Since the launch of Mass Effect Andromeda in 2017, the sci-fi franchise that defined a generation of video games has laid mostly dormant. DLC and future plans for Mass Effect were cancelled as Bioware became a studio in transition. It still is. This year, Anthem proved to be a flop that had a nearly impossible time growing a player base. It seemed like Bioware as a studio is both in the middle of a big pivot or about to be shuttered. However, it does seem like sequels to Dragon Age and Mass Effect are in the works in various stages of production.
Rumors of a new Mass Effect game have been cropping up, which leaves fans wondering if the next game will be a sequel to Andromeda, Mass Effect 4, or a brand new take on the series. A new Mass Effect game is reportedly in development at Bioware with some of the team who worked on Anthem. There are many directions Mass Effect can go, but which options are the most exciting and which are the most realistic?
Mass Effect 4
The obvious answer to what fans want from Mass Effect is, of course, Mass Effect 4. But what exactly does it mean to make a game called Mass Effect 4 after the finality, and controversy, of the ending of Mass Effect 3? What does this mean as more than just a branding move?
It’s hard not to wonder which plotlines Mass Effect 4 would explore. After the cataclysmic ending of Mass Effect 3, there would have to be a major time jump to tell a story about rebuilding the Milky Way galaxy. Ideally, this game could showcase how the choices Shepard and his crew made in the original trilogy impacted the state of the world in the future. That means unfortunately fan favorite crew members likely can’t be brought back to a new story, there just aren’t any great ways to justify it narratively.
In Andromeda, the series jumped to a new galaxy and didn’t actually introduce many new species and still focused largely on humans. A big leap for Mass Effect 4 would be to take the franchise to a new place in the universe, a galaxy in a different time and place with new aliens and societies with new problems to solve.
For the purposes of EA trying to sell a Mass Effect game again after the bad blood that Andromeda has caused, Mass Effect 4 is the easy prediction. It is direct and to the point, implying that this is a reboot of the franchise and a return to the greatness of the numbered games. A numbered sequel always has more prestige, especially when the games without numbered titles don’t hit. It’s easy for EA to write Andromeda off as just a spin-off. Mass Effect 4, that’s the game fans want. But with the name comes great pressure. If Mass Effect 4 were to fail it is hard to see the franchise existing beyond what could be the final attempt to make it relevant again.
Mass Effect Andromeda 2
It makes a lot of sense for Mass Effect to return to a numbered format to make Andromeda seem like more of an outlier. Mass Effect 4 would likely have to be a huge departure for the story and setting, but remember that there were plot lines that didn’t quite get wrapped up in Andromeda. It’s safe to say that some had barely even started to develop, with information being held for planned DLC and future sequels.
Originally, DLC was planned for Mass Effect Andromeda that would wrap up the Quarian ark that plotline that was introduced in the game. This was a big part of the game that felt unfinished in a sense and the developers never got a chance to wrap up that story line. There is interesting room to make a sequel here that could be interesting. Resolving this issue would not necessarily mean making Mass Effect Andromeda 2 if somehow the next Mass Effect game could make incorporate or make reference to the fate of the Quarian ark.
The failures of Mass Effect Andromeda were not just on the technical aspects of the game being a bit of a mess. The characters were mostly human and largely not as compelling as the characters of the original trilogy. In many ways, the crew defines a Mass Effect game. It’s why a game like Mass Effect 2, which is largely not concerned with an overarching plot but solving problems for crew members, can be one of the strongest games of the decade. A sequel to Andromeda would have to pick up with these characters many players didn’t care for, a setback Bioware wouldn’t have to deal with if it just made a new game.
A Completely New Game
Anything we see from Bioware following the response to Andromeda will, without a doubt, be a completely new game from anything in the Mass Effect universe. But chances of it trying to go down the rabbit hole by trying to launch a whole new sub-brand again. Entitling the game Mass Effect 4 would allow the game to gather immediate hype and also put it in a good place to start a new trilogy in the vein of the numbered Star Wars movies.
But a bold move would be to break the chains of the cover shooter era that so thoroughly defined the era when the Mass Effect trilogy was originally released. The only way to have a Mass Effect game break new ground would be to change the combat mechanics. Fans want an RPG with the dialogue options and role-playing depth of the Mass Effect trilogy, but in terms of what it can play like the future is flexible. The possibilities to take the game in either the direction of action or strategy still remain on the table.
