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No One Left Behind achievement in Mass Effect 2

No One Left Behind

Keep your team alive through the suicide mission

No One Left Behind0
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How to unlock the No One Left Behind achievement

  • Major AlenkoMajor Alenko
    31 Jan 2010 31 Jan 2010 30 Nov 2012
    Since the Prima guide was utterly useless for figuring out the endgame and there seems to be a great deal of confusion on the boards about how this works, I thought I'd spend some time running different teams through the endgame to see what variables are at work.

    Space Battle.
    If the Normandy is not properly upgraded, each missing upgrade will result in a team member death before you even start the assault on the Collector base.  If you take this team member with you during the oculus fight, or haven't recruited them, or they are dead, a different character dies instead.

    -No Silaris Armor:  Oculus beams punch through; Jack dies.
    -No Cyclonic Barrier Shielding:  Engine core overloads; Tali (or Legion or Thane) dies.
    -No Thanix Cannon:  Normandy charges in with main guns;  Thane (or Garrus) dies.

    Base Assault.
    For the assault itself, there appear to be three types of characters that are required for the various key roles: 

    -If the Tech Specialist is not one of those listed below, they will die at the first rendevous. 
    -If the first Fireteam Leader is not a leadership character, the Tech Specialist will die at the first rendevous. 
    -If the second Fireteam Leader is not a leadership character, they will die at the second rendevous. 
    -If the Biotic Specialist is not powerful enough, one of your current squad members will be swarmed by seekers and die. 
    -If the crew survivors are not escorted, they will die (any character can do this and the crew will live).
    -If the Heat Exchanger valves are not opened in time, the Tech Specialist will die and you're forced to restart.
    -If there aren't enough Combat Specialists left behind to hold the line while you fight the last boss, characters die
    -Some characters are worth more as Combat Specialists than others; these point values are still being tested
    -Characters with low point values are the first to die if there aren't sufficient points to hold the line

    The following characters are the only ones that will succeed at their respective roles:

    Tech Specialist
    * Tali
    * Legion
    * Kasumi

    Leadership
    * Miranda
    * Jacob
    * Garrus

    Biotic Specialist
    * Samara / Morinth
    * Jack

    Crew Escort
    * Any loyal character

    Combat Specialist
    * Zaeed
    * Grunt
    * Garrus
    * possibly other partial contributors

    Disloyalty (Normal Loyalty).

    Not having a character's loyalty has different effects depending on what you do with them:

    -Having disloyal characters in the above key roles will result in deaths, regardless of whether they are suitable or not.
    -A disloyal crew escort will sacrifice their lives to protect the crew (the crew will still make it).
    -Disloyal characters don't get as many 'points' as loyal characters when holding the line and are more likely to die
    -Keeping disloyal characters in your active squad prevents them from dying, except for...
    -In the final boss fight, disloyal characters in your active squad will be crushed by rubble after the fight and die.
    -If all team members are dead, Shepard misses the final jump and lets himself fall to his death rather than risk Joker's life.
    -Note that with all 11 team members recruited, it's actually not possible to kill off all of them and get yourself killed.


    Kidnapped Normandy Crew. ( Not essential for the achievement)
    If you do not go through the Omega-4 relay quickly enough after the Collectors kidnap the Normandy crew, the captured crew members will die off in the endgame.  Watching Kelly get liquefied was particularly horrifying.  Who dies depends on how many missions you did after the Joker level (actual clock time does not affect the outcome, nor do relay jumps, fuel spent, or landing on Illium/Omega/Citadel/Tuchanka; any quest, big or small will count though):

    -If you use the relay immediately, everybody survives; Horizon colonist gets liquified instead.
    -If you do one mission, Kelly, engineer Daniels, mess sergeant Gardner, and half the crew dies.
    -If you do two missions or more, everyone except Dr. Chakwas dies.

    Legions loyalty mission.
    Note that if you activate Legion and learn about his loyalty quest immediately after the Reaper IFF mission, the Collector attack / Joker level will wait for one extra mission before triggering.  This allows you to complete all the loyalty quests before the crew is even kidnapped (assuming you did the other ones already).

    The X-Factor.

    Some people also report having trouble keeping a character (typically Mordin) alive at the end, where they must hold the line until Shepard kills the last boss.  This seems to be related to a choice or choices made during the final mission, as rearranging team roles from the same savegame will affect whether this mysterious death happens or not.

    All credit goes to Ken Ueno of the BioWare social site.
    (who gave permission for this to be posted here)
    His thread.(Link below)
    http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/105/index/871030

    Guide not helping? View 21 more guides for this achievement.

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    Leo AscendentSorry for spamming, thought I'd post a link to where I got that info above.

    http://forum.bioware.com/topic/75917-suicide-mission-guide-a...

