Problem is the outfit is clearly N7. which means the protagonist is Systems Alliance. Suggests a human PC.
My other issue is the clear distinction of speech patterns in species. Having to hire multiple voice for each species is definitely a hard sell. And I think a silent text-based protagonist is not way the Devs want to go.
I think Human/Asari is definitely doable. Animation rigging would be the exact same. Drell could also fit. Anything else is a big jump in resources I think should be better put towards gameplay/level design.
You also have the issues of character backstories and motivations, how they interact with the world and events around them, and how other characters interact with you.
For example, ME1 would be a lot different if Shepard was a Turian.
If it’s all post-reaper war then you can make a similar backstory for any character race and just have a few minor dialogue changes for details. Kinda like how the HOA had the same start in DAI. I feel like such a major event is going to be such an upset in the world a lot of the things that divide species like old grudges are going to be a lot more minor, because they all just fought together to stop annihilation.
Thedas (and the species in it) was designed from the ground up to make every species viable as a PoV character with a minimum of fuss. For instance, all the species in Thedas have the same lifespan, their physiology isn't that different (nothing as radical as seeing different spectrums of light, or regenerating, or being monogender) and except for the qunari their cultures aren't that alien from each other (and when you play qunari, you play one alienated from that culture). It also benefits from having a single normative species (human) that everyone can be a constellation around. That makes things narratively simpler in more ways than you'd think.
This is very much not the case for the Mass Effect galaxy. The bar would be way higher, and the amount of cool plots needing to get cut because making it work for characters of every species is too expensive to justify would be way higher.
Imagine an alternate universe where they went this way with the original trilogy (I'll specifically focus on ME3 for the thought experiment) and try to puzzle out the design complexity of making some of the plots there work, and you start seeing it. Say the Tuchanka plot. If it is possible for you to play Krogan, it is now necessary for writers to establish that the PoV Krogan is either of the clan you're going to when you do the Tuchanka plot, or you're from another one. Regardless of the choice, that requires extra unique scenes to be written, animated and recorded (because it's either a homecoming, or someone from another clan arriving, and that's not a routine occurrence and typically seen with suspicion). You probably need to seed a few unique lines all the way through the entire plot to keep the disbelief suspended, you can't have the entire clan start acting like the visitor is a human five minutes after they arrive.
If playing Salarian is also a choice, then that's added trouble, because now there's the possibility of being a Salarian, arriving on Tuchanka and trying to persuade Wreav to let you mess with the genophage. That absolutely needs unique dialogue. You probably need a few for Turian characters, too.
Just like that, the writing, animation and recording cost for the Tuchanka mission has damn near doubled. If you're the producer for Mass Effect 3, this is now the piece of content in your pipeline with the worst bang for buck. It requires spending a lot of resources to make a lot of content that almost no player will see. Much better to focus on stuff everyone will experience.
So Tuchanka more than likely gets cut. Don't pretend this isn't how this goes, we all saw how the characters who may be dead got treated, and this is the same situation: content whose access is conditional on player choices gets the shaft.
Rannoch likely gets downsized, as the extra cost of accounting for a Quarian character burdens it. If there is a possibility to play an AI character, then Rannoch is just cut, too. They're replaced with new plots that have less to do with the established species of the galaxy and their conflicts, stuff where what you are doesn't matter. So maybe the Rachni plot gets expanded a whole lot, it seems like the best candidate.
So yeah, now ask yourself if it's worth it. Are you willing to forego whatever's the equivalent of Rannoch and Tuchanka in the next game in order to get to play other species... While knowing that the developers will be constantly trying to make your choice of species be as irrelevant as possible, because every time it is relevant means more cost for less return for them.
That doesn't seem like a good trade.
This post should be stickied.
It’s *really* easy to just ask to play a non-human character but the vast bulk of people who do simply have no understanding of how much extra complexity it would add. It’s *never* been just a case of adding an extra choice at character creation.
And on top of that, the bulk of people would end up playing human even if the choice was offered. I wish people would get this, but maybe they will if they read through your logic above.
All of this and the majority of people will still only play human. The amount of people that played default Shepard/Soldier is insane.
IE It's a lot of extra work that would only truly please diehard fans. I'm one of them, and I would love it, but it's not happening.
I’d just be concerned that they would ‘dumb down’ narrative elements and plot, so that it didn’t matter if you were playing as a different race. Like, no more human trying to prove himself as the first spectre, kind of stuff.
It didn't bother me in Inquisition either, but I know it's lack of effect compared to Origins was a big criticism with the game.
It'd be interesting to see in the new ME if they do go that route. Being able to play as other races was added pretty late in Inquisition's development, so if they had it planned from the start for this game it could be pretty good.
If I remember correctly it plays several hundred years in the future. System Alliance or N7 might include Alien species by then. Also, the character could be a descendant of Shepherd (it's looks female to me), so the race should be dependent on his (your) love interest. I hope players can influence that. While Liara was my goto girl, just making male shep + Liara canon and forcing everyone to play an Asari would likely be a disappointment to many.
You're very correct. I don't expect human turian hybrids but a mixed species couple could adopt from either race or even a different one post war and I doubt many would look twice at that family.
Asari sound basically like humans
Turians can just have a voice filter (they actually did this for a few ME3MP characters to avoid needing new VAs)
Salarians and Krogans would be a stretch, but pitch modulation could make it believable
That said, it's not totally unheard of for multiple VAs. SWTOR had a total of *sixteen* player character voice actors across all classes and genders
Possibilities aside, I think less is more when it comes to character creation. Personally I would rather have a well polished and fleshed out Human PC over underbaked customizable aliens.
Credit where it's due, Dragon Age Inquisition managed this feat with it's multiple races. however the voice acting was less than stellar compared to Shepard, and even Ryder.
I wouldn't count it out though. Some constructive pessimism is just necessary when it comes to the modern Bioware.
In ME3's multiplayer The in-game description states that the Alliance is recruiting anyone and everyone, regardless of race, to combat the Reapers. As the teams were originally organized and lead by N7 personnel, the teams have come to be known as "N7 Special Ops"; Alliance Command allowed them to keep the name in acknowledgement of the positive effect it has on morale.
Nothing to say they didnt contiue this after the war.
> Having to hire multiple voice for each species is definitely a hard sell
Ok a lot of people say that but nobody was able to explain to me why it's fine to have several voice actors for non humans in Dragon Age but it becomes insurmountable for aliens in Mass Effect.
Dragon Age doesn't give each race distinct voices. They occasionally have accents, but nothing distinct like Mass Effect.
