Welcome to Massively Affected, where I, Josh Silverman, bring on a guest and ask them the not-so-simple question: Why Mass Effect?

This week I'm joined by Kelsie Mhoon, who you may know as a Narrative and Content Designer for Jam City, and on Death Carnival. On this week's episode, we talked about the most important part of the _Mass Effect _series: the companions. The journey we take with our companions defines our experience across the Milky Way and Andromeda, shaping not just who our Commander Shepard and Ryder become, but their actions across the universe. The missions may sometimes be memorable, but the moments we have had with Thane's debut entrance, Legion saving Shepard about the Reaper vessel, or Tali's first time seeing her homeworld are what set in stone the wonderous galaxy sandbox that we get to play in. The companions are what offer the replayability of BioWare's classic franchises, and offer players the building blocks to create their own narratives.

If you enjoyed my conversation with Kelsie Mhoon, make sure to give her a follow on Twitter.

Make sure you come back next week as I'll be chatting with both Kenneth Shepard and Eric Van Allen of NormandyFM. (There will be two episodes next week, to be clear.) If this is your first episode, make sure to check out the full backlog of episodes found on But Why Tho.

As always, my thanks to Adam Leonhardt for his brilliant work making the Massively Affected logo, Julian Villarreal for his beautifully composed theme song for the show, and Mark B. Donica for helping me out by editing the back two-thirds of this season!