Mass Effect 5

• Okay BioWare, I’ll Play, Here’s Where ‘Mass Effect’ Should Go Next - Paul Tassi, Forbes - 11/08/2019

• A new Mass Effect is rumored to be in 'very early development' - Andy Chalk, PC Gamer - 11/15/2019

• Mass Effect 5 reportedly in early stages of development - Ben Simmons, PC Invasion - 11/15/2019

• 'Mass Effect 5' Reportedly Early In Development At BioWare - Ewan Moore, LADbible - 11/18/2019

 

They'd earn more goodwill from me by just remastering or overhauling Andromeda. It wasn't terrible, I played through it, but there were so many great directions they could have gone in. And it just felt like they choose the safe mediocre route at every turn.

... And I struggle to feel anything but caution with BioWare since Andromeda & Anthem.

 

meh

 

Yesss - all that and expansion packs / sequels

 

that's like a crime against the world of gaming in general. how can you remaster a plane-crash\train-wreck ?
it isn't something a developer can actually fix. the script\voice actors\characters... everything needs to be deleted and remade.
a better idea would be to keep Andromeda in the garbage bin and just remaster the real trilogy they called Mass Effect.

no disrespect and all.. but overhauling Andromeda ? i mean.... WHY ? im really asking.. why bother ?
;/

 

I want Mass Effect 4 before Mass Effect 5...

 

At this point it can only be a complete reboot of the franchise. Not just a 'remake' with better graphics but with an identical story, and even less a remaster as much as I'd like a remaster for the first game. Just objectively-speaking it makes no sense to continue from Andromeda as a sequel, much less trying to make a sequel to the third game. The literal single thing that makes any bit of sense now would be a reboot and re-imagining of the first game; and from there make the following sequels. Simply put, make a new trilogy from a new way to look at the story.

However, there IS a problem with doing this. There's no guarantee how much it would work if they made a reboot but decided not to contact most of the original voice actors for the cast of most of the characters of the original trilogy. If there's no Commander Shepard, no Garrus, no Tali, no Wrex and so on... then at that point it might end up just being another Andromeda; because that's pretty much what Andromeda attempted to do: to reboot the franchise with new faces, enemies and locales. The premise itself of Andromeda - on paper - wasn't a bad idea. I still think that the concept of leaving the Milky Way alone and moving somewhere else after the train wreck that was ME3 was the best idea they could have chosen to go with. But the execution of Andromeda was terrible, especially in terms of script / dialogue / choices-VS-"consequences" (nearly non-existent, with only minor impacts) and both the protagonist and main villains. All of it was half-assed, weak and non-engaging.

It's a risk. And unfortunately no matter what angle you look at this from chances are that no one will ever appreciate any new sequels or reboots more than at least the first two games, and for some even the third one. For some people out there, 'Mass Effect' isn't just a name. It's a specific circle of characters, locations, sound effects, music and atmosphere. Which all came from the brilliant and talented minds of a specific group of people in a specific development team at a specific moment in time in the history of the company. When those individuals responsible for the art and various assets of the game along with making the music, sound and so on, along with the voice actors and the writers for the characters aren't there anymore then it's just plain and simple not "Mass Effect" anymore. This is very much in the same veins as a fan of Star Wars and Star Trek telling you that there never was and never will be anything else 'Star Wars' outside of the original trilogy, or anything else 'Star Trek' outside of the original series or TNG or [name your favorite one here].

If you ask Mass Effect fans what IS "Mass Effect" for them; most would say it's "Shepard and Co.", it's "the Citadel and the Relays", "it's the Normandy SR-1 and its crew", "it's the fellowship between Shepard and his/her people", or it's "the fight against the Reapers". And it is understandable, because Mass Effect can definitely be considered the 'Star Trek of video gaming'. Heck, I've read comments back when ME2 was still fresh where people were convinced that they were already loving this more than Star Trek or Star Wars. To those, it's definitely more than 'just a video game'. As much as someone could say that Star Wars is more than 'just a movie'. And for the same reason it seems to be so difficult to continue or soft-reboot Star Wars or Star Trek it would logically be just as hard to do the same to Mass Effect. There's very good reasons why every time we hear news about "The next Mass Effect game is apparently in development!" we can only roll our eyes and stay indifferent to it.

In short, I don't think that 'Mass Effect' will ever happen again. But it's my perception. We'll see in about 4 or 5 years when that next Mass Effect comes out if they managed to do something good after all.

 

sadly I have flashes of botox per mention of andromeda... feckin botox man' yet I thought it was redeemable - very flawed. Like Mickey Rourke - he was .. ME 1-3 thhen bam got andromeda'd

I still liked the game ... yet hated it too. Kinda like the Wrestler...

 

I would be down for an HD remake of the first two games (3rd game left me with a bad taste in my mouth), but realistically I think they've got to leave EA in order for ME5 to succeed.

 

Does anyone even trust BioWare to "get it right" anymore?
I mean, not trying to be negative, but the cracks started to form with ME3... and the studio's releases have just gone down and down ever since.

 

@KissSh0t - this guy gets it

What is even funnier is that's the EXACT image that pops into my mind when it gets brought up man!

 

Yes. Greg Zeschuk & Ray Muzyka left the company back in 2012. I get this feeling as though people that waited until the recent years to throw shade at Bioware sidestep that entirely. Casey Hudson came and went as well.

Of recent was to do with failures in time management and lack of leadership firing people quite frankly. Resources were spread thin too. The gaming industry needs to be Unionized so believe me as an artist I am very slow to say anyone should be fired but there are those rare breed & I'm sure we all - all of use here have our stories to share.

