James Vega's squad gets methodically dismantled by an enemy they can't understand, and the film refuses to let any of them walk away the same person. The Collectors aren't just a threat, they're a reckoning that turns a soldier's confidence into something heavier, something that survives into Mass Effect 3 as actual weight instead of backstory flavor. You watch a competent marine learn that competence stops meaning anything when the rules change.

Early in his career, Alliance Marine James Vega leads an elite Special Forces squad posted to a colony in a distant star system. There, he and his soldiers are charged with defending the settlers against the Collectors, a mysterious alien threat whose merciless invasion aims to seize the colony's people for reasons no one knows. Set before Mass Effect 3, this sci-fi action adventure film offers a look at the troubled history of the franchise's newest hero.