BioWare Asks Gamers if They Want a Mass Effect Prequel

[Roofstone]

Truth told, I don't really care what they do, though I think I'd enjoy a sequel marginally more. But the main thing is to not give us shephard again.

I want it DA:O style, but with Mass Effect gameplay, that'd be great and amazing and I'd love Bioware. <3

That is all.

 

[Avalanche91]

The Mass Effect Universe has a lot of potential for more games......

Mass Effect Archangel
Mass Effect Justicar
Mass Effect First Contact
Mass Effect Omega
Mass Effect vs Dragon Age (yes, this is a joke. dont do it EA marketing department)

But that doesnt mean they should do it

 

[DustyDrB]

But see, the thing is they already have the lore so planned out. This isn't like Halo: Reach, where we know they all die, but they're simply soldiers in a slightly above average FPS.

These are going to be extremely fleshed out characters with hours upon hours of dialogue. It seems pretty stupid when you think about it that way.
"Gee, I sure like you, Fellow-Prothean, too bad I know we all get buttpounded by the Reapers in a bit."
"Wow, Fellow-soldier-in-the-Schillion-Blitz, you are about fifty times improved over the other generic soldier partners, too bad you play no important role after this, never show up in the first three games, and will most likely get killed."

You're mentioning more big wars. Stop doing that. Use your imagination some.
For example, a Quarian is sent out on his/her pilgrimage. We're familiar with this idea from the original trilogy, so we know the Quarian needs to find something of value to be able to return to the Migrant Fleet. We also know this can take them to dangerous places.

There's a setup for a story that doesn't have to affect the original trilogy in any way. And you can do many more stories like that. You can be a justicar, a Spectre, Salarian STG agent, or some random adventurer or some random adventure. You don't have to be some character to affects the outcome of some great war.

 

[tendaji]

If they wanted to, they could go back to the Prothean era, showing the collapse of that civilization. It would be interesting, but even then I'm not sure if we could go through another Reaper war kind of situation. Of course for a sequel, I consider the Failure ending to be the canon ending, cause it makes the most sense out of all of them (and sorta what I was hoping for to begin with).

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Im fine with either choice, prequel or sequel. As long as its an engaging story with a new set of characters. Bioware needs to just base the game around a story they are interested in telling.

 

[Dead_Man]

I admit, I don't want a Mass Effect Prequel. I'm happy with where they are now (endings aren't THAT bad, so quit your whining). That said, I wouldn't mind seeing when the first Prothean relics were discovered on Mars, as well as when the First Contact was started with the turians. That'd be cool.

 

[crazyrabbits]

You're mentioning more big wars. Stop doing that. Use your imagination some.
For example, a Quarian is sent out on his/her pilgrimage. We're familiar with this idea from the original trilogy, so we know the Quarian needs to find something of value to be able to return to the Migrant Fleet. We also know this can take them to dangerous places.

There's a setup for a story that doesn't have to affect the original trilogy in any way. And you can do many more stories like that. You can be a justicar, a Spectre, Salarian STG agent, or some random adventurer or some random adventure. You don't have to be some character to affects the outcome of some great war.

All of those stories sound...really boring. After three games of playing the bonafide savior of the galaxy, any further installment that tries to scale back the scope/character will inevitably be a failure.

Bioware tried to push Jacob Taylor during ME2 via his own tie-in game, and that was a resounding failure. They tried to do the same thing with the guy from ME3: Infiltrator, and no one cared enough to give it much thought. Having it focus on a random member of a random race doing another "hero's journey" is going to be uninspired at best, and plain repetitive at worst.

You can't really do a prequel, either (unless they're content with rewriting or greatly changing the end result), because all of those major battles have foregone conclusions. The Rachni Wars, Geth-Quarian conflict...they're small beans at the end because they have definite outcomes heavily explained by the lore.

Then there's the challenge of doing a sequel. Unless BW is willing to canonize a certain ending, there's no way in Hell they'll be able to reconcile the endings of the third game. You have one ending where everyone's half-synthetic, another where everyone's buddy-buddy with the Reapers, and another where the Geth are completely wiped out. They really did write themselves between a rock and a hard place, and now they seem to be looking to their fans for answers.

 

[chikusho]

I want to see a smaller, more personal story take place in the Mass Effect Universe. As long as it's before the Reaper threat, or during.
There's no value in continuing the story after the ending of ME3, since there are at least three variations on what happened.

