One of the big draws of ME3 multi was finally being a goddamn alien. Joker doesn't count.
A couple of ideas that might work imo:
- Storyline covering just before and up to the conclusion of the trilogy, but from the perspective of unrelated parties. For example, X is a Spectre sent to investigate a series of disappearances in a salarian STG development lab facility. Plot unfolds, details are fleshed out of this great threat which works on tandem with or is part of the greater Reaper invasion. Ideally, the title allows for even more immersion into the MEverse and expands on the lore. The series or title can conclude with the war effort on behalf of the built up group in a hot zone like Palaven or something.
- An idea I've pitched before and even built a fanfic around: playing as the motley crew of an Alliance privateer in skirmishes with Cerberus and the batarians on the fringes of known space pre ME1. The ship being also built to accommodate scientific research, it would add an element of exploration which I enjoyed from the first title.
- Several generations removed from ME3. The Leviathans become a viable threat and mentally dominate the Rachni in a bid to overwhelm and subjugate the almost mended Council races. During this, the krogan face a schism when their females are captured by the Leviathan forces, the Geth are compromised, rendering them helpless, and the remnants of batarians trying to repopulate step forward with a means to combat the threat.
- Alternatively, having a co-op four player Neverwinter Nights style game in the MEverse, with ridiculous depth and character customization, would literally compel me to spew forth money.
Let's look at it pragmatically: they aren't setting it too far in the past. You wouldn't be able to play a human. Being able to choose your race is a legitimate hope. Not having the option for a human is a farcical suggestion. Look at any literature about sci-fi demographics and tendencies. You need humans. There's a reason something like 80% of Doctor Who episodes take place on Earth. They learned their lesson years ago, and don't deviate from what will please the masses. Anything too alien tends to, excuse the wordplay, alienate the audience.
And since the Shepherd deal happened not too long after humans joined the ME party, we're almost assuredly looking at a sequel.
Safe money is on about 100 years in the future. They can reference stuff you'll recognize from the Shepherd saga, but without being tethered to it narratively.
I’m hoping Mass Effect 4 is an immediate sequel to ME3 and starts off with SHepard overcoming Indoctrination.
I’m holding onto that little bit of hope even though the chance of them doing it is slim at best.
No, I've really had enough of Shepard (<-- That's how you spell it, people. Christ.) His story has been told. They need to lay his saga to rest.
A prequel is very accessible. Doing something a couple decades beforehand would be something that could be accomplished effectively. However, doing something afterwards is definitely something that has greater room for flexibility but they have to up the ante.
If they do a sequel, they're going to most likely have trouble finding a threat as massive as the Lovecraftian-esque Reapers. People will ask, "Do they need to up the threat?"
Perhaps they don't but people won't feel like as much is a stake, if they don't or find something similar and that's actually quite important in a narrative.
If he have another Saren, let's say, we're always going to be comparing it to the greatest threat the series has seen: The Reapers. If it isn't as equally threatening somehow or moreso (which I have difficulty seeing), a lot of us will have trouble taking it seriously, I think.
I mean, I'm not saying it HAS to be. It can be something that's not as great of a threat but almost as great. For example, a Warlord massing a great army to try and overtake the galaxy. That's a simplistic description but you get where I'm heading. They could also go where Janus suggested.
The bottom line is that the scale of a threat in a narrative, especially science fiction, is important. Cameron didn't go from one Xenomorph to Jones the cat getting possessed. The next film had more of them, which made the narrative more harrowing and challenging. It absorbs viewers and this doesn't just apply to horror.
We watched Ripley and her crew for the first absolutely get torn apart by merely one Xenomorph. When we saw that there was practically dozens in two, we shit ourselves.
In terms of finding an appropriate villain(s) that poses as much of a threat or a greater threat than the Reapers, Bioware needs to do this to make us, well, "shit ourselves."
I agree. Bioware was very good explaining and showing different parts of the galaxies. Aside from a few references when you investigate individual planets, everything was pretty much explained. You get to see the Rachni, you find out who created the Reapers, you destroy many of the Reapers and etc. All the secrets were explained, shown and destroyed. What is left?
Using Renegades analogy, Bioware has shown us how the Aliens came to be, their home planet and told us the exact nature of the Space Jockey in three games.
That's why I think the series should go far ahead, or far behind so we can something new and interesting. Maybe a thousand years from now there is a new threat. Who knows.
Or as said before, the series takes all the epiciness out and deals with smaller issues (similar to Dragon Age 2 perhaps?)
I'd love a game set immediately after 3, with the plot being you rebuilding the galaxy and recreating the alliance. The bad guys can be a different faction doing the same but with a hardcore warlord or something.
I actually like this. While it might seem odd to not immediately ramp up into a big super threat to outshine the Reapers, attempting to one-up the old enemy starts becoming like a comic book arc, with X being global scale, Y being galaxy, Z being cosmic, OMEGA being transdimensional, and so on, forever. The greatness of the threat might also fall on numb minds because we witnessed incredible atrocity in ME3.
What would work best, IMO, would be a more personal journey, with individuals we can like and connect with, villains we can understand, who may straddle both lines, or be unredeemable bastards, and an objective of like Neph said, rebuilding civilization, or protecting the remnants from Asshat #10000.
Why are you assuming I didn't? I played the whole series as fem-Shep AND male Shepard so don't sit here and tell me what I would or wouldn't be tired of. I say "him" because Shepard is canonically male.
I found fem-Shep to be more entertaining but, sexes aside, the story is over.
No, there is remarkable power in Shepussy.
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"Evil will hold."
Last edited by The Gravelord on May 1st, 2014 at 07:57 PM
In all fairness, having a villain being present or attempting to interfere with civilization trying to get back onto it's feet is a fine idea.
A villain exploiting the galaxy while it's trying to rebuild and taking advantage of it's weakened state (Godwin's Law invoked in 3... 2....) is compelling.
This idea could work immediately after the third but I prefer distance. The point was mentioned before with KOTOR how everyone was against having it so far away and detached from the previous timeline but it worked out excellently. I think this could also be effective for the ME series.
Only at that point could you really have an equal or greater threat to the Reapers, whatever it may be, and have it make sense or not come off as "forced." If the next ME installment came out as a sequel and relatively close to the time in which Shepard's legacy ended, I could only see it working smoothly if it were a more "personal" or "smaller" adventure.
The problem with this is then Bioware would need to choose an ending which would piss a ton of people off. Although, now that I think about it, fighting God-Shepard, master of the Universe could be kinda cool.
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May 1st, 2014 06:33 AM
