Game:

Mass Effect (2007)

Duration: 2:26

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During a special N7 Day live-stream, BioWare released some concept art for their upcoming Mass Effect title, which is set to come to Xbox One, PC and PlayStation 4. We don’t know when the game is set to arrive, we don’t know exactly what it’s about, and we don’t know if it’ll be coming to the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3.

What we do know is that the new Mass Effect will not feature the previous protagonist, Commander Shepard, as a main character and that the studio has some pretty huge hopes for it overall. Senior development director, Chris Wynn, said:

“You tend to think of the next game as the next step, but really we are taking a leap. We have familiar races and familiar starting points, but since we are telling a new story and a different story, it's like you're discovering it all over again. But while there are new characters to meet and new places to visit, we're also bringing back what made Mass Effect so good.”

Long-term Mass Effect producer Fabrice Condominas said:

“If we were just doing Mass Effect 4, we would be failing in a way. You can see even in the trilogy how the games differ from one to the next, and if we were less ambitious we could have just done the same thing and it would have worked. But we want to take the risk and deliver something new and exciting.”

BioWare have announced a few new key developers of their next Mass Effect game, somewhat surprisingly including Chris Schlerf, who was the lead writer of Halo 4. He’s now in the same role at BioWare, as the lead writer for the upcoming Mass Effect title. Regarding the new role, Schlerf said:
“Every day is a revelation and every day I get to play in a new corner of the universe. To be able to look three steps ahead to, 'Where does this take us and how does it add to the way we look at the Mass Effect trilogy?' You couldn't ask for a better playground.”

BioWare Edmonton are also looking into the possibility of remastering the Mass Effect Trilogy for next-gen consoles, and honestly, I see it happening.

The general manager of BioWare went on games forum NeoGAF and listed his personal preferences for a remake including some pretty basic stuff, like 1080p resolution, 60 frames per second, improved textures and shaders a seamless experience with each game automatically recognising decisions made in the previous one and all DLC available.

He also pretty blatantly disagreed with some requests, including re-building Mass Effect 1 with Mass Effect 3’s combat system instead. He said:

“First it would be a helluva lot of work. Second, I hate the idea of us being accused of 'retconning' ME1. Third (and I bet everyone on NeoGAF knows this), there are those who prefer ME1... So given that all that, it doesn't feel like the right thing to do.”

And hey, I’m actually one of the people who prefers Mass Effect 1 to the other 2 Mass Effect games, but that’s probably not because of the combat, it’s more about the dialogue.

That said, BioWare hasn’t actually officially announced remastering or remaking the trilogy, so this is all speculation, with Flynn himself saying “bear in mind this is a "wish list" at this point...” But, to be honest, I’d be surprised if it didn’t really happen in the end.

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