Throughout gaming history, sagas and trilogies have come and gone; some lost over time, others are still remembered with an air of nostalgia today. But of all the memorable games, the science-fiction RPG Mass Effect trilogy tops every gamer’s love or hate list, and with BioWare’s unexpected announcement of a fourth addition to the trilogy, it is unknown what wonders await ME fans.
In true BioWare style, little information has been released about what Mass Effect 4 (title yet to be announced) will hold for the community, but what little we do know is slowly creating more and more hype within the Mass Effect community.
BioWare has announced that the new Mass Effect game will not be starring the well-established protagonist, Commander Shepard, but rather an unknown character. Along with a new hero comes a new setting – the fourth installment will be set in an unnannounced region of space This leads to speculation that the new location is due to the large amount of complaints received from the fan base about the repetitive setting through the first three Mass Effect games. Or perhaps it is an attempt by BioWare to give players a new setting to partner with a new game and a new character.
Male and Female Commander Shepard from Mass Effect 1-3
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to hold on to your Mass Effect save files.
-Mike Gamble
A key and well-loved feature from the original Mass Effect trilogy was the option to carry over your personal stats, player choices and character model from the previous game saves, and it would seem that this may be a continuing feature available in Mass Effect 4. The Associate Producer of Mass Effect, Mike Gamble, had hinted at the feature via social networking sites.
Save Import system from Mass Effect 3
As for gameplay mechanics, the new game is being produced in the Frostbite engine, along with several other games currently in production stages. It is also said that the upcoming game is likely to share a lot of core features with Dragon Age: Inquisition, leading to a new experience for both new and old players of the Mass Effect series.
Linearity, a straight evolution of the gameplay and story of the first three games.
-Yannick Roy, explaining the meaning of a new Mass Effect title
On November 7th, otherwise known as N7 day, Bioware released a few small “teaser” pictures of the production team working on the game; however, little detail could be seen of the game in these pictures. Despite the lack of revealing pictures, the Bioware “teaser” was still enough to quench the thirst of the waiting community and ramp up the Mass Effect 4 hype to even greater proportions.
For now that is all we know about the upcoming Mass Effect game. Although the release date is yet to be announced, BioWare has predicted it to be finished in October of 2015. All we can do is drool at the thought of what may be in store, and hope BioWare will be kind enough to endow ME fans with little crumbs of anticipatory information. Come on, BioWare – you know you want to.
