Black Noir vibes anyone? 😂

If you can remove a character's dialogue entirely and have that actually improve the character then you've fucked up somewhere. Imagine entirely removing any other character's dialogue in any of the games and having it improve the character and overall story? Just shows how poorly written he was.

A quiet Kai Leng is WAY more intimidating it shows the inhumanity of Cerberus that their best assassin is this quiet killing machine. Also it reminds me of Snake Eyes from G.I. Joe.

Sadly very little can be done about his stupidity projector he uses on all the main characters. Shepherd and Thane still loose 100iq points when he's around

It's actually shocking just how big a difference simply not talking makes to his character. He actually has an air of mystery and dare I say some intimidation factor when you don't know what he's thinking or what exactly he's gonna do next. Removing his vocal arrogance also means you're less likely to judge his character quite so harshly for his failures against Shepard, he comes across as a silent professional that, while skilled in their own right, simply isn't as good as Shepard. As opposed to the cocky, trash-talking douche canoe that's constantly talking a big game with empty threats and "badass" one-liners while consistently and hilariously failing to live up to his own hype EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

I think just shutting him up makes him 100x better, because he's actually a cool character until he opens his mouth

It's pretty incredible how well his scenes still work even without dialogue. Like if I hadn't played the game before I probably wouldn't question it at all. I also like that this version is sort of an inverse of Shepard, having no voice or face, two of the things most important about Shep. It's as if in this au the Illusive man realized trying to create his own Shep or convince him to join cerberus was a fruitless effort so instead just went in the exact opposite direction.

The whole idea of Thane pulling a gun and RUNNING AT THE ENEMY WHO IS WIELDING SWORD is just the stupidest! Why would a person with a gun run into melee range like that? Just absurd. Worst moment in the game.

I like how they kept the roars and grunts in at the final battle. It helps to show how he seems to be losing his composure and unflappability, becoming sloppier and making himself vulnerable.

you know how they coulda improved Leng? Made him a series of clones? So you can actually beat him and kill him, but he keeps reappearing because TIM cloned him and kept sending the clones at you, with the one at the final Cerberus base being the original, who mocks you for only being able to kill his inferior clones.

I would've only had Leng only say two words in the entirety of his run, and that's on thessia, "You're attention." After that, everything else can be cut.

Skipping the Thessia fight improves the encounter immeasurably. The boss fight only establishes that Kai Leng isn’t a threat in a drawn out firefight. By skipping the fight and going directly into the cutscene, instead of him suddenly becoming competent, he’s competent from the start, he actually acts like a ninja. He knows he won’t win a shootout, so he closes the distance and takes down both squadmates in close quarters, and instead of acting like he can beat Shepard one on one, throws up his shield and summons the actual big guns. He’s not here to fight you, he’s here to retrieve the VI.

I always felt it was such a waste of a voice actor on such a trash character. Baker could’ve been served so much better elsewhere in the story.

Man, this is such a vast improvement over OG Leng. He comes off as annoying with the way he was written originally. I feel making him the silent masked ultimate assassin makes him so much more intimidating as a villain

Well, the only true problam Leng had, is that dialog and character did not mix. Removing/changing one is enough to make an improvement. In re-writing, there would be two options for him: 1. Leave the douchebag part, but make him entirely reliant on his bullshit plotshield, basically making him immune to ranged attacks. This would make his sword make sense with his attitude and even better, the last fight would be Shepard stunning him when overloading his shield when exploding a generator near him or something. Then, Omni-Jab(tm) would be even sweeter, since this is the only way his bullshit shield can be bypassed. 2. Make him an absolute menace, which this mod gets very close to by simply shutting him up.

The “Silent Antagonist” is an angle I’ve haven’t seen before. Plus, his modded outfit gives off a mystery of who he is. I kinda wished the writers decided to do this when they created his character.

Dude the moment when shepherd ask him what do you want after killing the scientists and he says nothing is actually very unnerving, it's kinda like having a mass effect version of Jason Voorhees.

You know a character is bad when you can remove all his dialogue and it literally doesn’t leave anything out of context.

