Mass Effect: Andromeda

[Henry88]

BioWare has confirmed it's forming plans for an all-new Mass Effect game, which is in development alongside a new IP for "built from the bottom-up with all new gaming technology".

Mass Effect 3 Screenshot
BioWare Edmonton and Montreal general manager Aaryn Flynn confirmed as much in a new blog post discussing the future of BioWare in the wake of the just-announced retirement of co-founders Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka.

Mass Effect 3 brought the current story arc to a close, but of course that doesn't spell the end for the much-loved franchise. "The Mass Effect universe is vast, and [Executive Producer Casey Hudson] and our teams have plans for another full game," confirmed Flynn.

"'Where to go next?' with such a project has been a question a lot of us have been asking, and we'd all love to hear your ideas."

Even more excitingly, Flynn goes on to reveal that its also working on a new IP seemingly for next-gen hardware. "Both Dragon Age and Mass Effect started as single games but grew into vast universes. But we aren't stopping there," he said.

"While Casey continues to oversee the development of our new Mass Effect project, he and his leads are putting together their vision for an all new game set in a fictional universe, built from the bottom-up with all new gaming technology."

Exciting stuff

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/369107/bioware-confirms-new-mass-effect-game-all-new-ip-in-development/

a month old mind you but still nice to here.

[MSTJedi]

Yeah, I'm glad to see they'll keep going with the Mass Effect story. Interested to see where they'll go with it. Pre- or post-Shepard.

[Sideswipe]

Mass Effect:  The Wrath of Garrus!

[Henry88]

The next Mass Effect – or not-Mass Effect – will not star Shepard. *Gasp!* I know, that is a shock to no-one. But who will it star, instead? Well, not ‘Shepard 2′, according to BioWare Montreal producer Fabrice Condominas, owner of a pretty amazing name.

Speaking with VG247, Condominas said of the next installment, “There is one thing we are absolutely sure of – there will be no more Shepard, and the trilogy is over. This is really our starting point. Now the Mass Effect universe is vast, and very, very rich. So at this point in time, we don’t even know what kind of time frame we’re going to be in. All we’re doing is more gathering ideas from the teams, gathering feedback to see several things.”

“So first, we don’t want to make ‘Shepard 2′, or Mass Effect 4 with like, ‘oh there’s no more Shepard but you’re a soldier in the universe’,” Fabrice went on. “So this will be a very, very different context for sure, and nothing has been decided on the rest.”

What do you think? Would you rather see someone completely new step into the series, or see the focus shift to one of Shepard’s cronies? Human or alien? Sequel? Prequel? The possibilities are endless!

http://games.on.net/2012/10/the-next-mass-effect-protagonist-will-not-be-shepard-2-says-bioware/

[Pak-Man]

I want the next game to be the adventures of Blasto - The First Hanar Spectre!

I was actually thinking the other day that it would be interesting to play a Mass Effect game where you were a galactic political figure, and you had to drum up support for your campaign similar to how you drum up support for the war in Mass Effect 3.

[mrbasehart]

They'll do what they've done before - set it a few hundred years later so they don't have to deal with any of the junk they put at the end of the ME 3.   It'd be cool if you were able to pick your race.

[MSTJedi]

It'd be cool if you were able to pick your race.

This. One of the cool things about the ME3 multiplayer is that you can actually run around shooting things as a krogan, turian, asari, quarian, etc. I'd like to see an ME game branch out from the human-centricity of the last series.

[Pak-Man]

I kind of disagree. Choosing a different race would (And should) drastically change the game, and I feel like one of the reasons Mass Effect's story felt so much stronger than Dragon Age was that they were focused on one story. That story had its own permutations, but there's no way a Krogan (For instance) could have experienced anything like Shepard's story. Now if they WANTED To put 5 or 6 completely unique stories in one game, I wouldn't complain, but I suspect that would be more work than they could handle.

[mrbasehart]

I kind of disagree. Choosing a different race would (And should) drastically change the game, and I feel like one of the reasons Mass Effect's story felt so much stronger than Dragon Age was that they were focused on one story. That story had its own permutations, but there's no way a Krogan (For instance) could have experienced anything like Shepard's story. Now if they WANTED To put 5 or 6 completely unique stories in one game, I wouldn't complain, but I suspect that would be more work than they could handle.

