Mass Effect 4

[Stavroforos]

http://www.vg247.com/2012/10/19/mass...ard-2-bioware/

Mass Effect 4 star: ‘we don’t want Shepard 2′ – BioWare
Mass Effect 4 – or whatever the next Mass Effect will be called – will star a hero that is not just a re-hash of Commander Shepard, BioWare Montreal has revealed to VG247. Find out the studio’s philosophy to crafting the next star of the franchise below.




Speaking with VG247 at a recent EA showcase, BioWare Montreal producer Fabrice Condominas agreed that the studio has never shied away from the fact that Mass Effect will continue after the current trilogy, but with a new hero.

We asked him what the studio’s approach to whatever comes next in the galaxy-hopping franchise will involve, to which Condominas replied, “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’. So this will be a very, very different context for sure, and nothing has been decided on the rest.”

Who do you think is big enough to step into Shepard’s space suit? Maybe you’d like a brand new character who hasn’t been seen before? Let us know what you think below.

Meanwhile, BioWare’s next expansion for Mass Effect 3, the Omega expansion, has been priced and dated by the studio. get all the details here:

Exciting stuff?

[windsupernova]

Lol lets see if all #retake ME guys buy it.(They will)

I think its good the ME universe was interesting-ish and it would be a waste not to see more games set in those universe.

[Shneckie]

I want Bioware to take a break from the ME universe and move onto a new IP, or expand on previous ones like Jade Empire.

[Manuel I Komnenos]

I'd love to see something taking place hundreds of years after the trilogy events with the geopolitical situation radically altered and the emergence of completely new threats.

[Gaidin]

I'd love to see something taking place hundreds of years after the trilogy events with the geopolitical situation radically altered and the emergence of completely new threats.

Screw new threats. Let's just have Galaxy War II, a galactic scale World War II borne only from the politics of pissed off worlds and races with insane leaders.

[Captain Jin]

I want Mass Effect to remain a sci-fi with strong realistic undertones and I want to further explore race and tensions between the races to include politics and so forth. Bioware is not bad at that, I think we all agree the Loghain subplot was more interesting than the actual orc fiends and so forth lol.

What I wouldn't mind seeing and I know most of you will hate me for it... but I wouldn't mind a game that really expands on biotics and tech powers. Basically, something very similar to their current set up gameplay wise with the added addition of destructible surroundings. Can you just imagine insane battles where you're taking cover behind something and a biotic blows your cover to pieces and you have to scramble for something different. Or seeing your own biotics just ravage bad guys to shreds. I mean I always liked seeing rag dolls bounce into crap but how much more bad ass would it be if that biotic push was more like the cutscenes and guys slammed into walls with enough forces to leave a crater and a blood streak.

Maybe, and this is just off the top my head, you play as a super biotic that was tested on like Jack and you escape and are basically involved in this huge plot to find out who it was that captured you, tested on you, and why etc. And the plot would have many twists and turns with people helping you or hindering you and your own decisions could take you along a path of vengeance or simply trying to understand. You could pick your race which would alter how interactions go and perhaps open up some unique mission choices, or (to give reason to play multiple times) add some characters unique to each race. I'd want a smaller selection of possible companions like maybe two or three throughout, but with the addition of unique options per race you choose. And then maybe even in some cases dependent on your actions a unique companion for one race selection might actually be an enemy for another race you select? I dunno, just spit balling here but I think the universe is rich enough to do a lot of good things.

[Stavroforos]

I think that whole biotic premise would be cool for me especially if the game was more of a "you're out on this alone" without the Alliance, Cerberus, or any other organization you have to answer to, and while you get a lot of temporary squad mates, you'll have to actually give them a compelling reason to join you and to stay with you, and not through personal quests, but through something more dynamic.

[Captain Jin]

I think that whole biotic premise would be cool for me especially if the game was more of a "you're out on this alone" without the Alliance, Cerberus, or any other organization you have to answer to, and while you get a lot of temporary squad mates, you'll have to actually give them a compelling reason to join you and to stay with you, and not through personal quests, but through something more dynamic.

