Make your own contribution to Memorial Day with newly expendable Mass Effect 3 recruits

Memorial Day isn’t like Christmas or Thanksgiving, where everyone gets to participate. All the people who actually matter this Monday simply aren’t around to participate in the festivities. Kind of a bummer, right?

But it seems Bioware has found a way to change that, at least for gamers who own Mass Effect 3. This Tuesday (yes, a day late) they’ll be releasing the new Rebellion Pack multiplayer DLC, giving you the opportunity to throw away the lives of countless virtual soldiers.

Now you’ll know what being an American politician is like!

Military requisitions

As with all previous multiplayer DLC, the Rebellion Pack will be available “at no charge” on all three platforms. You’ll get instant access to the new maps, Firebase Jade (a forest) and Firebase Goddess (Christina Hendricks Thessia), as well as a new artifact-based gameplay objective.

Added characters and weapons will have to be unlocked via good, old-fashioned grinding. Assuming you’re willing to put in the time and/or money to unlock all the goodies, here’s what you’ll have (potentially) waiting for you in your next Spectre pack:

New characters

Vorcha Soldier

• Thanks to their unique physiology and their Bloodlust ability, the Vorcha are joining the fight and are perfectly suited for the utilitarian soldier kit.

Vorcha Sentinel

• The innate aggressiveness found within the Vorcha make them shockingly durable combatants, and when coupled with their Flamer skill, the Vorcha sentinel is a force to be reckoned with.

Male Quarian Engineer

• Quarians have spent centuries at perpetual salvage and ship repair; the survival of their species depends on this technical expertise. When bringing the new Arc Grenade to the fray, the Quarians prove their prowess as effective engineers on the battlefield.

Male Quarian Infiltrator

• The Male Quarian Infiltrator must actively rely on stealth while in the heat of battle, and when they make use of their Tactical Scan ability, they quickly prove their mettle while continuously dishing out the pain.

Ex-Cerberus Vanguard

• When the Illusive Man turned to indoctrination in order to ensure the loyalty of his troops, many Cerberus operatives defected and joined the Alliance in order to stop the Reapers. Now that we’re on the same team, Ex-Cerberus Vanguards (along with their new Lash attack) are quickly proving their worth.

Ex-Cerberus Adept

• A result of the Illusive Man’s early experiments in enhanced human physiology, Ex-Cerberus subjects are highly skilled combat and biotics specialists. As a result, Ex-Cerberus Adepts can lay waste to the enemy with their Smash and Singularity powers.

New weapons

• Cerberus Harrier Assault Rifle – These Cerberus-modified Mattock rifles are fully automatic. Cerberus gunsmiths reined in the recoil issues, resulting in a gun that stay on target, but delivers slightly less punch per round than a standard Mattock. As such, the weapon is typically utilized by Cerberus’ elite troopers, who train constantly to make every burst count.
• Reegar Carbine Shotgun – This electrical weapon improves upon the arc pistol’s design by generating a sustained current on its target. This weapon is named for the Quarian Reegar family, whose marines have served valiantly against the Geth.
• Krysae Sniper Rifle – This Turian antimaterial rifle is modified to kill Reaper enemies. The Krysae’s scope uses a rangefinder that adjusts to keep the target in proper proportion to the shooter, which comes in useful when the sniper is forced into close range. Its specialized ammunition is both armor-piercing and explosive. In a desperate move, the Turians released its specifications over the extranet so that nearly anyone with a fabricator could manufacture this weapon to help the war effort.

New in-mission objective

• Randomly occurring during waves 3, 6 and 10, this new objective will demand that teams retrieve a high priority package and securely escort it to a designated extraction zone on each map.

New gear slot

• A new slot will be available on the equipment screen, offering players a persistent gameplay bonus that will not expire after the end of a match. These new items will vary from weapon upgrades to character enhancements and will be available through reinforcement packs.

While Electronic Art’s attempts at enticing players to spend more real cash on the in-game lottery is mildly displeasing, I don’t think anyone can actually complain that the amount of content in Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer has essentially doubled since release at no additional cost. Is it a little grindy? Sure. Is it a little repetitive? Maybe, but less so now. Is it ultimately fun to put bullets into swarms enemies while using badass abilities? Most definitely.

I’m personally curious to learn what Tactical Scan, Arc Grenade, and Lash do exactly, as well as what (if any) innate abilities the new recruits will have. And for all of my uncertainty, one thing is a sure bet: there are going to be a lot of dead, digital operatives on Tuesday as players experiment their way through unfamiliar new builds.