It is absolutely amazing how effective the simple act of Leng shutting up makes him seem calculating, in control, and adds tension to the scene. The blame for that falls squarely on the writers. Best case scenario would've been if Leng had been referenced in the original Mass Effect as a silent warrior who you never even catch a glimpse of. Then in ME2, Leng is this silent guardian acting a temporary squadmate helping your escape at the beginning. But his stats are just off the charts, and he ends up doing most of the fighting for you since you're still weak. Just to make you appreciate how deadly he is. Then in ME3 he's now an antagonist with a deadly reputation whom you've personally seen in action. And then keep the boss fights in, because now you're invested in them. No matter how cheap they seem, this guy now has a very well deserved reputation for why he might actually be better than Shepard. Edit: It reminds me of Megaman X2, where you have the option of chasing the X-Hunters to acquire Zero's parts, and rebuild him. And if you fail to do so, they resurrect Zero themselves and you have an extra boss fight against him. After seeing how he handled himself in the original Megaman X, every player was curious how X would stand up against Zero. And now that we could finally find out, it made that extra boss fight something to look forward to, and so much more satisfying than playing the game the "right" way and rebuilding Zero yourself.

I seriously loved how his arc ended. So satisfying. Thane was a good friend.

This character looks like it was either written by kids, or written FOR kids… It is annoyingly stereotypical with his unnecessary ninja moves… And most annoyingly, his fights are entirely plot driven. He has 10 second invulnerabilities because he can’t be beaten at that point of the story, then he is easy to fight against. What is the most annoying is what’s happening when I’m Vanguard with Charge, and with Lash as bonus skill. With these, I literally wipe the floor with Kai Leng, he doesn’t have a chance to even shoot at me. The game still treats everything the same way. I drag him across the floor face down, and suddenly he is badass again in cutscene…

Its unbelievable how removing all his dialog actually makes him better without affecting the scenes

I heard in the comics that this supossedly space ninja broke into Anderson's apartment just to steal a bread and pee in a flower pot

The fun is, that this makes way more sense. He should be what Shepard would be without everyone. A emotionless sword

I was thinking "the only way to fix Kai Leng is to remove him entirely", and, well, they did the next best thing. I like that they replaced one of his appearances with a Phantom, I always wanted to see one of them up close. And Kai Lang is just a glorified Phantom himself, so it stands to reason.

Yo the skipped fight on Thessia just puts in perspective how poorly handled Kai Leng was as a villain. It makes WAY more sense for the cutscene to continue to play out in that moment

I don't have problems with him talking or seeing his face, it's more about the scripted and forced encounter you get with him where you automatically lose, even if win from a gameplay perspective, during the Thessia fight (he just goes and recharge his shields while the aircraft fires at you) Even a QTE type of gameplay feels more rewarding than fighting Kai Leng 😂

honestly just the small detail of replacing Kai Leng taking down the skycar with a Phantom is incredible, since it feels less like "this wanker again..." followed by a massive "fuck you" and more like you've just been caught up in the chaos of the attack at random.

Every time I see Leng standing up on that air car approaching the bridges I think to myself: “Pull up, you idiot! Pull up and all your problems will be solved.“

While he is annoying and a try-hard, I'd argue that his death is all the more satisfying because of his annoyance. Everybody wants to see an asshole getting their comeuppance and seeing Kai Leng finally gets stabbed by Shepard is quite satisfying. Though if there's things about Kai Leng needed fixing, it'll be Priority: Thessia and Thane being stabbed scene. The scene where Thane got stabbed was so oddly done, Kai Leng didn't do anything impressive, all he did was raised his sword and Thane jumped into said sword and the slow motion made it all the more ridiculous and stupid since you got time to process the fact that Thane just JUMP into his death. Shepard's "defeat" on Priority: Thessia was also BS and turns Kai Leng from simply an annoying adversary into "This guy has a thick plot armor" kind of adversary.

Y'know, I was reluctant to install this mod cause as annoying and infuriating Kai Leng is, that annoying and infuriating writing made it feel so good to stab him in the gut, but seeing your video about, seems like it'd a good addition to my collection It's a shame the mod that replaces with him Ashley or Kaidan depending on who was left on Virmire most likely won't get ported over to Legendary Edition, that's a really cool concept that incorporates this "Shut Up Leng" mod with the "Phantom Introduction Mod" also featured here

I always think: why Shepard is watching Thane fight and doing nothing?! He/she interferes after Thane is hit by Leng's sword. It makes me uncomfortable.

Honestly, if Kai Leng only spoke on occasion that'd have been fine. "Now it's interesting" once threatened with a 3 on 1 fight, would have gone a long way if it was the only thing he actually says to you that entire encounter. It shows that he's extreamly dangerous, and likes a challenge.

