Mass Effect 4 star: ‘we don’t want Shepard 2′ – BioWare

I would be interested in seeing them choose a non-human main character this time and really exploring things that the Mass effect trilogy didn’t.

It would be great to play the game from the perspective of say, a Turian or Asari – hell, they could even pull a “Dragon Age” and have different origin stories. That would work out quite well. A Krogan, from the renovated/devestated world of Tuchanga (affected by your ME3 choice) who starts to look for his fortune…

They really could go miles with this sort of stuff. It would do a lot to recover my faith in the ME series.

EDIT: And maybe not call it Mass Effect? That would be great – set in the same universe, but distanced somehow. Almost like COD and Modern Warfare titles.

I’d rather they give us a character in this universe, rather than just a template. Actually connect my character, integrate it. I often felt like an unanchored boat on a river, in ME trilogy. Explore the mundane, with the hi-octane. The world is different, it’s new. That can be a huge advantage, for player, and studio.

Mass Effect = Shepard. I just want to play with one of my favorite character. End of story ^^

I agree with Hirmetrium, a “Dragon Age” thingy is definitely something I’d like to see. But as far as influence of the ME trilogy go, I think they should go far enough in the future so decisions made don’t have a significant impact.

That would be nice to see, but who knows what direction they’ll end up going with for this universe.

Go back to the time of the Protheans and do a story centred around the time of their downfall at the hands of the Reapers. If that was a trilogy, I’d buy it in a heartbeat.

Gimme Protheans! It would be super nice to follow up their fall in another trilogy ♥

I would really like to see a game based on the First Contact War, where they play from both Turian and Human sides, Halo style.

I want it so we can import our save from previous games. It will affect the game, and also, I want to be able to choose race, and every character to be able to be different.

@3 It is very sad to see that you consider a character like the Grey Warden (Dragon Age: Origin) as just a template.

@10 In less it’s a game that’s based During the time period of mass effect 1-3 I can’t see them using your save. The endings are to different to allow that.

I agree with a Prothean era game!

Prothean Era? So, I would fight the Reapers again, and I would know, that I fail, even bevor I start the Game… that really would be boring as Hell.

It doesn’t have to be when the Prothean’s where at war with the Reapers, It could be before!! It could be from the view of an’adopted’ Prothean, showing the true Protheans dark side ect.. There’s loads.

@13, I’m with you on that one. Plus from most of what we know, it would really only be Protheans that we deal with too.

I would like to see something move away completely from the reapers. Maybe even something along the lines of the Krogan Uprising. There’s some really interesting intergalactic politics and past conflicts they could exploit to make a really interesting game.

I would have no problem playing an ME game where we didn’t have any, or at least very few humans at all. All the races are decent to me, Krogan, Salarian, Turian, Batarian, Geth, Quarian… Asari not as much.

I think it should be about one of the older races that fought the reapers that we don’t know anything about, such as the race that caused the great Rift Valley on Klendagon. http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Klendagon. It could be said that this powerful race fought the reapers but were losing so they left the Milky Way galaxy and would someday return. But when they return which could take place after ME3, another race of aliens followed them from one of the other galaxies and began waging war. A waring alien race that laid siege to many other galaxies so this caused the aliens who left the Milky Way to flee back to their original galaxy cause it had not yet been conquered by the waring alien race!?

Andd it could be said that the Aliens from the Milky Way that left and come back seen this new waring race as more formidable than the reapers and wanted to lure them back to the Milky Way during the time of a reaping so that the reapers and waring race would destroy eachother, only to find the reapers had been destroyed and the Milky Way is threatened once again but now by the waring race.

The Problem really is that there has to be a lot to shoot. Thats something we have to Face because thats the Way it goes. Parts like the over one Hour Walkaround on the Citadel without using your Gun when we got the First Time on the Citadel in ME1 is not really something that seems very possible. ME got far, far away from a Direction like that.
So they have to make a lot to shoot, because its a shooter first. Not particular the Reapers, but doing a lot of Stuff without the Gun is just so unlikeley. I can be terrible Wrong with this, but I really dont have a good Feeling about any future ME-Games.

