The next chapter in the Mass Effect series – known colloquially as Mass Effect 4 – is in development at BioWare, which dropped a new trailer for the title at The Game Awards 2020 last month. The teaser strongly implied that the next game would pick up where Mass Effect 3 left off, showing dead Reapers, Liara T’Soni, and a piece of N7 armor which potentially hinted at Shepard’s return.
BioWare seems keen to take Mass Effect back to its roots, but it’s a fine line to walk. Mass Effect 4 will need to help launch a new story that expands into its own self-contained trilogy, instead of just following from Mass Effect 3 and emulating the first three games. Here are the reasons BioWare will need to make Mass Effect 4’s story stand on its own legs, and some ways the studio’s storytellers might achieve that.
Between the announcement of a new chapter in the Mass Effect series and a remaster of the original trilogy – Mass Effect: Legendary Edition – it’s clear BioWare is keen to get its flagship sci-fi series back to its roots. Mass Effect: Andromeda attempted to avoid addressing the different possible endings to Mass Effect 3 by taking place far in the future in a different galaxy.
However, after Andromeda’s disappointing reception, BioWare appears to be willing to return to the Milky Way and seemingly to make Mass Effect 3’s Destroy ending canon in order to continue the story. After a decade of reboots and revivals, Mass Effect has a lot of expectations to content with.
For example, when Star Wars came back to the silver screen in 2015 with The Force Awakens many fans were quick to point out similarities with the first Star Wars, from its desert-dwelling protagonist to Starkiller Base’s resemblance to the original Death Star. Though it was possible for the movie to evoke nostalgia for the originals, its close emulation made it difficult to match or surpass them. If Mass Effect 4 is going to restore the series to its former glory then BioWare cannot play it too safe.
Closely emulating the original Mass Effect games in terms of story structure, character dynamics, or even set pieces and aesthetics will likely cause Mass Effect 4 to fall short. After all, in a best-case scenario a game closely based on the original trilogy would evoke all of the same emotions, but with a diminished sense of originality. Mass Effect 4 will need to ensure that its villains feel very different to the Reapers, for example. They can’t be another ancient galaxy-wide threat, and they can’t explore the same dynamic between organic and synthetic life.
It will be tempting to bring back fan-favorite companions like Garrus Vakarian, but BioWare should be careful to make sure Mass Effect 4 doesn’t have the same squad dynamic as the OT. Similarly, the player character’s role – Shepard or not – should not be that of a commander forced to work around a disbelieving bureaucracy to save the galaxy.
Fortunately, there are plenty of paths the game could go down. The original Mass Effect trilogy had cut plotlines that the storytellers could draw influence from when creating the broad arcs of a new trilogy, like the Dark Energy plot talked about by the lead writer of the first two games, who even hinted at the possibility of time manipulation. The real question is whether or not BioWare will be willing to take the necessary risks after the disappointment of Andromeda.
Playing it safe, however, may doom Mass Effect to a far slower and more painful decline, especially if BioWare brings back beloved characters only to tell less satisfying stories about their lives after the defeat of the Reapers. Mass Effect 4 may be taking players back to the Milky Way, but its long-term success relies on exploring new territory.
Mass Effect 4 is currently in development.
![\"IT電腦補習](\"http://itteacheritfreelance.hk/test/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/logo2-2.png\"){kind=logo}
www.itsec.hk
www.itsec.vip
www.itseceu.uk
Leave a Reply