' That was for Thane you SOB! ' yep, even after hearing 1232154324324th time, this line still gives me goosebumps :)

I think the mod could be improved in Kai lengs “shut up” outfit, I think it would be cool if they modified his appearance or colors to look like an elite assassin compared to the usual ones.

What an amazing improvement! Makes me regret being a console guy. Also just realised that having no character at all beats having a shit character. Good lesson for writers!

0:19 I will be honest and upfront with you here. When you titled this video "The Worst Character in Mass Effect 3 Has Finally Been FIXED," I thought this was a video about the Star Child 🤣

ME3 has become the best in the trilogy for some reason 🤔 his silence in Thessia was badass

We know Kai Leng is shit, but there's Jacob Taylor, you know...

So to be fair if this was implemented fully till the final mission were you knock off his mask. Then you kill him for not shutting up.

This just reminded me about how poorly they handled that Thane fight. Everybody just standing there like idiots. Least they could have done was having the typical getting cut off or separated trope.

The mod looks great and I have to agree to agree with you. The silence brings a different dynamic to the scenes and for the better. Btw. I'm pretty sure Leng's "grunt" is recycled in multiplayer as the sound of the Turian Sentinel/Soldier heavy melee.

That's why sticking the omni blade in his ribs is one of my favorite moments in ME3

This works better thematically for Cerberus too, since ME3 shows how this pro-human org is losing its humanity. The foot soldiers are shown to have been genetically tampered with, and TIM's endgame of absolute control over organic and synthetic life, would be perfectly represented by this Kai Leng - a faceless supersoldier who obeys commands without feeling

Shepard: *You.* Completely different Cerberus ninja wearing the same armor:

It ridiculous how simply removing dialogue and adding a helmet makes Leng a much more intimidating and interesting antagonist.

I'm aware of this mod and have considered it as he is as stated the most annoying character in the series. So with that said I'm glad it skips the Thessia Boss fight since he only survives because he's meant to and not because he's tough. Same with the fight on TIM's base which if you are playing as a Vanguard doesn't last very long thanks to Biotic Charge and Nova.

I like that you can literally replace KL with a random silent Cerberus uniform and *nothing is lost.*

Wow, i agree taht this mod really makes the character more menacing and actually more like a cerberus soldier. Even the part where he just taps on his head and the gunship react like he is somehow connected. Dont know what the mod makes, but the one scene bothers me, where they chase kai leng and his crew to the lift and cerberus gang just stands there, shepard forgets how to hero and does nothing.

Thane losing to your average Cerberus Phantom makes him seem even weaker than ever, which is surprisingly fitting. Also makes the Phantoms seem more threatening considering one stabbed your engine, and Jack herself becomes one

Kai Leng was a joy to renegade kill in the end because of his normal Mass 3 behavior. I wouldn't change a thing. But thanks for bringing us mod reviews :).

I love how Illusive man refers to them as Leng still It speaks volumes in a way I can't describe, that this person is a person but his mind is completely on the mission, not chit chat or showing off The fact they don't speak just implies to me that they're taking their work seriously, they know the threat they're facing and are thinking over their moves carefully It makes the final fight interesting too since they KNOW they probably can't handle a one on one based on previous encounters and are exerting heavily to outfight Shepard, even in death it feels like you fought a real professional who just got in a fight they were outclassed in

Modders make Mass Effect "Great Again!"

"He has taken an vow of silence" "Why?" "He doesn't say"

I can't believe that his lines were so bad and unnecessary that not only are his scenes improved by removing them, the scenes still makes sense.

Wow, this is way better. especially on thessia, the whole scene makes him seem mysterious instead of like a bratty teenager

It does certainly give off that vibe that the Illusive Man has forced so much Reaper tech inside him that all humanity is gone, all that is left is a highly honed killing machine. Its certainly beats the annoying "wE eVolVe or dieeE" edgelord we had in vanilla

1:07 I wasn't sold until that part. The lack of dialogue is kinda terrifying. Like, you can see him thinking.

Reading this table of contents, I thought we were finally able to do something with Jacob Taylor. 😅😅😅 But fixing Kai Leng is also a good job.

