Mass Effect 4 Leak – Real or a Great Big Phony?

A Mass Effect 4 (or whatever they end up calling it) market survey’s been allegedly leaked.  Assuming this is legit, EA sent out a survey with chunks of info on Mass Effect 4 detailing major gameplay and narrative elements, asking the participants to rate them according to how satisfied they would be should these elements make it into the final game.  Sure, it’s always possible that this is fake and we’re all suckers, but there was a similar leak with Dragon Age: Inquisition back in 2012, which turned out to be largely accurate.

So what’s new, Mass Effect?

• The next chapter takes place in a galaxy far, far away from the original trilogy
• Our new protagonist is a “pathfinder,” an explorer looking for habitable worlds
• The new world/galaxy map is around 4 times larger than Mass Effect 3’s
• Plot focuses on a long-gone race called the Remnant and the technology they’ve left behind
• Resource hunting!  Less Don’t Starve, more Civilization
• Seven party members (not at a time, silly); the survey specifically mentions Cora – a biotic – and Drack – a Krogan
• Something new called Strike Missions: you spend resources on AI-controlled mercs to complete side missions while you’re busy doing other things; these “Strike Teams” complete these missions in real-time, so you might be on another mission when your mercs come back to report
• Multiplayer “Horde” mode (you + friends vs. waves of enemies)
• Even more in-depth dialogue trees, because that’s how BioWare do

Nothing on here sounds too outlandish, right?  In the words of Agent Mulder, “The truth is out there.”  However, with no real evidence of a Mass Effect reveal at this year’s E3, “out there” could be pretty far off for a while.