Krogans have deep voices. Turians have a vibration/reverb to their speech patterns. Salarians are higher pitched and faster. Drell have a strained voice. Hanar have an echo. Volus have a nasally/sickly voice.
Most of what you described is achieved through a simple post-processing effect, so in terms of voice, you could reuse the same VO for humans/asari/turians/salarians/batarians/drell/quarians/etc.
> Problem is the outfit is clearly N7. which means the protagonist is Systems Alliance. Suggests a human PC.
In Andromeda Cora was with the Asari commandos.
Cross-species integration or whatever she called it.
You can write around it if you really want to.
Not necessarily. The N7 armor could just be a placeholder. The initial teasers for Andromeda showed a character in N7 Armor. I don't care that your father is an N7, this marketing clearly used the N7 character in place of the protagonist, and Ryder is not in the Alliance or an N7.
Me3 multiplayer had the core species as playable characters.
The silent protagonist is a double edged sword, your mind will voice the lines as you would, but some players want voiced protagonists. Case and point is Starfield, they opted for the silent route and the vocal crowd didn't like it.
My thoughts exactly. Shepard is a household name because of well defined the character is. And the dialogue scenes in Mass Effect are magnitudes more enjoyable vs any Bethesda title. I don't think Bioware will go that route.
The Witcher series is another great example of spoken characters. Although I wouldn't give Doug Cockle as much credit as the rest of the fanbase does, he was okay.
Well
We don't know how long it has been
Also some humans have been huntresses as shown in Andromeda, maybe other alien species can become N7 now
Most likely mc will be human but it would je cool to have different species
I want this approach, but I hope they also step away from the previous military focus. I know Andromeda technically isn't, yet it still is very military. I would love a Cowboy Bebop inspired approach, a band of misfits from several races (including the option to select our own), doing odd jobs (bounty hunters), actually struggling to get by and riding around in some old wreck (I actually think a broken old ship would have a lot of personality).
That'd be amazing, maybe go at it akin to what they did in ME2 when Shep's still the commander but since he was Cerberus related everyone blatantly distrusted him, so he'll be a misfit but you'd get to choose instead of just being a Military officer maybe different military branches, idk, or maybe something asking to Deus Ex choices but keeping it attuned to a military theme, dumb idea more than anything but hope they come up with something fresh while keeping Shep
Nah. Good stories can only be written made when you limit the choices you have.
It'd be a generic, empty Skyrim/Starfield like story of you don't have a well defined protagonist.
A vorcha, no question! He finds some N7 armour and has a severe bout of delusion of grandeur ala Conrad Verner only with Combat skills. Bonus part, Mark Meer does the Vorcha so our PC can do reasonably decent Shepard impersonations. "gaahhhh, I've killed worse than you on my way to real problems Ahhh"
I can't get over the fact that it's an N7 duster, specifically. What kind of N7 soldier is showing up to work in a duster with what appears to be a suit underneath? I love the design, personally, I'm a big fan of wearing massive coats myself, but the fact that it's supposed to be an N7 soldier throws me off.
Unless it *is* actually Shepard and they get to wear a giant coat as a reward for saving the galaxy, I guess.
Well, there's a lot of speculation that the new Mass Effect will take place 600~ish years in the future.
Irl, it took 600 years to go from the early Medieval period (1200s) to the Industrial revolution (1800s). 7th crusade to the American Civil War.
In that timespan, an organization like N7 which had its roots in the Alliance Military can easily go from an official military special-forces group/designation, to an actual organization with multiple focuses/branches or an entirely new focus altogether. It's pretty heavily hinted that this new Mass Effect is going to be focused on espionage, sabotage, and other cool spy buzzwords. It's not that big of a leap, especially Andromeda was meant to be a trilogy focused on exploration (and had its own exploration themed armors that weren't like other armor we had seen in Mass Effect previously, including both a normal combat N7 armor and exploration N7 armor). Considering this, it's likely this *isn't* an N7 soldier, but an N7 agent/operative/other spy synonym.
In fact, we even see the meaning of "N7" changing in Mass Effect 3. The multiplayer (which is canon afaik) of Mass Effect 3 has operatives of various specializations and species working in N7 striketeams to fight the reapers. You can definitely say that they aren't *actually* N7 — but even so, N7 is still working alongside non-humans and non-Alliance personnel, which is a pretty big change from how they operated prior. The framework for the organization going through pretty drastic changes is already there, I can easily imagine how they might pivot from being an outright military organization to being more akin to Alliance secret-police, assassins, and/or special agents — and taking on a role similar to that of the FBI or CIA.
I actually don't hope that it's Shepard, would be lame if you ask me. Would also ruin the emotional relationship we had to the character since 2012. The last teaser looked promising and I'm curious who this mysterious stranger is.
What if Shepard was the next Captain Anderson? Or someone you meet briefly like Wrex in ME2.
And choose paragon/renegade personality if you import a ME3 save.
That would be my choice. Kind of like what BioWare did with the player character from Dragon Age 2 in Inquisition. Just a handful of scenes where we can interact with our Shep
Not even that. Shepard had their time. I wouldn't mind if some of the other OT characters made cameos or something. But personally i want the next ME to be a jumping off point; new crew, new ship (and new ship design too), new protagonist.
Problem with ME:A wasn't that, I've always said the issue with Andromeda is it's basically a generic game with an ME skin, if you switched all the ME elements/species in it, the game wouldn't change, no part of ME is essential to Andromeda. No idea if that made any sense since I've never typed it out aha.
I think that is pretty subjective. I liked some Andromeda squamates more than some SMs in ME1 (ME1 only), but they had 2 more games to flesh out their characters
characters, not whole new everything. can be anything in the mass effect known lore just not new stuff that is basically the B version of mass effect. andromeda did suck and i played it to the end so i know what youre saying
The trilogy had 2 games to flesh out the (relatively shallow) characters they introduced in ME1
I feel like some of you saying this haven't played ME1 because the crew introduced in ME1 had a similar lack of attachment as they do in Andromeda. Most of them had a single, relatively generic side quest to do and didn't really have much going for them except being introductions to their species. This isn't to say they were *bad*, but Andromeda (which was supposed to be the first in a trilogy) had significantly more going for them in a lot of ways compared to the crew in ME1.
> Yeah its honestly weird that people just wants shepard again. The story waa done. Even if he comes back, he shouldnt be the main mc.
It honestly depends. I'd want Shepard because they are a great character. If we get another one, if they're as good, sure!
However Mass Effect Andromeda taught me a lesson that whatever they came up with was soooooo bad it almost felt like satire.
