Combat HUD: curved health arc and squad portraits before the Conduit beam

About this game

Developer: BioWare · Publisher: Electronic Arts · Platform: PC (Steam) · Art style: Realistic 3D · Screen type: HUD & Gameplay UI

More Mass Effect Legendary Edition screens in the Gallery

What to study

Mass Effect 3's combat HUD is built around a single curve. Instead of a straight health bar, Shepard's state is a shallow arc segmented into five red blocks under a pale teal shield arc, parked at bottom centre where the over-the-shoulder camera leaves room, and the squad is folded into the same gesture: directly under the arc, two small painted portraits (the turian and asari squadmates) sit flanked by their power icons, so health, shields, squad state and powers read as one low strip rather than four corners of chrome. The only other cluster is bottom left, a stacked column in the trilogy's angled blue styling: a canister count of 3, the line-art silhouette of the equipped heavy weapon with a 2 beneath it, and a long bar numbered 5 with a red fill. There is no crosshair, no minimap and no objective text in frame, the design trusts the arc and the portraits to carry everything, and gives the rest of the screen to the burning Earth battlefield and the Conduit's beam. It is also the only interface either of the collection's trailers ever shows: the HUD survives for roughly one second of a thirty-second sizzle cut before the edit dissolves back to cinematics. Frame at about 0:05 in the Accolades Trailer video (Steam), a pipeline scene-change survivor (candidates/v0_0001.png at 4.93s, copied to the workdir root as hud-conduit-battle.png): timed probes bracket the segment, 4.75s is still the Legendary Edition logo card, 5.0s and 5.25s show the identical settled HUD state, 5.5s and 5.75s are already dissolving with visible ghosting, and 6.0s has cut away.

Patterns

How the screen is arranged.

minimal-hud status-row portrait-row

Components

Parts on screen.

Illustration Portrait Minimap Vitals bar Slots Badge Crosshair Quest tracker

Screen inventory

• bottom centre, the curved segmented arc that is Mass Effect 3's health readout: five red segments under a pale teal outer arc, sitting low in the frame where a straight bar would collide with the third-person camera
• directly beneath the arc, four small angled slots in a row: a blue starburst power icon, the painted portrait of the turian squadmate, the painted portrait of the asari squadmate, and a blue swirl power icon, the squad's state and powers compressed into a single glanceable strip
• bottom left, a stacked readout column in the same angled blue styling: '3' beside a small canister icon at top, the line-art silhouette of the equipped heavy weapon with '2' beneath it, and a long angled bar numbered '5' with a red fill along the foot
• no crosshair, no minimap, no objective text anywhere in frame, the entire interface is those two low clusters, everything above them left to the battle
• the battle itself: Shepard from behind at centre-left in black armour with twin red back lights, facing the vertical blue-white beam of the Conduit between two ruined towers; a squadmate advances at centre-right through burning wreckage while red Reaper beams rake in from the top right

Top 3 colors

#0a0d18 22%#38395a 21%#191c2f 19%

Top three palette colors by share. The remaining colors make up the rest.

Source and credit

© BioWare / Electronic Arts, Mass Effect Legendary Edition screenshot: Accolades Trailer video (Steam), shown for design study and commentary. PlayCraft is an unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Electronic Arts.

Source tier 2 (publisher-released) · screenshot: Steam store page · Steam page

Source details

Fetched 2026-10-21. verified 2026-10-21: pipeline scene-change frame (candidates/v0_0001.png, 4.9259s) inspected visually at full resolution (1920x1080 native) and confirmed as a genuine, settled Mass Effect 3 combat HUD, the five red segments and teal outer arc of the bottom-centre health readout, the two legible squad portraits and their flanking power icons beneath it, and the bottom-left stack ('3' with canister icon, the heavy-weapon silhouette with '2', the angled bar numbered '5' with red fill) all readable; probes bracket the segment: 4.75s is the preceding logo card, 5.0s and 5.25s show the same settled state, 5.5s and 5.75s show dissolve ghosting, 6.0s has cut to a cinematic, the settled window is about 4.9-5.5s and 4.93s sits inside it; the red horizontal streaks across the upper frame are the trailer's in-source Reaper beam effects and lens flares, not capture or transport defects; no trailer typography overlays the frame

no published policy found (checked 2026-10-21); fair-use study use, takedown honored within 48h

Rights holders: see Copyright & takedown.