Yeah and just the potential of being on the run from some sort of mysterious group where you don't know if its a government or some group like Cerberus. Meanwhile you're dodging would-be assassins or merc teams sent after you.

[Stavroforos]

Yeah and just the potential of being on the run from some sort of mysterious group where you don't know if its a government or some group like Cerberus. Meanwhile you're dodging would-be assassins or merc teams sent after you.

The only problem is that this type of scenario we'd like doesn't really set the character up to play a major role in the universe or to be involved in the galactic opera, unless the people chasing you or something are a rogue shadow organization but then it'd be too much like fighting Cerberus again.

[Captain Jin]

Yeah but does it need to have that galactic soap opera grand feel? I mean I guess it could be grand enough depending on how far they craft this conspiracy and the purpose of the experiments on your character.

[Stavroforos]

Yeah but does it need to have that galactic soap opera grand feel? I mean I guess it could be grand enough depending on how far they craft this conspiracy and the purpose of the experiments on your character.

Well I'd like it to be grand, my best Mass Effect experience was the first one precisely because of this feeling that it conveyed. ME3 but especially ME2 took it down a different road, which wasn't something I found too interesting all things considered.

[The Dude]

Completely unhyped for this. Mass Effect is dead and buried. The fourth installment, no matter its protagonist, will be nothing but an EA cashgrab and I'll be damned if I'm going to cooperate.

[Gaidin]

Completely unhyped for this. Mass Effect is dead and buried. The fourth installment, no matter its protagonist, will be nothing but an EA cashgrab and I'll be damned if I'm going to cooperate.

The hell it is. Whatever you think you have to say about EA and the last five minutes of ME3, the world is frakking awesome. Grand epic space opera is hardly necessary to get fun out of the world. Shephard is hardly necessary to get fun out of the world. Remember, not every story in Warhammer 40k is about Space Marines. In fact, the best ones aren't. The Shephard trilogy would be the easiest damn thing to blow out of the water even with the ending everyone wants.


(In case you missed it, that was an analogy)

[The Dude]

The hell it is. Whatever you think you have to say about EA and the last five minutes of ME3, the world is frakking awesome. Grand epic space opera is hardly necessary to get fun out of the world. Shephard is hardly necessary to get fun out of the world. Remember, not every story in Warhammer 40k is about Space Marines. In fact, the best ones aren't. The Shephard trilogy would be the easiest damn thing to blow out of the water even with the ending everyone wants.


(In case you missed it, that was an analogy)

No, the world isn't frakking awesome anymore. Here's why:

1) The largest threat that the setting could ever have been presented with has been resolved through the convenient appearance of a Reaper killing device. In other words, the setting of Mass Effect is one devoid of tension because even the greatest threat was no threat at all. Shepard lives in a galaxy where everyone can behave like the grandest most irresponsible idiot ever and still save the day because solutions to their problems conveniently present themselves when they are needed, without any prior foreshadowing.

2) Kai Leng lives in this universe.

3) The Leviathans live in this universe.

4) This universe was once inhabited by the Catalyst.

5) This universe is written by two individuals who together believe that the best way to write it is to plan ahead in no way, shape or form.

6) The philosophical premise of the ME universe is one that dictates that organic life is inherently better than synthetic life and that the best way to avoid tension between the two is to either kill synthetics on a cycle or to give them some sort of a magical living essence that makes them the same as organics. EDI seems to believe after the process of synthesis she is alive. I required no convincing, I thought she was pretty alive before that. I thought Legion was pretty alive aswell. But apparently the devs are stuck in some absurd religously-dictated train of thought where things need souls to count as living beings. Archaic mentality.