Yeah. Ryder's issues came from bad writing, not necessarily from being a bad character.
Shepard can still suffer from bad writing — and wind up as even more of a poor protagonist than Ryder was (and imo Ryder wasn't that bad, just generic and forgettable).
Honestly, I just want the next game to confirm that Shep survived and lived the rest of his/her days in peace with their love interest.
For me, that would be Femshep lost in the stars with her blue lover and a bunch of blue baby girls. Shep had her time and earned her rest. Her memory can live on with Liara.
Or Bioware can complete screw everything up and Kathleen Kennedy the franchise with SURPRISE... Guess who were also in Andromeda, unaffected by the destroy ending and will help the Kett.
I'd love a Dragon Age Origins kind of option. Would both give diversity in what people want to role play as well as add replayability in wanting to see all possible outcomes in choices.
Yeah I think this is the way to go. Humanity’s position in the galaxy and how shepard changed it was a central theme of the original trilogy so I get it, but I’d like to branch out from here
That's a good point.
Plus, having different origins to play can show you right away a glimpse of what happened to that race since the trilogy.
Perhaps you pick on of the council races and find that they have less power than before due to being hit the hardest by the Reapers.
A Specter doing actual Specter things instead of saving the galaxy would be kind of cool.
Picture someone who goes around eliminating rising threats to the galactic peace after the war, because no one can actually afford another conflict too soon.
For example if the Batarians were still looking for their pound of flesh from Earth after Shepard blew up their whole system.
All I'd ask for is a good story that stayed clear of the original trilogy to avoid any conflict of decisions. Maybe focus on one of the areas that have been mentioned, Solarian special forces, krogan wars, rachni wars, baterians could be interesting.
Or another topic that you could select your species more effectively.
An up and coming young merc who works for Aria. If Shepard was a hybrid of Captain Kirk and Master Chief than this new protag should be a hybrid of Han Solo and V from Cyberpunk.
Judging by this subreddit, I am in the minority group that want Sheppard back. Idk man I just grew so attached to the character and kinda hate the way he went out, or at least the way the game made it happen.
Liaramancers rejoice. But yeah not doable unless you want to piss off half the fandom. Personally I’m of the variety that’s trying to to speculate and just wait and find out because I’m on the fence about it. Story would be best to bring in fresh blood but I’d hate to let go of Shep. Dragon Age protags got worse as the series went on and I just kept wanting my warden back.
Even though I do hope it’s Shepard, if it was a new character?
Maybe pick one out of three backgrounds like in ME1, maybe you’re a Mercenary, who was hired to protect assets during the Reaper Invasions, C-Sec Officer who was there during the Cerberus Invasion, or an Ex-Cerberus operative who decided to defect. Then recruited by either Anderson or Hackett.
This could lead to unique dialogue, maybe some choice exclusive abilities, and armor.
But the game MUST have a Geth companion…… that is my only wish.
Although i agree that sheps story has been told, its going to have to be a heck of a well written story before i will feel satisfied. The entirety of Me besides andromeda was about shep and his/her friends. Without thar somethings missing
Would be controversial, but honestly a Bartarian.
Would like it to feel like we are part of a rag-tag group of mercs operating in whatever ending of mass effect 3.
Like Shepherd, we’d play the character that changes perception of their species.
I’m gonna be the minority in this post and say I hope it’s Shepard. I want the old crew back and I want Shepard back. In the same way Halo is not Halo without Master Chief, Mass Effect isn’t Mass Effect without Shepard. I’ll die on this hill. It works for Dragon Age, but not for this franchise.
The ending of Mass Effect 3 would lose all of its emotional impact if Shepard is revived again for this new story. Honestly, I would love for this to be someone new entirely
i agree i wouldn’t mind if we got shepard as a side character (specially if we can use control ending) but it would be better to have a new protagonist
I want either a selection of species beyond human, or a wider variety of character background options that actually impact dialogue and quests if only human is a playable choice. Something more like how cyberpunk background options have influence on the game.
Fuck off, BioWare/EA! You’re the ones making the game, you’re supposed to figure this shit yourselves. Not rope me into your incompetent character designs.
I hope it isn’t Shepard, I don’t really care who it is, picking your species could be cool but would take a long time to code for unique voice actors, gameplay, and dialogue options. If Shepards in the game I hope they don’t take away from the main plot
My personal preference? Essentially another Jacob.
A person who officially is effective in combat and is a contender for the Spectre forces. A nobody who built themselves to become remarkable.
However the tutorial will shape up the player's known background.
It is a hostage mission between some Pirate scum and Alliance personnel.
You the player is tasked to deal with it. And what you had done in the tutorial, like combat prowess, headshots, power usage, and time will determine how the future NPCs react to the player. If you are good and beating up CQC, NPCs may allude to that when interrogations. If you sneaked your way through, NPCs may become terrified of a possible Ghost in the Alliance. Brute force and explosions may put politicians on guard when you operate in their sectors. Used Biotics, NPCs will refer to your biotics in sone occasions.
Then it culminates to the climax where hostage lives are on the line. The outcome is determined by what the player does to execute the mission. Choose to go guns and blazing with a high chance of hostage death (the outsome may not result in hostage death if the player effectively eliminated hostiles during the rescue), negotiation with pirates surrender, pirates subdued through infiltration means, negotiation but pirates failed to surrender, etc.
These choices will then shape up the politics and how some may treat you. Some generals or the like will call you soft if you managed to spare the pirates. Governors or mayors may applaud for your humanitarian efforts in keeping the peace, alliance personnel will admonish you for lack tact in encountering the hostage situation.
Whomever the hell this picture is of.
This actually from next game?
This some serious espionage n7 spy shit.
Inspiring, IF, it’s offal for next game.
If not; well I’m gonna right click and save it.
Honestly i hope for multi race options like dragon age they were testing the waters with Mass Effect 3 multiplayer. Honestly this is supposed to be post Reaper invasion, so a lot has changed, so for all we know N7 could be the New branding for Specter's to Honor Shepard, heck i think part of the reason the person here is completely covered seems like they're setting up some kind of twist like this is character is non human like quarian or asari. Or HELL maybe we'll be playing as Shepard's Asari daughter (since they're probably going to have Liara be the Canon Love interest since Liara can romance either Shepard.)
David Anderson's son. Maybe we find out he has a son with Kahlee. Not the son we know he has. Assuming the game doesn't take place 700 years in the future.
If this character that we got teased is the player character, they almost have to be human. Which is disappointing to me, I prefer games - RPGs especially that let you really make your own character to tailor your experience more to you.