But you’re missing the best part of Kai Leng with this: Good. You opened this message. This isn't actually asari military command. They're busy tending to what's left of their planet. So you survived our fight on Thessia. You're not as weak as I thought. But never forget that your best wasn't good enough to stop me. Now an entire planet is dying because you lacked the strength to win. The legend of Shepard needs to be re-written. I hope I'm there for the last chapter. It ends with your death. -KL

The way I see it, the only thing that can make this mod better is if somehow, Kai Leng's helmet gets destroyed and his face is revealed during the final fight. IMO this would add emphasis to him not being so invincible after-all.

The silence makes him ominous. It's so much better

The fact that he just appears out of nowhere and is some sort of rival for shepard even though we never even saw him let alone heard of his before the citadel and hes some sort of edge lord just ruined it for me

Not only that but it actually gives some credit to the cereberus troops using the specialized soldiers as actual cut scene enemies that are competent and dangerous. I feel like going into the phantom fights after the car scene makes the combat sequences themselves more impactful

The only thing I found interesting about Kai Leng was that he released a V.I when he was at the Citadel to delete all security footage of him.

But does it still allow the grunt when you finally kill him at the end? Feels like we need that kind of satisfaction, of finally getting him to make a noise.

You know what adds to its coolness? You can almost imagine how how his character developed. After taking so many L’s in the books and comics, he finally decides to stop taking and let his actions speak for him. Instead of projecting false bravado, his silence speaks volumes of the amount of violence he’s capable of. I love this mod

The most annoying thing? Not the fact that Shepard loses friends on Akuze but when he wakes up, ok Cerberus, I’ll help you. Or Shepard is a spectre and doesn’t answer to earth (do the renegade quest and pick the bottom answer to Hackett) but ME3 rolls around, and instead of trying to find ways of stopping the reapers, like he promised, he’s hiding from the Batarians on earth. The more I pick at this trilogy, the worse it looks

I wish there was a mod like this to replace Jacob instead.

I first played ME3 in the legendary edition, so I was already at a disadvantage when it came to taking Kai Leng seriously. I took one look at his design and started yelling "WHO THE HELL IS BUCKY?" and other Winter Soldier references at the screen.

While I like this version better, lets be honest. If this had been the version they shipped at launch with nothing to compare it to, people would have complained, "Who's this random ninja guy who keeps showing up, and why don't we learn anything about him!? He doesn't even say anything! So cliché!"

That second of silence zoomed in on his mask after Shepard asks him what he wants on Thessia gave me goosebumps.

This would have been a cool way of using the shepherd clone from the citadel dlc mission. I love that mission but it would make sense that Cerberus would use a mind controlled likely indoctrinated version of shepherd instead of making up Leng for no reason. And the thwarting of shepherd would feel more satisfying in the end because obviously he can anticipate what shepherds thinking and planning but not everything due to the loss of free will and adaptability

Oh yes, finally someone managed to shut him up. I wish there's a mod that either let's thane win and then Leng escapes. Or let's us fight along side thane, like a boss fight.

He felt so out of place in Mass Effect 3. Like a lame Shonen Anime character got randomly inserted into a western sci-fi game. lol

I remember before Mass Effect 3 released, BioWare was hyping fans up about how much of a dangerous badass Kai Leng would be for Shepard to face, especially with the release of the novel Mass Effect Retribution which featured Kai Leng in its story.

I can get the grunt, exerting as much force as he was, it adds a sense of realism, he can avoid talking, but he’s not a mute.

One thing that always got me was how come Shepard doesn’t join in the fight with thang

You know a character is bad when you have to make your main characters lose 100 iq points just for him to stand a chance lol (I do feel bad for whoever was asked to voice this train wreck of a character though)

I don't know how I managed to miss this video back when it came out. I can only imagine this must be the most popular ME3 mod there is. As great as Troy Baker is, KL being silent is so much better, on multiple levels. He's still an incredibly dumb character - whoever thought what Mass Effect really needed was a space ninja, I'll never know - but this is a massive improvement. It's the next best thing to removing him from the game entirely.

It would be explained that his "improvement" in fact affected (intentionally or unintentionally) his Broca's area - a part of our brain responsible for speech production and articulation, enough for him to be unable of using words. But the Illusive Man would not care about this downside - a perfect assassin does not need to use words after all. And that would be quite dreadening.

