BioWare’s recent announcement of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, a remaster of the original three titles in the series, has some people speculating about where Mass Effect 5 will take players next. After the negative response to Mass Effect: Andromeda at launch, followed by the recently revamped Anthem, some players have been worried that the Mass Effect series as a whole.
Now that BioWare has made it clear that Mass Effect is still on the company’s radar, fans of the series are not only excited for the look back at the original trilogy coming to HD, but a look forward for these games. The best look forward that players can get at the moment comes from Mass Effect: Andromeda, the title that was intended to set off a brand new series outside of the scope of the Milky Way Galaxy and Commander Shepard’s fight against the Reapers.
From there, the most interesting implications of what could come next for the series is something that wasn’t very clearly explored in Andromeda, but could use a deeper dive in the next title. At first glance, the game only introduced two new alien races, the Kett and the Angara, but within the twists and turns of the story, players are given a glimpse at a whole galactic ecosystem. So, if BioWare is planning to continue Mass Effect with Andromeda 2 then taking a look at the history of the gene stealing Kett could be the best way to open up exploration to the other species throughout the galaxy.
A fairly large part of the story of Andromeda follows the struggle between the Kett and the Angara, with the game periodically hinting that the Kett are up to some sort of nefarious experiments by abducting their enemies. Eventually, the game reveals that this experimentation has led to the Kett assimilating the genes of Angara into themselves and creating thralls out of the new alien race through these experiments. However, from the way the game presents this revelation, there are clearly a number of alien races in Mass Effect: Andromeda that the Kett have assimilated and absorbed the genes of.
The players unfortunately don’t learn much about these new alien races that the Kett have apparently been picking off of worlds from across the galaxy and splicing into their own DNA. That being said, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the colonies of the Heleus Cluster can’t find out more about who these previously assimilated races were, either through Kett logs or some sci-fi reverse genetic engineering. In fact, it’s more than likely that this is how BioWare intended to resolve the Andromeda mysteries, by finding some way to revive the alien races lost to the Kett, although they may not all be lost.
Fairly early on in Mass Effect: Andromeda, players run into the Angara, the seemingly only intelligent alien race in the Heleus Cluster, and possibly one of few races in the galaxy. It’s clear that their long war with the Kett has taken a toll on the Angaran civilization, with some members of this new alien race being hostile to any and every other species. However, given the fact that Angaran technology doesn’t seem to be much more advanced than the player, it could mean that further exploration could uncover other surviving races, like when humans found other alien races in Mass Effect‘s original history.
At the moment, the lack of new aliens is one of the many fair criticisms of Mass Effect: Andromeda, so exploring more colorful races across the galaxy should be an obvious fix, even if coming up with a dozen new alien designs isn’t exactly easy. There is one more ancient, mysterious alien race called the Jardaan that has been hinted at, but the role they play is similar to the Protheans from the original trilogy and might be best left as a lost race. These ancient creators, who actually made the Angara in the first place, could still even play a part in the lives of other intelligent life, but Mass Effect 5 needs to push a little further than three new races for an entire galaxy.
On the topic of the Andromeda galaxy as a whole, Mass Effect 5 also needs to leave behind the Heleus Cluster as the only explorable section of the galaxy. From the construction of the Arks, all appearing to take a similar form to the Citadel and the Mass Effect Relays that made interstellar travel possible in the original series, it seems like further exploration was the intent. So, BioWare needs to leave the previous Mass Effect locations behind and break out into unexplored territory, hopefully even territory where the ancient Jardaan haven’t travelled yet.
With the emphasis that Mass Effect: Andromeda had on the sense of discovery that comes with exploring a foreign galaxy, it was a little disappointing to see multiple established civilizations already existing there. It’s an old sci-fi trope, but finding aliens of differing levels of technological advancement could be a breath of fresh air for the series, with the player having to make decisions that could impact an entire developing civilization. Pumping the sense of discovery into a host of new aliens is the fix Mass Effect: Andromeda needs, and exploring beyond the limits of the single cluster is the first step towards opening up these opportunities.
Finally, the Jardaan are a massive dangling thread from Mass Effect: Andromeda that was clearly meant to be a new mystery to uncover over the course of a new trilogy of Mass Effect titles. Naturally, this is something that won’t be explained immediately in Mass Effect 5, although players are going to need more than some vague implications that they were an intelligent race that built the Angara and Remnant structures. However, their ability to create new races is as promising for new races across Andromeda as the Kett and their affinity for assimilating them.
While it’s clear that the Kett are the current organic stand-in for the synthetic Reapers and the Jardaan are a stand-in for Protheans, it’s where Mass Effect: Andromeda deviates from the original that makes it stand out. So, if BioWare wants the future of the Andromeda series to stand out on its own, then it might be necessary for the next game to deviate from these scripted roles and start expanding the galaxy.
Mass Effect 5 is reportedly in development.
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