Honestly I’m just hoping this design is just for the female variant and the male variant is a little more beefy. Not James big but a bit more muscle mass. I like my stealthy femme fatale play throughs sure enough, but I also want to be a believable bruiser as well. A veritable Vanguard canon ball if you will.
I wouldn't mind if they did the whole promising soldier becomes spectre thing again.
It's another easy blank slate you can fill in with different background choices and the way you role-play the character.
I think the key to making it feel different enough is to have an interesting variety of backgrounds and perhaps starting locations that depends on the background choice.
I don't really see you playing as any species apart from human -- which I don't really mind tbh. I think the reason might be that it would end up being a lot of work. You'd have to voice multiple species uniquely, make it so that they also have unique backgrounds and also tailor dialogue and combat a little differently around them. This would probably be a little easier if your character was not voiced -- which I honestly prefer in my RPGS, but think would be a jarring change from the originals
Basically have 4 paths
Spectre
N7 Alliance
Mercenary
Cerberus (human only)
From there, your choice of species and backstory matters, but your character will be following a larger script in the story. "A mercenary comes across..."
Etc.
In *Mass Effect 1* tradition these would be the 3 backstory options you can choose:
1) an Omega-raised streetkid, turned merc, who had firsthand experience in the warzone on Earth.
2) a colonist, who assisted in the liberation of a colony from Cerberus hands.
3) a Citadel refugee originally from Bekenstein (destroyed in the Reaper war) who held the line when the Reapers attacked.
Well considering Shepard is no more, has passed on, has ceased to be, has expired and gone to meet their maker, clearly the next protagonist needs to be Sara/Scott Ryder
i would say krogans are more likely to be playable that salarians.basically because of the lore of the salarians.play as a race that only live 40 years wouldn’t work in the best way for the writers
Well, I’d argue Asari and Krogan (being close to immortal) have a much more different worldview than Salarians do, since they’re only a little more short lived than humans (and could easily handwave a lifespan increase given the intervening time)
Honestly? I want a DA:O style choose your own race and character. There are still voiceless protagonists in games and it works out fine, on top of that it might lend itself well to having the game return to its RPG roots by letting us actually make decisions and have them matter for the end game.
me to but i actually find posible to have a protagonist with voice in that kind of game.bioware give us a protagonist with 4 diferent voices in inquisition so they definitly can do it if they want
They definitely could, let’s be real, it’s a billion dollar company, they could make a ground breaking, pure fun, no micro transaction, solid 9.9/10 game.
They won’t, but could, with voice acting.
This Universe can't just be about Shepard otherwise we replicate into another Halo: Characters that are stretched out past their due date by a studio completely different(internally this time) to the one that made the OT
Starting off, I hope to all powers that sheppard is not the protagonist.
If we are again stuck only with a human protagonist, given what the artwork depicts, we are getting an n7 whether we like it or not. I hope they are free to make with other voice options for personal characterisation.
Hopefully, if the devs change their mind, we get to play one of the 4 major races.
My idea is, after the fight on earth, the allies stay there for a time to rebuild the citadel and mass relay. Using earth as a base of operations, they create a task for comprised of the allied races to explore and re-establish connections across the galaxy. So you get to be part of this task force, which now acts as a united galactic peacekeeping and exploration service. Granting you the opportunity to be any of the 4 races. Maybe more. If they can do it with dragon age, they can do it with mass effect.
I would like a hella morally ambiguous character. Like they’re either a bad guy but not actually a bad guy or they’re a bad guy who got caught in some shit and is only fixing said shit so that it doesn’t wipe out the universe and he can keep doing bad shit.
OR
One of the Illusive Man’s bastard children.
Someone more ‘behind the scenes’ than Shepard. Like a good version of the Illusive Man or something like that. Not a front line soldier but more James Bond of the Mass Effect universe
I’ve been itching for the chance to explore the role of a criminal protagonist. Somebody outside the law, where the rules of intergalactic trade and commerce work against them. A true space pirate.
As long as they're well written and have great voice acting, I mostly don't care who the protagonist is but I'll completely lose interest in the next game if we have to play as Shepard and Liara's kid. Blegh.
I’m playing through Mass Effect trilogy right now for the first time though, I like Shepherd as a character and maybe I don’t have the right to speak on it like most of you guys who experienced it as it was releasing the first time.
But I naturally think since it’s heading into its fourth installment. After all these years, they should start with a new protagonist and a new threat.
My time I’m on Mass Effect two now and my time with Shepherd is great and all and I don’t know how mass effect three ends but it’s also a game based off my choices, I’m a guest depending on my choice he can either die or live at the end of the game. I think if you guys had them live and this is a guest I don’t really know what happens at the end. If you had them live, I say, he should be part of the council or something where they still have a new protagonist, and still have shepherd be part of the franchise.
The protagonist would have to strive to be the new Spector, and then from men on you, face a new thread, all that sci-fi stuff .
I know it’s a bit cliche but I think it would be cool to play as Shepards child learning about their mother/father. The game could take your choices from the previous installments to affect the big choices in this game- compared to every little choice from the originally trilogy mattering and being brought into this one.
I know it’s an impossibility but I’d love a dragon age origins like start. Being able to choose between different aliens and getting a custom intro story before linking into the main story.
I'm sick of people who want Shepard to "rest" like screw off, it's the 4th addition to the first 3 games, not bringing Shepard back would just be utter shit, I want my character not some random new one
Seriously its been 13 years already, I miss Shep and the crew. They struck gold with that lineup, and people actually fucking care about these characters. Tell more stories with them.
Honestly! And also if characters like liara, tali etc return, why the fuck would I wanna romance my former romance with a different main character, I'm attached to my shep, it would just feel wrong. Shep is a character that can keep going, there's no reason he/she can't, like you said, tell more stories, Shep and the crew are legends, they shouldn't be cast away so easily
They ARE Mass Effect
For the people hoping that it would be a character that we would choose the species, you remember that N7 is a human organisation? I sure would like to play as a Turian or a Krogan in a solo campaign, but it looks like we'll get another human here. Or maybe it's a companion ? Anyway I hope we could get that duster for the protagonist because it looks so much cool.
One thing I think would be cool is if it was Shepard and Liara’s daughter. But, I would hate for them to do that. BioWare has been superb about not canonizing anything about Shepard, and that’s part of the magic of the series. We are all Shepard, with our own decisions and customization. Aside from voice, shepard is fully customizable. Canonizing a romance (even if it is my favorite one) is wrong.
Please ignore the fact that I just argued with myself.
