I don't usually post on discussions, but mass effect is such a great franchise that I feel the need to ask the community on there opinion on the direction on the new game. Do you think that Shepard should remain the protagonist or should the dev studio move on form him or her? Do you think it should heavily include Andromeda or do you think it should be its own thing?

Don't think many will respond but I might as well give it a shot.

Dude...not meanin' to rain on your parade, but...you DO know there's about a kajillion threads on this topic on the forum already, right?

the direction will be woke for sure, no doubt about it
edit: thanks for the award, sensible kiddo

To Barzai: yeah I know but I dunno I was bored last night when I posted this and this is my favorite game so yeah.

Isn't Andromeda ME4?

Originally posted by ZXMASONJARXZ:

To Barzai: yeah I know but I dunno I was bored last night when I posted this and this is my favorite game so yeah.

No problemo, dude... <glyph of stoic, robust fellow with shades and a German accent>

personally no shepard should not be the protagonist. like, anything they do its hard to well build them up? shepard is a galaxy wide hero savior of all literal beacon of humanity. theres not much they can't overcome, or can be expected to not overcome. unless for some reason everyone magically hates or forgets about shepard theres not much interesting things you can do anymore. a new protaganist would fix this.

also Andromeda should probably stay its own thing for now, no real way to connect them is immediately there plus Andromeda didn't do very well. i personally think they should remake Andromeda and rerelease it, with some story adjustments. minor combat improvements, graphics touch up, full animation rework, and some redesigns to planet travel. then from there make Andromeda its own trilogy. maybe have this new trilogy, and the Andromeda trilogy meet up in a 4th one once both of those are finished.

I wouldn't expect ME4 to heavily mention Andromeda if it even does at all.
If Bioware had any intention of doing so then they wouldn't have ceased support for that game. They literally scrapped planned DLC for how poorly it was received.

As for if we will play as Shepard who knows. There are a lot of directions they could take the story post-ME3 and none of them would necessarily "need" him given its a clean slate.
That said, in Bioware's recent habit of total un-creativity I think it's likely they'll bring Shepard back for good PR / nostalgia purposes one way or another.

Personally I don't care what they do as long as they prioritize good writing above all else, regrettably i'm not confident in their ability to deliver that any more after MEA and Anthem so we'll have to see....

Originally posted by SpaceWombat:

I wouldn't expect ME4 to heavily mention Andromeda if it even does at all.
If Bioware had any intention of doing so then they wouldn't have ceased support for that game. They literally scrapped planned DLC for how poorly it was received.

As for if we will play as Shepard who knows. There are a lot of directions they could take the story post-ME3 and none of them would necessarily "need" him given its a clean slate.
That said, in Bioware's recent habit of total un-creativity I think it's likely they'll bring Shepard back for good PR / nostalgia purposes one way or another.

Personally I don't care what they do as long as they prioritize good writing above all else, regrettably i'm not confident in their ability to deliver that any more after MEA and Anthem so we'll have to see....

I'm hoping if Shep makes an appearance in the new ME it'll be a cameo NPC one, like Liara in ME2.

Of course if they do that they'll still have to figure out how to make it "your" Shep, since I daresay nobody's very interested in either seeing or playing "generic Shep."

Originally posted by barzai:

Originally posted by SpaceWombat:

I wouldn't expect ME4 to heavily mention Andromeda if it even does at all.
If Bioware had any intention of doing so then they wouldn't have ceased support for that game. They literally scrapped planned DLC for how poorly it was received.

As for if we will play as Shepard who knows. There are a lot of directions they could take the story post-ME3 and none of them would necessarily "need" him given its a clean slate.
That said, in Bioware's recent habit of total un-creativity I think it's likely they'll bring Shepard back for good PR / nostalgia purposes one way or another.

Personally I don't care what they do as long as they prioritize good writing above all else, regrettably i'm not confident in their ability to deliver that any more after MEA and Anthem so we'll have to see....

I'm hoping if Shep makes an appearance in the new ME it'll be a cameo NPC one, like Liara in ME2.

Of course if they do that they'll still have to figure out how to make it "your" Shep, since I daresay nobody's very interested in either seeing or playing "generic Shep."

bandage them up from their injuries, or have them wearing a helmet, then make it a male/female choices. with either limited dialouge or make a paragon or renegade choice. or have it change renegade or paragon based to be the same as your current character is.

Originally posted by barzai:

I'm hoping if Shep makes an appearance in the new ME it'll be a cameo NPC one, like Liara in ME2.

Of course if they do that they'll still have to figure out how to make it "your" Shep, since I daresay nobody's very interested in either seeing or playing "generic Shep."

This is actually one of the biggest flags telling me we probably won't see Shep again as a playable character. Considering the story will have to take place at least somewhat of a long time after the events of ME3 for anything eventful to take place, Shepard being human will have noticeably aged. Most developers don't tend to go the route of making RPGs with character customization where the player is locked into being in an older age range.

I suppose they could go the route of saying that Shepard's augmentations by Cerberus made him age considerably slower similar to Miranda but it might be stretching it.

I think it would be interesting if instead of Shepard being seen directly he and his LI from ME3 are simply alluded to. Maybe in a risky move Bioware could even have the main protagonist be an apprentice or an adopted child saying that Lazerus rendered him sterile. This would also open the possibility for a main character from another species which could be a huge selling point even if the game were to flop like MEA.