Fortunately, it's well-documented now; hell - publicized in news there was a toxic work environment at place. More toward the point hindering development (ref. to Kotaku etc). I hear the argument (oh that's every job) all the time but be careful to get into that mind-track; because that isn't really true, it's a perception.

Devil's advocate: after many jobs over the years from Manhattan to the suburbs in Australia. Yes, hostile work environments are a part of life but not "normal" at all. Most people work; clock in and clock out from management down. No bullshit, we want our pay and then our day. After looking over everything I could get my hands on from the social account feeds of the employees to the Kotaku expose that'd been done on Andromeda's dev-cycle I'm surprised we saw a game at all quite frankly.

I think that's kind of where I'm heading with this. What happened here was a bad apple in the barrel. In parallel to the dev cycle of Andromeda; Hudson and team were working on and released DA: Inquisition earlier. It was very well received.

The only outlier to my theory being - What the Hell was Bioware thinking when they released Anthem...because it unequivocally sucks

 

To be fair,let's not pretend like the only "bad apple" was Anthem. Andromeda sucks as a story as well, and it's gameplay is a bland-but-serviceable 3rd person shooter with chest-high walls aplenty. Inquisition also sucked story wise (and wasn't that good of a RPG - the devs weren't happy that the game was well received, because it also cemented the poor working conditions), but had enough melodrama to entertain teenagers (and wasn't bugged on the same level as Andromeda). So, what @Damien_Azreal said holds true. Bioware's ability to tell a well written, cohesive story has been deteriorating since the ending to ME3 (Anthem was the blandest of all, but it was kinda expected, if not outright foreshadowed by the devs themselves).

Quite frankly, I don't care about the Andromeda characters /universe, so I don't really pine for a sequel to that. Making prequels about Sheppard? I say let the dead lie, move on, and leave their legacy mostly intact (ME3 ending did it's best to negate most of your choices throughout the trilogy anyway, but that's in the past now).

So no, I don't trust Bioware to make another well written, original, story-driven RPG. Not only we have EA's "singleplayer games are dead" mantra (ironically disproved by another EA game - Fallen Order), but Bioware itself hasn't produced a good story since the end to ME3 (and technically that story was conceived in ME1 - ME2 was a side step in the overarching storyline, but saved itself by being a popcorn movie with really well done team member stories). Dragon Age 2 was okay until it shat itself in the 3rd act, Inquisition was melodrama over substance (that hurt itself by desperately trying to stitch DAO and DA2 to itself into a trilogy - something DA games never were), Andromeda was just safe poo, and Anthem never even wanted to tell a story.

 

i see it pretty simple, both financially wise and capability wise when it comes to the state of BioWare today :

option #1 is to remaster the trilogy with a more modern touch game-play\graphics, quality\bug improvements. i would be happy
to pay for a decent remaster with all DLC's and i believe this one is much cheaper and safer to achieve because the trilogy
did very well in the community and still has many fans. that's my first preference.

option #2 is a prequel. i would prefer this option over anything "new". that's less likely to happen,
and the risk would be to totally kill and bury the Mass Effect name. im a hardcore fan, so for me Andromeda
already did part of the job ( to bury the ME title ) .. but i know some people still have faith in a new title.

thing is.. Blizzard posted some stuff lately about Diablo 4. they talked (between the lines.. not as a statement) about
their incompetence to make a great game such as Diablo 2 and why its so problematic to remaster it. Blizz North crew that worked on the older games had different ideas, more talent and probably better personal abilities.
that's very similar to BioWare's state nowadays in my eyes, they simply can't bring the talent, the magic, the stories..

so to sum it all.. if "Mass Effect 5" features a brand new story, i expect a train-wreck or a C grade game at best.
that's because the studio isn't the same anymore.

 

It wasn’t and I didn’t. I wrote a whole post about Andromeda’s flaws then added Anthem at the end.

Andromeda’s story doesn’t necessarily “suck” it failed at execution, technical aspects - being unfinished.

It could have worked. I doubt people would accept it now as much as a reboot or continuation of original ME story in Milky Way post Sheppard.

 

Yeah, sorry. I wanted to write "let's not pretend", but never got around to changing it in the final comment...

 

No worries - I went and edited for better clarity myself ...

Im guessing all the crunch time we’re referring to etc - fair point...

 

I absolutely do not care about remaster, as in just the same game with better visuals. ME is still very nice today and even worst looking ME1 is very much serviceable, plus there are plenty of mods that improve visuals too.

As ME5 it sounds fine, but what exactly is it building on ? ME: Andromeda was an average game with terrible story. The visuals were generally nice and the combat was good, but the dialogues are garbage, characters are annoying, there is no choice at all and the the big bad guy is like a caricature, plus the bugs at release with e.g. "my face is tired". It's even more of a shame as it had such a potential, being set in a different galaxy, but it was absolutely squandered with poor story that now sets the theme for the sequels. So why would I ever look forward to continuation of that story ? Plus I can barely remember what that main character looks like and all I remember about the companions is that they are annoying, their conversations are boring and cringy.

No, if they really want to make a new ME, they'd need to pretend that Andromeda never happened and remake it again. This time with better writers than those producing a low grade fan fiction.

 

Call me selfish but I feel like perhaps it may be better to just let this franchise die the longer I think it over. Far as Bioware. I don’t really know that I personally want to vie for them to have anymore grand IPs. For reasons here discussed. Their consistency has been very hit and miss. Imagine if EA handed them a Star Wars property again (but under the current licensing arrangements) ehhhhh

If memorable franchises like these are to ever have success again - I suspect it's with another publisher & studio in the future.