The thessia Kai Leng fight for me is literally just [warp][warp][warp] "Cover me!" [warp][warp][warp] "Cover me!" (rinse and repeat) so removing it entirely might save me three minutes. They should have saved him as a pre-boss

Kei Lang and the Phantoms being basically Biotic Ninja Assassins feels more like something Asari Huntresses would be trianed in, not a group like Cerberus.

People underestimate how good a silent character, especially a silent enemy, can be. Him never saying a word and not showing his face makes him far more believable as a hit man. After all if you can’t recognize a person they can be anywhere at any time. Moreover it’s more intimidating, you fight a guy who has no significant interest in you, who’s just there to drop bodies and you’re in the way. No bragging no monologue no personal vendetta just a job that needs fulfilling.

Aw man I liked kai leng the way he was. Always felt like the exact point was for him to feel annoying and hateable. Making him 'cool' kinda defeats the purpose for me.

Nice. I like the first fight skip, because it makes it seem like he won because he had a gunship with rockets instead of "because devs said so".

The problem of Kai Leng is that the others act stupid when he's around. This mod doesn't fix it.

I just saw a video where a guy said an actor doesn't need to have their face fully exposed and clean to show off their character, with references to the Mandalorian and the Halo show. It also reminded me of GI Joe's Snake Eyes, who is basically the fan favourite. This is a pretty good example of it and I might actually write a fully silent character for my manga. Maybe an evil elite assassin for the villain or a silent bounty hunter that almost never loses.

I always love that moment in my favourite fanfic where, after Leng stabs the aircar, wounding Shepards LI, she just proceeds to lead him to an unceremonious end by pulling up and smearing him across the underside of a bridge.

I can't believe a fucking space ninja stole our prothean tamagotchi - The Salt Factory, a week ago

I always thought Kai leng’s hatred was actually him being a decent villain. Him being silent does add some sort of faceless assassin vibes but it feels awkward and strange not seeing him as this wannabe Saren edgelord idiot counterpart to Shepard.

I think he would’ve been better if A. He had been involved in all Cerberus missions one way or another (Mars, Grissom Academy, Sur’Kesh, Tuchanka) that way, he feel more like a constant threat than a annoyance. (Maybe he’s the one who hurts Kaiden/Ash and kills Adrian Victus) B. After every fight, he evolves and gains a new ability. Maybe he only starts out with the ability to raise the shield, flip, and charge you with the sword. Then he gets his hand cannon, then he can teleport, then he can drain shields, etc etc, allowing him to ‘keep up’ with Shepard. C. Make him a silent antagonist and simply have other call him, ‘The Assassin’.

Man, I regret not finding this mod earlier, and I heard that downloading content mods after ALOT is a bad idea. It’s crazy to think that silent Leng is actually unnerving.

Honestly, the best kind of Edge Lords are the silent one's who don't say useless chatter or taunts. If Kai Leng was just the Cerberus version of Snake Eyes, he'd have been a great nemesis compared to our talkative Shepard. Especially love how Shepard asks "What do you want?!" in the third encounter, and this version just stays emotionlessly silent as he pulls out the projector for his boss.

Interesting solution. Silent ninja with no face. It feels like some sort of Black Noir vibe.

I have one problem with the 'failed assassination' scene. After Leng is laid out by the mighty backhand, why the hell were they not shooting the crap out of him while he was defenseless on the floor? An easy half-dozen shots each from the four 'heroes' present and old Kai would have been permanently quieted.

At the end of the boss fight Kai’s helmet should be broken a bit showing his mouth, so when Shepard stabs him, the blood would make more sense

On a personal note I would have have it where Leng's mask is broken at the end so we see one of his eyes and have it where it's just this black... thing. This gives us a hint of what he looks like without the mask but are never shown his face in full thus there's this question of what did he do to himself or what was done to him to give us... THAT!!!

Nice mod, I honestly don't mind the Thesaia fight, and I would like Lang's new design to be a bit more unique.

You can't cure death and Fucface Leng is as dead as they come. They should have made him like this mysterious assailant and let him say as little as possible, with mask of course and only in final battle with him you get to see his UNIQUE reaper-tech cybernetic face. I think it would be better if he was someone from 1st Mass Effect who Shepard crossed like if you were cruel to Conrad Verner in 1st and 2nd in 3rd he'd join the Cerberus to become this Shepard-like figure and then indoctrination, some Cerberus human augmentation project blah blah blah. Anything would be better than this Kai Fucface Leng. All my opinion of course.