The true worth of a sci-fi setting for me is in the complexity of its symbolism and metaphorical situations. I want to be able to indulge myself in it and feel like the author really challenged me to think about our future and what certain developments could mean. Mass Effect seemed to be going that direction in ME2 where conversations with Thane and Legion, even Samara and Miranda, had a certain level of philosophical depth. It appears that it's been Mac Walters's holy duty to take a massive dump all over that and give us chewed-out spacebabe sci-fi with anime characters. ME3 was such a massive break in style, in every possible way, that we could dismiss the entire installment as non-canon and it would do the preceding installments no harm at all. In fact it'd be a massive improvement. With the events of ME3 acting as the premise for ME4, there is no possible way that this game could be any good from a story POV.

To put it differently, ME2 forever.

[Gaidin]

No, the world isn't frakking awesome anymore. Here's why:

1) The largest threat that the setting could ever have been presented with has been resolved through the convenient appearance of a Reaper killing device. In other words, the setting of Mass Effect is one devoid of tension because even the greatest threat was no threat at all. Shepard lives in a galaxy where everyone can behave like the grandest most irresponsible idiot ever and still save the day because solutions to their problems conveniently present themselves when they are needed, without any prior foreshadowing.

2) Kai Leng lives in this universe.

3) The Leviathans live in this universe.

4) This universe was once inhabited by the Catalyst.

5) This universe is written by two individuals who together believe that the best way to write it is to plan ahead in no way, shape or form.

6) The philosophical premise of the ME universe is one that dictates that organic life is inherently better than synthetic life and that the best way to avoid tension between the two is to either kill synthetics on a cycle or to give them some sort of a magical living essence that makes them the same as organics. EDI seems to believe after the process of synthesis she is alive. I required no convincing, I thought she was pretty alive before that. I thought Legion was pretty alive aswell. But apparently the devs are stuck in some absurd religously-dictated train of thought where things need souls to count as living beings. Archaic mentality.

The true worth of a sci-fi setting for me is in the complexity of its symbolism and metaphorical situations. I want to be able to indulge myself in it and feel like the author really challenged me to think about our future and what certain developments could mean. Mass Effect seemed to be going that direction in ME2 where conversations with Thane and Legion, even Samara and Miranda, had a certain level of philosophical depth. It appears that it's been Mac Walters's holy duty to take a massive dump all over that and give us chewed-out spacebabe sci-fi with anime characters. ME3 was such a massive break in style, in every possible way, that we could dismiss the entire installment as non-canon and it would do the preceding installments no harm at all. In fact it'd be a massive improvement. With the events of ME3 acting as the premise for ME4, there is no possible way that this game could be any good from a story POV.

To put it differently, ME2 forever.

Are you seriously saying you need a world ending threat to make a universe fun? That's damned shallow. Get off your Lord of the Rings good versus evil save existence as we know it high horse. The best universes out there are just universes that let the characters do the talking. Without the Reapers, that's exactly what ME does.

[The Dude]

Are you seriously saying you need a world ending threat to make a universe fun?

Lol how did you get that from it? No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that you need a threat at all to make the universe fun. Any threat. Whatsoever. That's the point of a plot. There are no threats in the ME universe because in the ME universe solutions to problems are magically conjured up out of nowhere without any form of foreshadowing or basis in the plot. There is no tension because there cannot be a meaningful threat in such a universe.

And do you know why that is? Because by their own admission the writers of Mass Effect do not plan ahead. They only have "very rough stakes in the ground" because "that's the only way you can really do a story like this." All they knew of ME3 after finishing ME2 was that "Shepard was going to fight the Reapers, somehow."

[Stavroforos]

Well then hopefully we won't see you posting in any relevant threads.

[Captain Jin]

I agree. And beyond that Bioware always said they would expand on the universe. It's one of the best the Sci-fis out there and certainly the best in recent years. I'll make you play it if I have to Dude.

[Thanatos]

I sincerely hope that Mass Effect 4 does not do to the franchise what Dragon Age 2 did for its.

[Musthavename]

I sincerely hope that Mass Effect 4 does not do to the franchise what Dragon Age 2 did for its.

This. So much this.

Sadly with the state Bioware is currently in, along with general EA policies mean I wouldn't even consider purchasing a new Mass Effect game, despite it being one of (if not, the) best sci-fi universe out there.