While Bioware’s “Mass Effect 3” continues to be one of the best sellers this year, new reports regarding the next “Mass Effect” game are already making rounds on the Internet. Now, per reports, the company has started asking fans if they want the new game to be a prequel or sequel to the previous game.
“Mass Effect” overlord Casey Hudson only previously took to Twitter to quiz fans as to what direction they would like to see the sci-fi adventure franchise take with the next game. More specifically, Hudson has asked whether fans would like to see “Mass Effect 4” take the form of a prequel or sequel to the original trilogy.
Hudson wrote: “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?”
“Mass Effect 4” is said to be currently in the early planning stages, and while BioWare has yet to confirm any concrete details regarding the forthcoming game, it has been established that Commander Shepard will not be featured in the game. Moreover, the developer wants the new hero to be entirely new when compared to the previous protagonist.
“A game set earlier in the series' history may come into conflict with already-established canon. We already know how the human race got to the start of the Mass Effect series (they found a mass relay inside Pluto's moon, fought the turians and got given a nice swanky office on the Citadel),” a Eurogamer report states. “A game set later in the series' history would have to tackle Mass Effect 3's various ending choices, which leave the galaxy in varying states of repair.”
"While [Mass Effect 4] 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," BioWare Montreal studio director Yanick Roy said earlier this month.
This development regarding the game is a new one after it was reported that Bioware confirmed that the new Mass Effect game is in development at the company’s studio, and that it would run on DICE’s new Frostbite 2 engine.