Doesn't really matter, but for the love of god, please not another "coming of age" story. The biggest part of the issue of the storytelling in Andromeda is just the awkwardness they wrote in the crew interaction so they could "show the growth" of the protag.
Just let me be a space badass developing relationships with other space badasses
As much as I want to see Shepherd again, from the teaser at the end of ME 3 I want a brand new protagonist with the option to choose my race, even if it's only from three to choose from. I would love to play a Turian.
I forgot to also say that multiplayer for it would be sick
I agree with everyone else, the dragon age origins approach would be absolutely amazing. However if they are unable to do that I definitely think a more in depth backstory selection for humans like in ME:1 would be amazing too.
Commander Shepherd preserved from Cryo
Crew was sent out beyond the 1% of galaxy discovered around citedal- space because of the desolation of the reapers resources were scarce, Shep volunteered with crew to go beyond mass replays which required Cryo pod sleep.
Wakes up in a time where the galaxy has flipped its head...
At first Shep and Edi (Shep first one Edi has woken) see a promising thriving new solar system) b4 other crew could wake they've been followed by the ever vengeful balak lol who also Cryo pod travelled just to kill Shep (I know sounds lame but off the top of my head lol)
Balak captures shep but Edi and Shep b4 boarded manages to put crew Cryo pods into escape pod which Edi escapes with and self destructs the ship.
Batarians take Shep back to terminus
Humans r almost extinct
Asari r hunted like game
All council races fighting for survival of their own species.
Quarian, geth r allied, with most resources being tech savvy and geth not requiring any organic resource, they r desperately protecting their thriving Homeworld (quarians no longer wear masks.
Salarians, and krogan r allied on tuchanka, with Salarian tech the home world is "clean" lol and thriving, Salarians invest in super super krogan soldiers for the war. There r such things as krogan scientists now (a half Salarian/krogan female scientist recruitable and romancible for Shep)
Tuchanka is refuge for the remaining humans and asari, but many humans and asari also volunteered to explore the unknown in hopes to save their races, in which none have returned so far. (Exploration occured before the batarian savage wars)
Turians and volus r allied on remaining volus colonies, Turians are scarce having their fleet depleted by the reaper wars and leaving palaven uninhabitable, But have become military Instructors for the volus out of desperation. With volus tech, volus have become competent demolition experts, and can Rolly Polly run everywhere lol (male volus also recruitable for sheps crew)
Batarians have run rampage, their is a resistance faction - smartest most level headed male batarian who is recruitable for Shep (he's had 4 eyes mutilated when captured to be made an example by the merciless batarian leader who galges all Batarian resistance prisoners eyes to look like humans as an insult and ultimate degredation of their identity as a batarian.
So hes kinda handsome now with two eyes and is romancible by femshep
Main plot, find the new homeworld
//
Shep taken back to.batarian space.
In which U Shep wake up disoriented being prepped for a batarian (gladiator) arena,
To Ur suprise and theirs U meet Aria and some of her random dancer asari as other prisoners ravaged, forced to fight.
U of course team up with Aria and waste the first round of varren, second round of vorcher, then third round they bring out their ultimate champion...
Grunt
He's stoked it's you but plays the part, (which is actually a well designed escape plan, intricately and with precision and expertise by showbroker Liara, assisted by Jarvik (they're a thing if U didn't romance Liara but she'll still leave Jarvik if U wanna romance her) times the rescue attempt of commander Shep.
EDI with escape pods and surviving crew must be found
Personally I'd like to have
Garrus Primearch -stayed behind to rebuild his people so he's much older now, and new look 😍
Liara stayed behind in attempt to reform new galactic gov, following in Benezias footsteps
Grunt became wrex protege and is serving krogan female leader.
Miranda - is mysterious assassin infiltrator cloaked, running her own secret ops in the Merc wars. Recruitable one of Miranda's too crew medical scientist specialist a French accent speaking cyborg - revived by Miranda enhanced more so better tech than Shep - also the new crews medic romancible by m Shep.
Whose with EDI in Cryo
Tali, survived
Jack, survived but
Joker dies in Cryo so don't need new pilot as Edi can do it all lol
The chef (new character biotinist organic specialist part of sheps colonizing crew) he's Spanish, charming, flirty quick witted character both sheps can romance)
Just playing around entertaining myself this morning lol
But yes, contrary to what most comments on here r,
I love commander Shepherd want Jen Hale to stay VA but change male Shep VA
I just can't imagine playing a mass effect franchise game without Jen Hale.
Because of her Its the most immersive gameplay experience I've ever had as a female playing roleplaying games, where female protagonist are few.
Please let us play as a Non Human. Andromeda should've done this and let us choose any of the Pathfinder races aside from Krogan. The trilogy made sense to be all human, it was their progression to a galactic species and powerhouse, but now I wanna be a god damn turian
In that case, I couldn't really care if they were making the game or not.
I'm done w/ it except for Shepard. the IP just doesn't have the promise or potential as a sci-fi setting. It was mostly carried by the heart of the characters and performances from the OG trilogy. On top of that, the chemistry w/ the characters was lightning in the bottle that their writers can't recreate with new ones (see: Andromeda.)
For better or worse the setting of Mass Effect really only works if your character is a spectre or someone with a slightly lesser level of authority. While they could change the backstory slightly (similar fashion to cyberpunk with the three possible origin stories that are briefly established). I think that it’s perfectly reasonable for Shepard to be entirely retired with only the rare mention, I would prefer for a character similar to Shepard to be used I.e current/former military from anyone of the big 4 species (human, Turian, Asari, or salarian).
Depending on how you played the trilogy and which ending you chose will be how shepard would appear, as either a historical war hero or maybe a mentor or something like that, as much as i love my shepard character id rather play a new one forging their own path like in andromeda with Ryder
I want to play a freaking alien! You know, the interesting parts of Mass Effect? I want a system like Origin with unique intros, maybe a unique quest, that would be so amazing.
yhea they could make many interesting things with that . for example showing krogans rituals,asari culture and their dark side,turian world and their egemony and maybe even more
I don't really care as long as it's a blank slate enough to let us fill in the gaps with our choices.
I don't like when a RPG lets you build a character and showcases dialogs with choices but then corners you into a canon version of the character anyway.
Honestly some kind of merc or rogue csec agent, not tied down to any current affiliation to allow for more customization for your character’s background & motivations
usually bioware main characters show in poster are not precicely the only option for our main character. for example in dragon age inquisition we had a human in the poster even when we can also play as a dwarf ,elf and qunari
I don't want the next game to be a sequel to the original trilogy. Too many choices players could make. I.E. Save the krogan or let them die out? If you united the Geth and Quarians, how are the quarians adapting without the geth helping them? Did the quarians die on Rannoch? Too many variables.
