Although it may surprise some fans of the original trilogy, there was no overarching plan for how the Reaper plot would be realized over the original Mass Effect trilogy. As a result, the games’ writers had several ideas which would begin to manifest in the games but would be dropped before Mass Effect 3. The next game, colloquially known as Mass Effect 4, has a chance to reintroduce some of those plotlines.
Mass Effect 4’s new trailer just dropped at The Game Awards 2020, and seems to show the series returning to the Milky Way and possibly even Commander Shepard to continue from the events of the original trilogy. This means that there are several dropped plotlines that could reappear now that Mass Effect appears to be back in the Milky Way.
3 Dark Energy and Biotics
Drew Karpyshyn was the lead writer of both the original Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. He has spoken before about some of the story arc ideas that began to get introduced, particularly in Mass Effect 2, with an eye to integrating them into the main Reaper storyline. Though most of those plotlines never saw the full light of day, original developers are flocking back to BioWare to take part in Mass Effect 4, which means some could certainly be revived.
One major dropped plotline involved Dark Energy, as there are hints in Mass Effect 2 that Dark Energy is beginning to spread across the universe. To recruit Tali the player has to visit the planet of Haestrom, a former quarian colony now occupied by the Geth. Haestrom’s sun is hinted to be releasing strange energy, and if Shepard or their crew members stay in sunlight for an extended period of time, it will deplete both their kinetic and biotic barriers, leaving them extremely vulnerably to damage. Originally, the idea was that Haestrom’s sun was releasing Dark Energy.
Not only is it possible that Dark Energy will return alongside Shepard in Mass Effect 4, but its integration could also help deal with one of BioWare’s biggest narrative challenges to overcome.
2 Time Manipulation
There is already a degree of time manipulation in Mass Effect–the faster-than-light travel enabled by the Mass Relays might be considered a form of it. However, the Dark Energy plotline has hinted that time manipulation could have been a far greater part of Mass Effect’s main plot.
If Dark Energy somehow holds the key to time manipulation, then BioWare may have just found a way out of one narrative corner. Currently, it looks like there will somehow be species from both the Milky Way and Andromeda present in Mass Effect 4, despite the events of Andromeda taking place 600 years later. The “mud skipper” image appears to show an Anagara – a species endemic to Andromeda – while the trailer not only references the image but implies that it takes place on a planet with a Dead Reaper on it, meaning an Anagara could be in the Milky Way.
Just as the discovery of the series’ eponymous “mass effect” led to FTL travel, so too could the discovery of Dark Energy allow for some degree of time manipulation to factor into the plot of Mass Effect 4. For example, a Mass Relay which utilizes Dark Energy as well as Element Zero could be used to bring the characters from Andromeda 600 years into the past. Though time travel elements might seem unlikely, BioWare already appears to be making the move to combine the Milky Way and Andromeda settings, so a drastic move will likely have to be made.
1 Indoctrination Theory
Though there isn’t much indication that this was a part of the writers’ intent, Indoctrination Theory has been a huge part of the Mass Effect fan base for years. In short, it posits that Shepard became indoctrinated by the Reapers and that the final events of Mass Effect 3 involving the Crucible weren’t actually literal but instead took place in Shepard’s mind as a mental representation of him overcoming or succumbing to indoctrination.
The Destroy Ending, which is what Mass Effect 4’s new trailer seems to imply the game is going with, would potentially be the one where Shepard overcame their indoctrination and destroyed the Reapers. Mass Effect 4 has the opportunity to establish which events were literal and which weren’t at the end of the original trilogy, or to explore the residual effects that indoctrination had on Shepard. Doing that is a risky move, though, one likely to just be completely skipped over.
Even if the new games don’t fully endorse indoctrination theory, they could still lean into the ambiguity, leaving it unclear if the events towards the end of Mass Effect 3 when Shepard was alone ever literally happened or not. Indoctrination Theory could even be a great way to explain why one canonical ending was chosen – the other two were illusions that represented succumbing to indoctrination.
Whatever path the developer goes down, there are plenty of old threads which could be picked up in Mass Effect 4. Many fans will be hopeful that there are references to dropped storylines, though others will be hoping that Mass Effect 4 is also able to capture the originality of the Mass Effect trilogy when it released back in 2007.
A new Mass Effect game is currently in development.
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