All of those stories sound...really boring. After three games of playing the bonafide savior of the galaxy, any further installment that tries to scale back the scope/character will inevitably be a failure.

Bioware tried to push Jacob Taylor during ME2 via his own tie-in game, and that was a resounding failure. They tried to do the same thing with the guy from ME3: Infiltrator, and no one cared enough to give it much thought. Having it focus on a random member of a random race doing another "hero's journey" is going to be uninspired at best, and plain repetitive at worst.

So basically what you are saying is that we should have stopped telling and writing stories once one story hit critical mass in scale? :S
OFCOURSE a more personal story with smaller scope can be told with great success in that _immense_ universe. They don't even have to touch on reaper invasion, or a known conflict. Instead of playing Shepard, an alliance general who has to selflessly save the entire galaxy, you could play as a bandit who's motivations are entirely selfish. Imagine "Taken", in space!

 

[Machine Man 1992]

NONONONONO. NO. Science fiction and wallowing in pre-established boredom do NOT mix. You have to look forward, y'know, "to the stars... and beyond!" Set it a thousand, ten thousand, a million years after ME3! Give us a quarian expedition into the Andromeda galaxy or something. There is nothing in the current ME lore that demands a full game except maybe the Rachni Wars - that might provide a change of scenery, but the plot is bound to be "Starship Troopers except you're a krogan."

How is that a bad thing!?

 

[Saladfork]

Here's an idea, why don't you adhere to that 'artistic integrity' you guys keep espousing and let the series end where it was meant to?

One of the few things I liked about the original ME3 ending (which they went and fucked up in the extended cut) was that it brought the series to a definitive and final end, with pretty much no way to raise it from the dead and start beating it again.

As for prequels... Do I even need to explain why that's a bad idea? It can't really be set during the main series, as everything that was remotely important had Shepard all over it already, and it can't really be set before because they can't really give you any agency to affect the word around because then you'd screw up continuity.

Just drop Mass Effect already and get to work on ruining something else for a change.

 

[sumanoskae]

Put me down firmly for after, a long time after. I want to see a Mass Effect game take on a different type of story, perhaps with the option to play as a different species.

Since the new game shouldn't have too much to do with the original trilogy anyway, why not take the opportunity to see where things end up? You'd never have to worry about interfering with the plot of the trilogy so you could do whatever you wanted.

I don't see a point to setting a game before Shepards story if isn't going to have anything to do with it. How significant could you make the events of such a story if they weren't important enough to be widely known? Or if they were important, how much player agency could you implement if the rest of the story hinged on them?

Trying to step on egg shells to make sure everything can lead up to Mass Effect 1-3 is a pointless undertaking, just set it a few hundred years later.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Definitely after... mostly because I'm a sadistic prick who wants to see them try and write their way out of how they finished the trilogy.

I'd agree, if I wasn't so invested in the idea of Casey Hudson getting fined and prison time for torching a beloved franchise and running a la George Lucas.

 

[samaugsch]

Definitely after... mostly because I'm a sadistic prick who wants to see them try and write their way out of how they finished the trilogy.

They could make the sequel in different color versions like in pokemon.

 

[crazyrabbits]

So basically what you are saying is that we should have stopped telling and writing stories once one story hit critical mass in scale?

No, I'm saying that if you're trying to build a franchise, you shouldn't automatically start with the biggest, largest threat you can find, then immediately dial it back to nothing and think people should care. Thanks for twisting my words around, though.

The ME franchise is the story of Shepard and the Reapers - the biggest event in the history of that universe, probably ever. As I said, going from that to the story of some random agent or person is going to feel like a step downwards.

OFCOURSE a more personal story with smaller scope can be told with great success in that _immense_ universe.

Several things wrong with that.

1) Bioware's stories have always worked best when they focus on grand, country- or universe-spanning conflicts. They have a very standard plot (random protagonist comes from nothing to become the hero of the world/galaxy, recruits a ton of quirky squadmates with their own issues/personal missions, and there's a huge plot twist midway through the narrative). I don't trust Bioware to do something like "Taken in space", because they haven't shown that they're capable of writing anything but the same standard plot they've always done for the last decade-and-a-half.

