What should Mass Effect 4 Be?

[ThePS1Fan]

Let's assume for a moment that Bioware does fix the ME3 ending fiasco and manages to regain some PR, how should they continue this franchise?

Of course there are way too many hypotheticals for how Bioware could fix ME3's ending so lets go off the assumption that the Indoctrination Theory is correct and Shepard wakes up on Earth and stops the Reapers for real however your Shepard would, Heroic Sacrifice, Pistol and butter knife, doesn't matter, Shepard wins, Reapers are stopped. I just want to know within this lore (I've never read any of the books) what could really happen to keep things interesting after the Reapers were stopped? Or should 3 be the final instalment in the franchise altogether?

Captcha: make a bee-line
Is it telling me to head for my flame bunker after mentioning the possibility for ME4 right now?

 

[tendaji]

Well Bioware already stated that Mass Effect 3 is the end of Shepard's story, so ME4 could be something different entirely. It could be an even more distant future from what it is now, and might deal with a Galactic Civil War, seeing as the Citadel Races and the Terminus Systems don't see to get along very well. But let's hold off on ME4 for a year or two before we start up that, don't want too much Bioware/EA raging.

 

[boag]

It starts by clearing up what the fuck happened at the end of ME3

 

[Terminate421]

An MMO, yeah, I said it. And I want one.

Caption: face the music

 

[TorqueConverter]

The beginning of ME4 is the real ending to ME3. Shep was becoming indoctrinated and it "Was all a dream". ME4 continues the fight against the reapers and presumably leads to ME5, 5 to 6 and so on. The indoctrination of EA will become complete. Mass Effect will be CoD.

 

[hazabaza1]

I'd like more of a Mass Effect Origins type game. Bioware said we're done with Shepard, so we should be.

 

[GameChanger]

I don't WANT a new Mass Effect game. (other than that play-as-a-Reaper game I mentioned in that other thread)

It should end here and make place for a new sci-fi epic. Maybe with the same level of writing, and an actually good story.

 

[Risingblade]

It stars legion and Garrus as crime fighting detectives now with 40% less calibrations

 

[anthony87]

I dunno if I want to see a 4th one.

I mean, after the Reapers....what's next? As well as the fact that the different coloured explosions had different effects on the galaxy.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

I'd like more of a Mass Effect Origins type game. Bioware said we're done with Shepard, so we should be.

Damn ninjaed!

They could set it a few hundred years before ME, when the Quarians and Baterians were still part of the Citadel. The player character is a new Specter (from any Citadel race) investigating some sort of Citadel crime thingy that has nothing at all to do with Reapers, Protheans, or anything else like that.

 

[Virmire]

It stars legion and Garrus as crime fighting detectives now with 40% more calibrations

Fixed that for you.

 

[anthony87]

I don't think it should exist. Look at the up-roar of the fans because of the third game. Who'd want to cause that again?

The up-roar isn't because of the game. The up-roar is because of the way the ending was handled.

 

[omicron1]

I could go with a Firefly-style "outlaws on the run from the vicious Asari bureaucracy of Armageddon+1000 years" approach.

Galaxy shattered with the mass relays gone, civilization just barely clinging on, and everyone prone to abuses of power. What's not to love?

 

[Deathmageddon]

It should not be made.

Ever. Fucking ever.

You just won the internet.

 

[tippy2k2]

I don't know if we can properly answer this question yet since we don't know for sure what the ending is going to be.

Bioware seems hell-bent on teasing their fans with PR statements talking about how they are "taking it into consideration" [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116390-BioWare-Considering-Calls-for-New-Mass-Effect-3-Ending] and "releasing endgame content" [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116438-BioWare-Co-Founder-Promises-Closure-For-Mass-Effect-3], which could mean so many different things that it'd be silly to try to imagine it.

I would love for the Mass Effect series to continue, just without Shepard and crew. This is a huge universe with untold stories, why George Lucas yourself by making the same handful of characters the focus of everything in the universe?

 

[Fleetfiend]

I have a feeling the next ME game is going to be set in the First Contact War. However, I hope them come up with something more interesting than that, mainly because I would like to see the other races besides the Turians, and I don't want to shoot them in the face. :3

 

[wintercoat]

I'd like more of a Mass Effect Origins type game. Bioware said we're done with Shepard, so we should be.

Damn ninjaed!

They could set it a few hundred years before ME, when the Quarians and Baterians were still part of the Citadel. The player character is a new Specter (from any Citadel race) investigating some sort of Citadel crime thingy that has nothing at all to do with Reapers, Protheans, or anything else like that.

But without humans, who will be the generic enemy you attempt to commit genocide on? I guess Batarians could fill those shoes, but it just won't be the same...

OT: Hmm...probably would take place parallel to the events of the first 3 games, or possibly during the 2 years Shepard was dead. I'm sure something exciting happened during that time.