@11: I’ve not said anything about the Dragon Age Grey Warden character, the character in Origins.
I, in fact, think of that one higher than “Shepard”. He/She has a place in the Dragon Age saga. At the start of the first game, he is in a place of wealth, with his family, and their hounds.
His life is interrupted, he’s rescued, and starts anew. (That’s no template, and there’s an amount of the surrounding world established, early on.)

Shepard on the other hand, is like a bungling surgeon, prodding and poking at seams, trying to tear the ME Universe to his own wish, but is often forcibly, and notably, kept separate at arms length from it.

In DA:O, there was no time that I was pulled from the game by an inflexibility of writing. With Mass Effect, there were several occasions this took place in the trilogy. I found Shepard, and the lazer-focus on him, to be amongst the few shortcomings in that series. So, I am happy that Bioware will both try something different, and plan a return to this franchise, already.

“So they have to make a lot to shoot, because its a shooter first.”
First of all, I groan at that. What a low bar to target.

So, not another Shepard, but another shooter. Well, wouldn’t that be a change! It’s only fun in that world to oppose, and damage…? That’s really constraining creativity, (to my taste putting a stranglehold on it) if they just make another war. I reckon you can well have opposition without just ramping the scale, continually. Mass Effect has many stories to tell.

@13: Two words, bud: Halo REACH. Most everybody at the time knew that REACH fell early on in the timeline, yet dare I say millions of people loved it.

@15: Prothean, to my understanding, was less of a race and more of a title. To quote Javik: “… In time, all races called themselves ‘Prothean’”. You would still have the diversity of the original trilogy.

And honestly, I think it’d be cool to have a post-trilogy world, where you import your save and play the game based on your final decision. Downside would be that if ME2/3 was on two discs, imagine three different games.

I’d love to see a new character or to be able to play Garrus or pick my own race ala DA:O.

To be honest though:

A) I’d love to see a Universal Combat game done right. You can fly your ship, pop out and engage in ground combat.

B) A Privateer flavored game. You are a merc doing your own thing in your own way. Sure there is a story, but there are missions and you can do the story at your leisure.

C) No more Shepard. His story is done. Please let us pick something new….also, bring back Drew to flesh out his world even more.

Lovey you Bioware!

“No more Shepard and the trilogy is over”.

What they’re saying exactly with all this discourse? I mean… We should understand the term “trilogy” something like… the complete content of three episodes? In this case, it will be sufficient Bioware to say they will do a new game. Nothing more!

It is not necessary they makes references to a supposed “Mass Effect Universe” because, based on their declarations, a future new game will have nothing in common.

I think Bioware doesn’t manage to be clear/ sincere.

Ps. I miss Shepard so much.

What I think will be super nice is that the next ME game will most probably be next gen, and that means there will be a lot of available memory and processing power to open up interaction in the game. I don’t want to shoot all the fkg time, I want to interact in other ways than with my gun or my mouth in this universe. I want to do all kind of nice things like drinking at the bar and such. Also, I want more planet exploration like in the first mass effect. I want to visit more barracks, houses, etc. The planet scanning was lame imo. I want to do more missions on spaceships, etc.

Plus, I didn’t really like Shepard and the story around him. “He’s the only hope, and blah blah blah blah.” I mean, come on. The mighty human. The one without whom the world is over. I’m glad we’re done with him. And I’m glad we’re done with the reapers.

Can we have a game where you can play as a spectre and none of this end of the world bullshit

sewjhrtj

Its quite simple – and what they SHOULD have done at the end of me3…..JOKER, he should have come to pick up the mantle left by shepard when shot by the beam. That was the end of shepard, or should have been. Imagine him and EVE (another ai of course) being the ones to carry on to the protal.

Its a shame they completly destroyed that trilogy with one bad, or at least rushed and silly idea. So once again I say Joker, upgraded leg supports with eve etc etc etc…..btw I wrote my own me3 ending which is around the above. As a fan I had to do so after reaching the end choice and making my choice to shut the game down rather than any of the pointless and quite stupid 3 on offer, so no I have not technically completed it, but did enjoy the last installment of sheppard up to that point.

Would have preffered my end but how many of you out there have your own endings already ?