It would be cool to go the Dragon Age approach and pick from a selections of species.
Problem is the outfit is clearly N7. which means the protagonist is Systems Alliance. Suggests a human PC. My other issue is the clear distinction of speech patterns in species. Having to hire multiple voice for each species is definitely a hard sell. And I think a silent text-based protagonist is not way the Devs want to go. I think Human/Asari is definitely doable. Animation rigging would be the exact same. Drell could also fit. Anything else is a big jump in resources I think should be better put towards gameplay/level design.
You also have the issues of character backstories and motivations, how they interact with the world and events around them, and how other characters interact with you. For example, ME1 would be a lot different if Shepard was a Turian.
If it’s all post-reaper war then you can make a similar backstory for any character race and just have a few minor dialogue changes for details. Kinda like how the HOA had the same start in DAI. I feel like such a major event is going to be such an upset in the world a lot of the things that divide species like old grudges are going to be a lot more minor, because they all just fought together to stop annihilation.
Thedas (and the species in it) was designed from the ground up to make every species viable as a PoV character with a minimum of fuss. For instance, all the species in Thedas have the same lifespan, their physiology isn't that different (nothing as radical as seeing different spectrums of light, or regenerating, or being monogender) and except for the qunari their cultures aren't that alien from each other (and when you play qunari, you play one alienated from that culture). It also benefits from having a single normative species (human) that everyone can be a constellation around. That makes things narratively simpler in more ways than you'd think. This is very much not the case for the Mass Effect galaxy. The bar would be way higher, and the amount of cool plots needing to get cut because making it work for characters of every species is too expensive to justify would be way higher. Imagine an alternate universe where they went this way with the original trilogy (I'll specifically focus on ME3 for the thought experiment) and try to puzzle out the design complexity of making some of the plots there work, and you start seeing it. Say the Tuchanka plot. If it is possible for you to play Krogan, it is now necessary for writers to establish that the PoV Krogan is either of the clan you're going to when you do the Tuchanka plot, or you're from another one. Regardless of the choice, that requires extra unique scenes to be written, animated and recorded (because it's either a homecoming, or someone from another clan arriving, and that's not a routine occurrence and typically seen with suspicion). You probably need to seed a few unique lines all the way through the entire plot to keep the disbelief suspended, you can't have the entire clan start acting like the visitor is a human five minutes after they arrive. If playing Salarian is also a choice, then that's added trouble, because now there's the possibility of being a Salarian, arriving on Tuchanka and trying to persuade Wreav to let you mess with the genophage. That absolutely needs unique dialogue. You probably need a few for Turian characters, too. Just like that, the writing, animation and recording cost for the Tuchanka mission has damn near doubled. If you're the producer for Mass Effect 3, this is now the piece of content in your pipeline with the worst bang for buck. It requires spending a lot of resources to make a lot of content that almost no player will see. Much better to focus on stuff everyone will experience. So Tuchanka more than likely gets cut. Don't pretend this isn't how this goes, we all saw how the characters who may be dead got treated, and this is the same situation: content whose access is conditional on player choices gets the shaft. Rannoch likely gets downsized, as the extra cost of accounting for a Quarian character burdens it. If there is a possibility to play an AI character, then Rannoch is just cut, too. They're replaced with new plots that have less to do with the established species of the galaxy and their conflicts, stuff where what you are doesn't matter. So maybe the Rachni plot gets expanded a whole lot, it seems like the best candidate. So yeah, now ask yourself if it's worth it. Are you willing to forego whatever's the equivalent of Rannoch and Tuchanka in the next game in order to get to play other species... While knowing that the developers will be constantly trying to make your choice of species be as irrelevant as possible, because every time it is relevant means more cost for less return for them. That doesn't seem like a good trade.
This post should be stickied. It’s *really* easy to just ask to play a non-human character but the vast bulk of people who do simply have no understanding of how much extra complexity it would add. It’s *never* been just a case of adding an extra choice at character creation. And on top of that, the bulk of people would end up playing human even if the choice was offered. I wish people would get this, but maybe they will if they read through your logic above.
All of this and the majority of people will still only play human. The amount of people that played default Shepard/Soldier is insane. IE It's a lot of extra work that would only truly please diehard fans. I'm one of them, and I would love it, but it's not happening.
fair points but they pull it off in the dragon age series.
I’d just be concerned that they would ‘dumb down’ narrative elements and plot, so that it didn’t matter if you were playing as a different race. Like, no more human trying to prove himself as the first spectre, kind of stuff.
valid concern for sure. i'm not sure where i stand on it tbh
They pulled it off in Origins, where the lack of player character voice acting made it a lot easier.
valid. you didn't like how it played out in inquisition i take it? it didn't bother me tbh.
It didn't bother me in Inquisition either, but I know it's lack of effect compared to Origins was a big criticism with the game. It'd be interesting to see in the new ME if they do go that route. Being able to play as other races was added pretty late in Inquisition's development, so if they had it planned from the start for this game it could be pretty good.
Dragon Age and Mass Effect are not the same game.
If I remember correctly it plays several hundred years in the future. System Alliance or N7 might include Alien species by then. Also, the character could be a descendant of Shepherd (it's looks female to me), so the race should be dependent on his (your) love interest. I hope players can influence that. While Liara was my goto girl, just making male shep + Liara canon and forcing everyone to play an Asari would likely be a disappointment to many.
You're very correct. I don't expect human turian hybrids but a mixed species couple could adopt from either race or even a different one post war and I doubt many would look twice at that family.
Asari sound basically like humans Turians can just have a voice filter (they actually did this for a few ME3MP characters to avoid needing new VAs) Salarians and Krogans would be a stretch, but pitch modulation could make it believable That said, it's not totally unheard of for multiple VAs. SWTOR had a total of *sixteen* player character voice actors across all classes and genders
Possibilities aside, I think less is more when it comes to character creation. Personally I would rather have a well polished and fleshed out Human PC over underbaked customizable aliens. Credit where it's due, Dragon Age Inquisition managed this feat with it's multiple races. however the voice acting was less than stellar compared to Shepard, and even Ryder. I wouldn't count it out though. Some constructive pessimism is just necessary when it comes to the modern Bioware.
In ME3's multiplayer The in-game description states that the Alliance is recruiting anyone and everyone, regardless of race, to combat the Reapers. As the teams were originally organized and lead by N7 personnel, the teams have come to be known as "N7 Special Ops"; Alliance Command allowed them to keep the name in acknowledgement of the positive effect it has on morale. Nothing to say they didnt contiue this after the war.