    I'm done now, lol
    Posted by Leo Ascendent on 01 Feb 15 at 01:38
    SockGORE828Had the same problem as leo with Grunt, but I had left Garrus behind...
    Posted by SockGORE828 on 23 Mar 17 at 19:55
    LaTrickster2so i just got a cutscene that said garrus and his grou arrived with no casualties, but in the very next cutscene hes magically dead, wtf
    Posted by LaTrickster2 on 20 May 21 at 02:44
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    O.K. All of these suggestions are very good but I have the solution to the problem people are having with the fight between Jack and Miranda. The solution is somewhat easy. First off make sure that you put off either Miranda or Jack's loyalty mission until the very very end.

    I played through as a vanguard and I noticed that the assault power that the vanguard has could be evolved into "champion," which gives a %100 bonus to your paragon or renegade score, so it basically doubles your score. This means that it is only necessary for you to get your para/rene up halfway as long as you have evolved it into champion before you get involved in the fight.

    If you are successful in doing so then you will be able to choose either a para/rene option during the fight. This will diffuse the situation and keep the loyalty of both of them.

    This same situation will also come up between Legion and Tali. If during that fight, you find that you cannot use one of the options, do not fret! There is a solution. I believe they do this simply so you do have to make a game changing decision. To fix this simply walk up to the person you didn't side with and select to talk to them about the fight. Then select the para/rene option. This will fix the situation and that person's loyalty will be yours once again.

    Now for the people that did not know about this fight and sided with Jack/Miranda. You can fix this by doing the same thing that I mentioned to fix the Legion/Tali fight as long as you have %100 para/rene or %50 and assault power evolved into champion. I do not know which classes this will work for because I am not sure if they all have an evolution that doubles para/rene scores but I can confirm that it will work for the vanguard.

    These were my choices for the final suicide mission:
    FIRST CHOICES:
    Specialist (person going through the tunnels): Legion
    Second Group Leader (fire team): Garrus
    Personal Group (people you fight with): Samara and Grunt

    SECOND CHOICES:
    Escort (survivors back to ship): Mordin
    Specialist (biotic shielding): Jack
    Second Group Leader (fire team): Garrus
    Personal Group: Miranda and Legion

    FINAL FIGHT CHOICES:
    Take with you Miranda and Legion

    *Make sure you choose Garrus for both fire team leaders and also make sure they are all loyal!

    PLEASE IF YOU HAVE SUCCESS WITH THIS PLAN OR HAVE CONFIRMATION THAT OTHER CLASSES HAVE EVOLUTIONS THAT BOOST PARA/RENE SCORES PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT THAT SAYS SO!! THANKS AND HOPE IT WORKS!!
    Showing most recent comments. View all comments.
    I x ShockWaveZI went with this one as the original wasn't completely accurate despite being discrete.

    Mordin always died for me so the alternative was as you stated to send him back with the surviving crew members.

    Achievement popped on my 2nd play though and this was on insane so got 3 separate achievements for 225G and reached the 1000G for the game so that's me happy.

    Thanks for the advice.
    Posted by I x ShockWaveZ on 13 Nov 15 at 22:26
    Zeta SighThe guide was great for me until the end where Mordin died. I reloaded and took him and Miranda to the final fight and he survived. I've read around the web that he has the lowest 'hold the line' score. So if he has to hold the door before the final fight then he's [retty much a goner.
    Posted by Zeta Sigh on 04 Jan 17 at 18:05
    The SCHWARTZ 00Even though you're gone, this guide still works perfectly after all these years. Thanks, stranger.
    Posted by The SCHWARTZ 00 on 25 May 21 at 06:23
  • MitzurugiMitzurugi
    28 Mar 2010 28 Mar 2010
    Here's how i did it without having Zaeed and Jack's loyalty:
    1st Choices:
    Tech Specialist - Tali
    2nd Squad leader - Miranda
    My Squad - Thane & Jack

    2nd Choices:
    Survivor escort - Legion
    Biotic Shield - Samara
    2nd Squad leader - Miranda
    Finale Fight - Thane & Samara
    I choose the Renegade option in the end, i don't know if it matters, but there you have the recipe for "No One Left Behind" without the loyalty of Jack and Zaeed :-)
    Showing most recent comments. View all comments.
    Dan vasNormandyThumbs up from me! Don´t know why the negatives.
    Posted by Dan vasNormandy on 12 Oct 11 at 21:53
    l306l PoRkRoAsTGreat Guide, the key to this is to have your final battle team made up of Thane and Samara this prompts Jack tolead the dialogue in the cutscene and she won't die.
    Posted by l306l PoRkRoAsT on 14 Mar 12 at 11:35
    Taili died for me and I didn't have Mirandas and legions loyalty
    Posted on 12 Jul 14 at 00:41
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