I feel as though a story line based on a few years following the ending of mass effect 3 would be exciting. We could see how all of the various races came together to help rebuild the galaxy. Idk just seems like it would be nice to know how things pan out a few years after shepard save the galaxys ass and all. Plus if you chose to destroy all synthetics ending and got the chest breathing end maybe we could somehow run onto our old Shepard player. Idk just an idea

NO NO NO some of these people just don’t get itthe mass effect games show humanities effect on the universes so having any other race as the main character is just doomed from the the start. But yeah there are a lot of good here like being able to import your me3 witch everyone wants to see. I’ve came up with some of my on ideas if you import your ME3 game you’ll here about how the krogan are ether spreading to new worlds and helping rebuild after the war or you’ll hear about how they are hardly seen do to the genophage where way they’re still those that hold hatred toward the rest of the races so you’ll fight panty of them and the racni if you saved them in the first one and the theed one you see them on some missions or hear about how the queen was contacted by the council , you or the reapers depending on if you became a reaper died or lived; to become the new keepers since the cidedel blew up

If any of y’all out there like my ideas I’ll add some more or if y’all diss agree please let me know

i dont belive this. we get a shitty ending of mass effect 3 and now sheperd is just going to vanish, i will buy a mass effect 4 if it comes but i dont think i can enjoy it like i did with mass effect 1,2 and 3.
when i started to play this game i really loved it and the best of the game just got destroyd in the ending off mass effect 3,that you where able to choose you destiny,
you can choose to refuse the star child and keep on fighting but then humanity just gets wipe out cuz the reapers are probebly invinseble, BUT THEY ARE NOT!!! even since the start off mass effect they said that we can`t defeat the reapers but still sheperd defeated them in every kind off way.
if theres going to be a mass effect 4 i will buy and hope that they do the same thing they did with the trilogy, its just sad that a good trilogy go to waste only becuse of the 15 min ending in mass effect 3

With all due respect to those wanting non-human races for ME.
ME is a story about humanity and its evolution into the galactic community..not about the salarians, or the asari. Its our perspective.

So, no..I personally would feel the game went from serious space drama to fluffy monsters in space crap that cheapens the whole series.

As far as where to go from here. Chances are they will canonise the red ending (pretty much assumed by most fans after the end of 3) and move on from there. Thats really the only pathway left open for future storys.
I would bet a dollar this is what will happen. I am fine with that. Will be nice to see how many geth made it through the destruction

They will have to also offically declare other aspects..such as krogan fertility, quarian numbers and if they are back on Rannoch, etc..again, fine with all this.
I am only worried that they may be thinking of a prequil..which in my opinon would -suck!!!- compared to where they could go.

I want more complexity, modifiable, and open..turn the 40 hour game into 200 hours (see skyrim’s sandbox)

The only reason for a ME3 save game import would be for purposes of backstory resolutions
aka, if you nerfed the research and shot mordin, it speaks of how some other salarian a few years later came along and resolved the genophage,or how even though you let the quarians die in favor of the geth, a couple years later, some geth came across a few thousand quarians and made peace, etc. basically to unscrew what you screwed up to official line things. This is the only viable use of a save game import..and would probably be little more than a beginning cartoon slider like in ME2 to catch you up.

Really looking forward to hearing more. Bioware is still aces in my book. For all their sins, they still remain kings of character development.

Now..if bioware and bethesda got together…
gamers nirvana.

eh, just rehash the same old story 100 years in the future with different aliens to have lesbo sex with.

This is just “greate”.

How can they just kill a char like shep?
I agree that it should be a way to keep on going with the savefile.
I dont agree with ME 4 without shep.

This is because my understanding and many mores, is that Mass Effect universe is about shep. And they say that they can change the name og the next game? Well, thats also not a good idea, the concept would be the same, just with another name. Still gonna remind us of shep.

Its unbelievable how they treat their fans after getting a lot of money to play around with. Businesses like this should get a law, or a very very short leash.

For all fans, we should realy just boikott the whole firm, both of them, EA and BW.

As far as i understand is that a firm that makes game should be realy carefull with what they do. It is the fans that support them, feed them, give them a job. Why do they play with our feelings like this.

I have been broken up inside by this for months now, crying, confusion, wanting. Someone got to put them i someonce A”#!

And for the guys that wondring, yes i am a blood fan of game. And the number one is Mass Effect 1,2,3. I havent been more disappointed over a games ending then ME 3, and how BW/EA manage how they make game and think they are goods.