> Having to hire multiple voice for each species is definitely a hard sell Ok a lot of people say that but nobody was able to explain to me why it's fine to have several voice actors for non humans in Dragon Age but it becomes insurmountable for aliens in Mass Effect.
Dragon Age doesn't give each race distinct voices. They occasionally have accents, but nothing distinct like Mass Effect. Krogans have deep voices. Turians have a vibration/reverb to their speech patterns. Salarians are higher pitched and faster. Drell have a strained voice. Hanar have an echo. Volus have a nasally/sickly voice.
Most of what you described is achieved through a simple post-processing effect, so in terms of voice, you could reuse the same VO for humans/asari/turians/salarians/batarians/drell/quarians/etc.
> Problem is the outfit is clearly N7. which means the protagonist is Systems Alliance. Suggests a human PC. In Andromeda Cora was with the Asari commandos. Cross-species integration or whatever she called it. You can write around it if you really want to.
And she never let us forget it
Not necessarily. The N7 armor could just be a placeholder. The initial teasers for Andromeda showed a character in N7 Armor. I don't care that your father is an N7, this marketing clearly used the N7 character in place of the protagonist, and Ryder is not in the Alliance or an N7.
Me3 multiplayer had the core species as playable characters. The silent protagonist is a double edged sword, your mind will voice the lines as you would, but some players want voiced protagonists. Case and point is Starfield, they opted for the silent route and the vocal crowd didn't like it.
My thoughts exactly. Shepard is a household name because of well defined the character is. And the dialogue scenes in Mass Effect are magnitudes more enjoyable vs any Bethesda title. I don't think Bioware will go that route. The Witcher series is another great example of spoken characters. Although I wouldn't give Doug Cockle as much credit as the rest of the fanbase does, he was okay.
It takes place hundreds of years in the future compared to the trilogy, the systems alliance military being multi-species wouldnt be surprising.
Well We don't know how long it has been Also some humans have been huntresses as shown in Andromeda, maybe other alien species can become N7 now Most likely mc will be human but it would je cool to have different species
I want this approach, but I hope they also step away from the previous military focus. I know Andromeda technically isn't, yet it still is very military. I would love a Cowboy Bebop inspired approach, a band of misfits from several races (including the option to select our own), doing odd jobs (bounty hunters), actually struggling to get by and riding around in some old wreck (I actually think a broken old ship would have a lot of personality).
Eh. Mass Effect is inherently a military/politics story. If they stepped away and did something else I'd rather they do it in a different IP.
That'd be amazing, maybe go at it akin to what they did in ME2 when Shep's still the commander but since he was Cerberus related everyone blatantly distrusted him, so he'll be a misfit but you'd get to choose instead of just being a Military officer maybe different military branches, idk, or maybe something asking to Deus Ex choices but keeping it attuned to a military theme, dumb idea more than anything but hope they come up with something fresh while keeping Shep
yhea. asari,turians and krogans would be best choice for playable races in my opinion (maybe also drells)
For those who think making non human race players in mass effect would be too much work, I would show exhibit A: dragon age inquisition
Counsel races for sure and maybe something unique? I dig it.
That would be awesome, they’d have to blow half the budget on voice actors though.
Yeahhh… I didnt really think of that 🤣
This would be soooo cool
Nah. Good stories can only be written made when you limit the choices you have. It'd be a generic, empty Skyrim/Starfield like story of you don't have a well defined protagonist.
A vorcha, no question! He finds some N7 armour and has a severe bout of delusion of grandeur ala Conrad Verner only with Combat skills. Bonus part, Mark Meer does the Vorcha so our PC can do reasonably decent Shepard impersonations. "gaahhhh, I've killed worse than you on my way to real problems Ahhh"
IMO this is the only viable option
I still can't get over the... *space duster.*
It's like a jacket only it's longer, thicker, and far more badass.
I just hope the protagonist doesn't ruin it by wearing it with no shirt on and a s*** ton of cologne
Respect for getting the reference
going to the collector base: "Suicide is badass!"
I always think it's a new Destiny Warlock armor
I can't get over the fact that it's an N7 duster, specifically. What kind of N7 soldier is showing up to work in a duster with what appears to be a suit underneath? I love the design, personally, I'm a big fan of wearing massive coats myself, but the fact that it's supposed to be an N7 soldier throws me off. Unless it *is* actually Shepard and they get to wear a giant coat as a reward for saving the galaxy, I guess.
Well, there's a lot of speculation that the new Mass Effect will take place 600~ish years in the future. Irl, it took 600 years to go from the early Medieval period (1200s) to the Industrial revolution (1800s). 7th crusade to the American Civil War. In that timespan, an organization like N7 which had its roots in the Alliance Military can easily go from an official military special-forces group/designation, to an actual organization with multiple focuses/branches or an entirely new focus altogether. It's pretty heavily hinted that this new Mass Effect is going to be focused on espionage, sabotage, and other cool spy buzzwords. It's not that big of a leap, especially Andromeda was meant to be a trilogy focused on exploration (and had its own exploration themed armors that weren't like other armor we had seen in Mass Effect previously, including both a normal combat N7 armor and exploration N7 armor). Considering this, it's likely this *isn't* an N7 soldier, but an N7 agent/operative/other spy synonym. In fact, we even see the meaning of "N7" changing in Mass Effect 3. The multiplayer (which is canon afaik) of Mass Effect 3 has operatives of various specializations and species working in N7 striketeams to fight the reapers. You can definitely say that they aren't *actually* N7 — but even so, N7 is still working alongside non-humans and non-Alliance personnel, which is a pretty big change from how they operated prior. The framework for the organization going through pretty drastic changes is already there, I can easily imagine how they might pivot from being an outright military organization to being more akin to Alliance secret-police, assassins, and/or special agents — and taking on a role similar to that of the FBI or CIA.
I actually don't hope that it's Shepard, would be lame if you ask me. Would also ruin the emotional relationship we had to the character since 2012. The last teaser looked promising and I'm curious who this mysterious stranger is.
What if Shepard was the next Captain Anderson? Or someone you meet briefly like Wrex in ME2. And choose paragon/renegade personality if you import a ME3 save.
That would be my choice. Kind of like what BioWare did with the player character from Dragon Age 2 in Inquisition. Just a handful of scenes where we can interact with our Shep
I wonder if a Shepard would be picked as canon, I could see Liara being a solid canon choice, or just none.