They sort of tackled that with the first Dragon Age game, where the origins for the characters were all different, but the main storyline was basically the same, but with subtle changes here and there that conformed to whatever race/sex you were.

[MSTJedi]

I kind of disagree. Choosing a different race would (And should) drastically change the game, and I feel like one of the reasons Mass Effect's story felt so much stronger than Dragon Age was that they were focused on one story. That story had its own permutations, but there's no way a Krogan (For instance) could have experienced anything like Shepard's story. Now if they WANTED To put 5 or 6 completely unique stories in one game, I wouldn't complain, but I suspect that would be more work than they could handle.

They sort of tackled that with the first Dragon Age game, where the origins for the characters were all different, but the main storyline was basically the same, but with subtle changes here and there that conformed to whatever race/sex you were.

Exactly. Even Shepard had the chance to have different pasts to choose from. It would be hard to do if it was a prequel because of humanity's non-prominence, but if it's set after the trilogy, it would be easy to make any species part of C-Sec, a Spectre, or some new multi-species military organization.

[Henry88]

Yanick Roy is the studio director over at Bioware Montreal, and via the Bioware Blog he officially announced they are working on the 4th installment of the Mass Effect series. Many fans are actually upset by the news of a 4th game. My sister has told me she wont even play the game. Being a massive Mass Effect fan, the fact that they “ended” the trilogy, and are now continuing on with the series is a big no no to many fans. Personally I say if a game is still awesome, selling well, and popular, why end it? It would be financially half retarded to end a series if that was the case. That’s why Resident Evil will never come to an end. More past the break.

The game will be made with the Frostbite engine which currently powers Battlefield 3, and will power the 4th Battlefield and Dragon Age III. Yanick also makes mention to keep an eye on their jobs page because they are always looking for new people to consider.

“The other thing I can tell you is that, while it will be very respectful of the heritage built over the course of the first three games, with the original trilogy now concluded and the switch over to a new engine, we are exploring new directions, both on the gameplay and story fronts. You can still expect the pillars the franchise is known for to be fully intact though, including diverse alien races, a huge galaxy to explore, and of course rich, cinematic storytelling.”

http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3203247/mass-effect-4-officially-announced-to-be-in-the-works/

[Henry88]

Bioware and Casey Hudson are plainly trying to avoid some of the missteps of Mass Effect 3 with their next game. There’s a clear effort to keep the fans involved in the development process this time around, and
Mass Effect (video game)

Mass Effect (video game) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hudson is maintaining contact right from the beginning:

“Parsing through your thoughts on the next #ME game. Would you be more interested in a game that takes place before the trilogy, or after?”

Needless to say, there’s already a solid response on the Twitter page. We saw earlier this year that, with a story like Mass Effect, fans felt they had just as much ownership as the developers did and it appears that the team is going to make Mass Effect 4 reflect that growing reality. Probably not on the line of some sort of crowdsourced game, but I imagine this will be the first of many such olive branches to the fan community offered by Hudson.

Personally, I’d have to hope that any game took place before the events of the Mass Effect trilogy. What always drew me into the games was the fully realized, functioning, intergalactic world, and that world started to lose its luster under the oppressive figure of the Reaper invasion. Plus, continuity would be a nightmare for any sort of sequel – the fate of the galaxy was very much up in the air depending on player choices in Mass Effect 3. Juggling those scenarios could just be strange. Let’s start fresh with the best of the series so far.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/11/20/mass-effect-3-director-asks-fans-if-me4-should-be-sequel-or-prequel/

[Pak-Man]

Unless they want humanity out of the equation entirely (Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing), the only prequel adventure I could think of would be the adventures of Lt. Anderson, and the novels already told that story.

[mrbasehart]

Unless they want humanity out of the equation entirely (Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing), the only prequel adventure I could think of would be the adventures of Lt. Anderson, and the novels already told that story.

They could do the Human/Turian war. 

[Sideswipe]

The First Contact war lasted like 4 days.  I'm not sure what they could do with that?