2) They already tried telling more "personal" stories with ME2: Galaxies (which was supposed to be the launch of a spinoff franchise for Jacob, the "common soldier" in the group), and with Infiltrator, and they were both met with a resounding "meh". Like your latter remark, they had little to do with the Reapers (the former was about Jacob and the various terrorist groups in the galaxy, the latter was about a soldier investigating Cerberus testing facilities), and they were barely worth mentioning. Not to mention that the other planned ME spinoff, Paragon Lost (Vega), has already been met with derision and laughter.

3) If you do create a prequel story, you can't focus it on almost any of the existing squadmates, considering that most of them have the potential of dying during the course of the trilogy. No company is going to devote resources to developing characters who may not be around as of the third game.

4) The ideas you put forward sound like "Shepard-lite". I don't care about another admiral saving the galaxy, because s/he is just going to be compared to Shepard. I don't care if some random C-Sec agent has some great journey behind the scenes, because it really doesn't matter in the long run. If I wanted to watch "Taken in space", I'd just watch Taken. There are certain franchises that are a specific character's story through and through, and ME is one of those.

5) Most of the existing wars/conflicts in the ME universe either have little storytelling potential (as they were foregone conclusions) or they weren't notable enough to warrant a full plot arc in the first place. We already know enough about the First Contact/Rachni/Geth-Quarian Wars that there's little point revisiting it.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

sequel please. see how things pan out after ME3
not an RPG, it just doesnt work unless you're committed to it 100%
how about an uncharted in space type game, that could be fun

 

[SmugFrog]

My answer? No. I kind of lost interest in the series after the second game.

"No" to what? If you're saying No to another game in the series, then please go hide in a hole and stop bothering us. If not- then clarify.

Thank you for so kindly accepting my opinion.
/angry sarcasm

HAHAHA! "No" was actually my first thought too. As much as I loved the series, I was so disappointed with how 3 ended up - more so after reading all of the theories and what had happened during the writing. The setup for the indoctrination theory and such... It's just a let down. I'd like to tell them to just let it die.

I love what they achieved with the Mass Effect universe, but they've soured it for a lot of people. If they want to make another game, they could just do a "reboot" / alternate reality of the Mass Effect world and make their own story out of it so you don't have to try it in to everyone's save.

 

[moostar]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umDr0mPuyQc


you could only beat a dead house for so many times.

 

[feycreature]

I would actually love to play the First Contact war. Sure, the major historical events are in place, but the same is true of any historical fiction. We know what happened to Leonardo DaVinci but Assassin's Creed still works. Or, as someone above pointed out, the Morning War. There are so many good storytelling opportunities in both.

 

[PotatoLord]

Making a sequel to 3 that takes every ending into consideration would be unfeasible, and with all of the historical events present in Mass Effect's lore, a prequel would be the way to go, in my book.

 

[JakeNubbin]

First off, ME3 GOTY. I am not going to just let this amazing, extremely in depth universe just rot and die just because of five minutes of bad ending. Does anybody have any idea how hard it is to make endings? Anybody? Especially for a universe this grande? Does nobody have an ounce, just a fraction of sympathy? Secondly, lets go through the choices here.

Prequel- I would love to explore more of the extremely extensive universe it already has but Bioware is good at making alien races so one set in the Prothean empire would still be interesting. The problem with the Mass Effect series is that whatever interesting crap happens in it, it happens in the main trilogy. The first contact wars were just about Humans and Turians and didn't even last very long. The Rachni war would be the best option IMO but youd be fighting Rachni,like, the whole time. Morning War would be short and would involve either being overwhelmed the entire time or killing Quarians which i do not approve of. Any of these options, we pretty much know how its going to end anyway.

Current- A game like Dragon Age Origins where you can just be any of the species you want and have a satisfying story for each. You would be doing interesting stuff but not so interesting that it was ever mentioned by anyone in any of the three games, which would be VERY tricky. Or you could set it in an alternate universe where its Saren doing his Saren-y deeds and you just stop him as another one of the species besides a human.

After- Am I the only one ever who thinks the ending actually can lead to something good? So what if I'm some new guy (hopefully a choice between the species) who is sent to the destroyed Mass Relay and has a thingy that can repair it? Then the game is about repairing all of the Mass Relays encountering the remnants of destroyed planets and stations, piloting a ship possibly in a Wing Commander type game. If not, again, any alien species Bioware makes would be pretty sweet.