Mass Effect 4 just got a new teaser at The Game Awards which seemed to confirm that the next game will continue the story from Mass Effect 3 and leave the events of Andromeda far behind. In doing so, the trailer seems to show BioWare making some big decisions about the Mass Effect canon with huge implications for the next game.
These implications should be embraced, not pushed to the side. If Mass Effect 4 is going help recapture the success of the original series, the game will need to explore the full ramifications of its timeline and what that means for Shepard if they are still alive.
Mass Effect 4 seems to confirm that the Destroy ending to Mass Effect 3 is canon. In this ending, Shepard destroyed all synthetic life, including the Reapers. It is considered the best ending by many players, if admittedly the least diplomatic, because with a high enough Effective Military Strength score the player gets a short clip of the debris at the end which implies that Shepard may in fact still be alive.
However, Mass Effect 4 needs to embrace the fact that the Reapers are dead – it shouldn’t bring them back, and it shouldn’t replace them with an equally existential threat. Mass Effect 4 needs to explore what it means for the galaxy and its inhabitants to live after their lives were saved, including the different tolls paid by Mass Effects alien species during the war.
The piece of N7 armor in the trailer has many fans speculating that Shepard survived the end of Mass Effect 3. If so, players should be given the opportunity to explore what it means to be Shepard post-saving the galaxy, instead of just being thrown right back in to another galaxy-threatening conflict. Of course, the next game will need stakes. However, BioWare should take the time to do some proper world-building first to explore the post-Reaper universe and its full ramifications.
One other aspect of the Destroy ending is the loss of the Mass Relays. The Mass Relays were the ancient machines that, when discovered, allowed species to employ the series eponymous “mass effect” to travel at faster-than-light speeds. With the Relays destroyed, the galactic community of the Milky Way will be no more. Everyone in the galaxy will be stuck where they were when Shepard destroyed the Reapers and the Mass Relays with one stroke. There are plenty of big implications that could be explored by this. First, it means there will be people of different species scattered all over the galaxy.
It’s likely that the Mass Effect 4 trailer takes place in Earth’s solar system, as Earth was the site of the final confrontation in Mass Effect 3, and it would make sense that everyone who was there is still stuck in the system with the Mass Relay gone. However, that means a bunch of different alien species who were fighting the reapers are now severed from their home worlds and governments in a solar system with one habitable planet.
These refugees and the way they adapt to live around humans, plus the fact that these races are now essentially another part of Earth’s solar system instead of just visitors, could be a very interesting bit of world building in Mass Effect 4. There will doubtless be some who regret the destruction of the Mass Relays and are trying to find their own ways to recreate faster-than-light travel as well.
Mass Effect 4 could take place entirely within Earth’s solar system, with all its diverse new inhabitants. However, the game could also see the galaxy find a new way to travel FTL, possibly even one which allows for far faster travel to the Andromeda Galaxy and back. If so, however, BioWare should avoid undermining the destruction of the Mass Relays by having this event take place between games and should instead integrate it into the plot of Mass Effect 4.
If the Destroy ending has in fact been made canon and Shepard is alive, then it is a version of Shepard who made the decision to kill their own squadmates in order to save the galaxy from the Reaper threat. This means Shepard is responsible for the death of Legion and all the other Geth, regardless of whether or not peace between the Geth and the Quarians was successfully negotiated in Mass Effect 3. It also means Shepard killed EDI, the artificial intelligence that ran the Normandy and who started a relationship with the ship’s pilot, Joker.
Mass Effect 4 should explore a galaxy where synthetic life, though much feared, was suddenly and brutally snuffed out in order to save the organics. Shepard made a huge sacrifice at the end of Mass Effect 3, and the fact that Shepard appeared to make that sacrifice themself may have satiated those who felt that Commander Shepard was too willing to sacrifice others to stop the Reapers.
However, if Shepard is alive then it’s possible some people like the Normandy’s Joker will see them differently. It’s also possible that Shepard themself will be more cynical and will carry the guilt of what they did to stop the Reapers at the end of Mass Effect 3, essentially doing to synthetic life what the Reapers were trying to do to organic life – destroying it to save the galaxy.
Mass Effect 4 can’t look to the past. It needs to embrace the changes necessary to start telling the story again and explore the implications of that timeline to the fullest. Only then will BioWare be able to craft the tight, character-driven story that fans came to expect in the original trilogy and which could could get the franchise back up on its feet.
A new Mass Effect game is currently in development.
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