Now we see the truth of EA’s Bioware purchase, just crap out more sequels of famous IP’s.

They really should think about going open world. it’s a momentous undertaking but since there is no immediate threat to the galaxy. just imagine if you could create your own merc gang or join the alliance or be turian or asari. imagine the possibilities.

I want to play as an Asari end of story

I hope the game will somehow link to ending you chose in ME3, and in red ending shepard would live!

@38 I don’t think it will be a sequel, might be what SotC and Dark Souls were: spiritual successors. Although SotC happens before ICO, so I hope the next ME is something quite like this.

No no no no no I don’t want a new character I want sheperd i got to far to start all over playing in the prothen era will suck so bad I will throow the disc out of my window the reapers are gone but what about thier creator ? Bioware

Bioware will have to work hard and replace sheperd for the blue and the green endings but for those who see Shepard breath at the end should get to play another time with sheperd and no prequals only sequals

@41

They won’t be continuing with Sheperd nor are they going to make a separate game for those that got the “secret” ending. THats what this article talks about, they will be starting from scratch in the same universe.

Well I hope i won’t be disappointed

What #1 and #2 said – To be able to play a non human and have its own origin story would be awesome!

What #9 said – First contact war would be a good choice.

What #7 said – Playing in a previous war with the reapers would be nice, though it would end depressingly. Maybe be the prothean from ME 3 and tell his story.

If I had my wish, it would definitely be dragon age influenced with multiple characters choices and not all humans. I would love to play a turian or Asari, or even a prior wiped out race. The world has alot of rich and varied history, id love to see that further explored but a bit more open world. Think Privateer or freelancer meets Dragon age.

I don’t think I will play this new mass effect my fav series and character and followers it just wouldn’t feel right playing a different character in a universe I’m soo use to plus the secret ending could invite so much more for Shepard also mass effect has become known for what it is now changing that could really risk everything I’m leaving this one when it comes out

I think it would be good to create our own character again; whether human or non-human wih different attributes. Apart from that I’m looking forward to seeing what we get from this but also though, we don’t want to kill the franchise – I’m not paticularly a sci-fi fan but the mass effect trilogy I found brilliant!

I think that the choice to make a new person from a different race is cool, I would like it to not be called mass effect if they go that route but its not a bad concept. I am still a Shepard fanboy tho. I would be thrilled if they brought them (shepard) back. I mean if halo is gonna bring back master chief why not bring back the commander? But I also know some people are tried of shepard (for whatever reason) so who knows. I just hope the game lives up to the first three games regardless of weither it Mass Effect 4 with Shepard. Or something else but from the same universe.

The spelling in this thread seems to be worse than usual. It saddens me.

Honestly, I believe that the events of “Mass Effect 4″ should take place around the same time as the events in Mass Effect 1. But I think you should be able to pick a race. Then you could get your own ship and have a story. Similar to how they did Dragon Age 2.

The Mass Effect trilogy has opened up a vast world with endless possibilities for future games. However, I believe the creators really shot themselves in the foot with the ending of ME3. Creating another game in the same time period, or even before, gives us the inevitable ending that we choose at the end of ME3. While it is most definitely possible for “Mass Effect 4″ to rewind some and start over again in a different direction, the game looses a good deal of its ability to grasp people by their curiosity and drag them in. Even going back to the protheans, their fate is sealed as well, along with any preceding race. It is such a bummer that Mass Effect 3 determined the fate of a galaxy with so many more possibilities stored away in every system and every planet we probed throughout the trilogy.
However, there is a possibility for a game set in the “sealed” fate of the future. Possible unknown alien invaders from other galaxies! From what I can recall, and correct me if I’m wrong, no mention is made throughout the trilogy of anything inter-galactical. Everything is isolated to the Milky Way Galaxy. In my opinion, with the way the trilogy ended this would be a fantastic direction/plot for Mass Effect 4, or whatever is would be called.
But honestly, whichever direction the creators decide to take it, chances are I’m going to buy it and play it again and again. Although some hearts have been broken by the end of this trilogy, the concept of the game is marvelous. It seamlessly reaches out to anyone with in interest in space, technology, war, aliens, planets and much more. Whatever happens, I’m just glad to know there will be more.