Don’t expect anything like theMass Effecttrilogy ever again -BioWaredoesn’t have any plans for it. Or at least, a BioWare veteran who has since left the company doesn’t believe that it’s likely we’ll get one again, saying that it was never discussed while he was there.
Mac Walters, who worked on Mass Effect from the first game all the way to the Legendary Edition trilogy, discussed this in an interview withEurogamer. Despite the initial Mass Effect trilogy being such a huge success, Walters says that while he was there, BioWare wasn’t planning anything similar, saying, “We’ve done that.”
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“I don’t think we’ve ever talked about that again,” says Walters, asked if BioWare would ever release another game as part of a planned trilogy “We’ve done that - what else can we do?”
This came after he explained how the first Mass Effect was always intended to be the first part of a three-game story, with the next two mapped out alongside the first. While some specifics wouldn’t be ironed out until Mass Effect 3’s development - such as the controversial ending, which wasredrafted multiple times- it was always envisioned that Shepard’s story would take three games to complete. The first game’s ending was just the beginning.
However, judging by Walters' comments here, this is a development method that BioWare has abandoned.
That being said, evenDragon Age: Originsworked nicely as a standalone game, and that was released before Mass Effect 2. In fact, to make Dragon Age 2 possible, several story elements from the first game had to be retconned, such as the Warden possibly staying in Ferelden to serve the monarch, and Anders remaining with the Wardens for years after the Awakening expansion ends. This suggests that BioWare wasn’t even considering this storytelling method for other games outside of the Mass Effect series, only seeing it as working for its new sci-fi IP.
But even if Walters didn’t explicitly say it, we can take an educated guess on what caused this change of heart:Mass Effect: Andromeda. Unlike Mass Effect, this was clearly envisioned to get some kind of sequel, or at the very least, DLC. Story elements went unaddressed, such as the fate of the Quarian Ark. Poor guys.
Unsurprisingly, given that it couldn’t tell the story that it wanted to, Walters also said that hehopes Andromeda gets a sequel one day. He says he wished he could have worked on it, as it would have given the team a chance to respond to player feedback and further polish the next-gen Mass Effect experience. It remains to be seen if any part of the next Mass Effect game ties up Andromeda’s loose ends.
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