Mass Effect 2

BioWare's 2010 middle chapter is the one built almost entirely around recruitment. Commander Shepard is killed in the opening minutes, rebuilt by a human-supremacist organisation, and handed a suicide mission with no fleet and no crew, so the game becomes a long series of introductions: twelve squadmates, each with a recruitment mission and a loyalty mission that resolves something personal. The final assault then reads your notes back to you. Who lives depends on which loyalties you earned, which upgrades you bought and who you assigned to which job, and it will kill your favourite character without hesitation if you sent them to hold a door they were not suited for. Combat dropped the first game's inventory sprawl for cover-based shooting with regenerating shields and a hard ammo economy, which purists disliked and most players preferred. It also imported saves, so choices made in 2007 turned up here as consequences. It remains the standard reference for what a save-carrying trilogy can actually do with continuity.