonus, which gives you bonus XP, Credits and Resources when you begin Mass Effect 2. The amount you get depends on what Level Shepard is at the end of Mass Effect 1:

Level	XP Bonus	Credit Bonus	Resource Bonus
Level 1-49	1,000 (start at Level 2)	20,000	2,500 of each
Level 50-59	2,000 (start at Level 3)	30,000	5,000 of each
Level 60	4,000 (start at Level 5)	50,000	10,000 of each

As you can see, reaching Level 60 will give you the most bonuses, however acquiring them in Mass Effect 2 will depend on whether you're playing the original release of Mass Effect 1, or the Legendary Edition.

• If you're playing the original release on 360, PS3 and PC, you'll have a difficult decision to make. Even if you lifted the Level 50 cap by completing Mass Effect 1 before, it's impossible to reach Level 60 in a single run. In order to do that, you have to replay the game a second time as that Shepard to get the rest of the way, and redo all of the choices again. which can take 30-40 hours.
• Legendary Edition players have a better time of it, because that version of Mass Effect 2 treats Level 57-59 profiles as if they were Level 60. You can reach that in a single run of Mass Effect 1 if you do absolutely everything, which saves you a lot of time in the long run.

Rich Bonus

The other bonus for importing saves into Mass Effect 2 is whether or not you got the Rich Achievement. This requires you to hold 1,000,000 credits in Shepard's wallet at once (this will also unlock the Tier VII Spectre Master Gear in Mass Effect 1).

Once you get this Achievement, all Mass Effect 1 profiles will get +100,000 Credits when imported into Mass Effect 2, which stacks on top of the Level Bonus you earned (as described above).

There's another bonus you can earn that is unlocked independently of Mass Effect 1. If you've completed Mass Effect 2's story before, then all new profiles will get +200,000 credits. This includes imported Mass Effect 1 profiles, meaning that they can potentially start the game with a whopping 350,000 credits!

Morality Bonuses

The final import bonus available for Mass Effect 1 saves are Morality Bonuses. The fuller a Morality Bar is, the more bonus points you get when starting Mass Effect 2. This tops out at 50%, where you'll get 190 points in Mass Effect 2.

Notably, this applies to both Morality Bars, not just the one you filled the most of, meaning you can get bonus Paragon and Renegade points. Fortunately for Paragons, this doesn't affect Shepard's facial scars at the start of Mass Effect 2.

As explained earlier, having bonus Morality Points is incredibly useful, because Mass Effect 2 unlocks Charm / Intimidate options based on the ratio of how many Paragon / Renegade options were made available VS how many you actually took. Having bonus Morality Points from an imported save gets you ahead of the game and gives you much more flexibility.

All set up? Great! You're now ready to jump into Mass Effect 2. Continue your journey by starting our guide for Mass Effect 2, beginning with the opening Prologue!

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