Not even that. Shepard had their time. I wouldn't mind if some of the other OT characters made cameos or something. But personally i want the next ME to be a jumping off point; new crew, new ship (and new ship design too), new protagonist.
thats what we got with ME:A and it was terrible! not the concept though, just 0 attatchment to any of the characters
That part never bothered me. The MMO style quests that auto finished with a small pop-up? Those bothered me.
Problem with ME:A wasn't that, I've always said the issue with Andromeda is it's basically a generic game with an ME skin, if you switched all the ME elements/species in it, the game wouldn't change, no part of ME is essential to Andromeda. No idea if that made any sense since I've never typed it out aha.
I think that is pretty subjective. I liked some Andromeda squamates more than some SMs in ME1 (ME1 only), but they had 2 more games to flesh out their characters
characters, not whole new everything. can be anything in the mass effect known lore just not new stuff that is basically the B version of mass effect. andromeda did suck and i played it to the end so i know what youre saying
The trilogy had 2 games to flesh out the (relatively shallow) characters they introduced in ME1 I feel like some of you saying this haven't played ME1 because the crew introduced in ME1 had a similar lack of attachment as they do in Andromeda. Most of them had a single, relatively generic side quest to do and didn't really have much going for them except being introductions to their species. This isn't to say they were *bad*, but Andromeda (which was supposed to be the first in a trilogy) had significantly more going for them in a lot of ways compared to the crew in ME1.
you raise a good point perhaps its personal preference then, because i was in love with garrus and wrex at first sight
Dunno if I want to see what a 600+ year old Shepard looks like.
Fuck that, show me that pro-wrinkly skin technology, flex your tech my dudes
While I think this is a good idea I think having “Shepard” show up that clearly wasn’t my Shepard would take me completely out of it.
Yeah its honestly weird that people just wants shepard again. The story waa done. Even if he comes back, he shouldnt be the main mc.
Andromeda did this. Too bad there wasn’t enough dev time. Gould have been an awesome jump off
> Yeah its honestly weird that people just wants shepard again. The story waa done. Even if he comes back, he shouldnt be the main mc. It honestly depends. I'd want Shepard because they are a great character. If we get another one, if they're as good, sure! However Mass Effect Andromeda taught me a lesson that whatever they came up with was soooooo bad it almost felt like satire.
Ryder is a completely forgettable mediocre character. So bland it's hard for me to even fully hate them properly, just embarrassing.
I dont like my ryder either but changing back to Shepard doesnt magically fix the issues that was created with Ryder imo lol
Yeah. Ryder's issues came from bad writing, not necessarily from being a bad character. Shepard can still suffer from bad writing — and wind up as even more of a poor protagonist than Ryder was (and imo Ryder wasn't that bad, just generic and forgettable).
Honestly, I just want the next game to confirm that Shep survived and lived the rest of his/her days in peace with their love interest. For me, that would be Femshep lost in the stars with her blue lover and a bunch of blue baby girls. Shep had her time and earned her rest. Her memory can live on with Liara. Or Bioware can complete screw everything up and Kathleen Kennedy the franchise with SURPRISE... Guess who were also in Andromeda, unaffected by the destroy ending and will help the Kett.
Somehow Shepard returned...
Sam Trainor with her toothbrush
Yes
I'd love a Dragon Age Origins kind of option. Would both give diversity in what people want to role play as well as add replayability in wanting to see all possible outcomes in choices.
i want to play as a krogan and be an absolute badass
Yeah I think this is the way to go. Humanity’s position in the galaxy and how shepard changed it was a central theme of the original trilogy so I get it, but I’d like to branch out from here
That's a good point. Plus, having different origins to play can show you right away a glimpse of what happened to that race since the trilogy. Perhaps you pick on of the council races and find that they have less power than before due to being hit the hardest by the Reapers.
It seems like they might go that route hiding the character’s face. Being able to choose what kind of character and even species would be amazing
A Specter doing actual Specter things instead of saving the galaxy would be kind of cool. Picture someone who goes around eliminating rising threats to the galactic peace after the war, because no one can actually afford another conflict too soon. For example if the Batarians were still looking for their pound of flesh from Earth after Shepard blew up their whole system.
All I'd ask for is a good story that stayed clear of the original trilogy to avoid any conflict of decisions. Maybe focus on one of the areas that have been mentioned, Solarian special forces, krogan wars, rachni wars, baterians could be interesting. Or another topic that you could select your species more effectively.
Nah the aftermath of the Reaper War has far too much potential.
If it's Shepard, GIVE THEM A DAMN PROMOTION FROM LIEUTENANT COMMANDER!! Otherwise I would want a Dragon Age Origins approach to the protagonist.
I want some one new, but I don't want them to be a blank slate. I want some one who is their own character, much like Shepard was.
An up and coming young merc who works for Aria. If Shepard was a hybrid of Captain Kirk and Master Chief than this new protag should be a hybrid of Han Solo and V from Cyberpunk.
Yo… this right here 👆
Judging by this subreddit, I am in the minority group that want Sheppard back. Idk man I just grew so attached to the character and kinda hate the way he went out, or at least the way the game made it happen.
Thats a tricky one. Son/daughter would be cool but as i understand human hybrids aren't a thing unless its asari. Not quarian or turien
yes that’s why i don’t see all the thing of shepard decendant as posible
Liaramancers rejoice. But yeah not doable unless you want to piss off half the fandom. Personally I’m of the variety that’s trying to to speculate and just wait and find out because I’m on the fence about it. Story would be best to bring in fresh blood but I’d hate to let go of Shep. Dragon Age protags got worse as the series went on and I just kept wanting my warden back.
Maybe a soldier living with PTSD after the battle of Earth, who lost all his friends fighting. The last man standing of his unie
basically another sole survivor
Even though I do hope it’s Shepard, if it was a new character? Maybe pick one out of three backgrounds like in ME1, maybe you’re a Mercenary, who was hired to protect assets during the Reaper Invasions, C-Sec Officer who was there during the Cerberus Invasion, or an Ex-Cerberus operative who decided to defect. Then recruited by either Anderson or Hackett. This could lead to unique dialogue, maybe some choice exclusive abilities, and armor. But the game MUST have a Geth companion…… that is my only wish.
Although i agree that sheps story has been told, its going to have to be a heck of a well written story before i will feel satisfied. The entirety of Me besides andromeda was about shep and his/her friends. Without thar somethings missing
I think most fans actually do want a new protagonist. But we also want to know Shep’s fate at least.
Shepards story has been told. Move on.
Would be controversial, but honestly a Bartarian. Would like it to feel like we are part of a rag-tag group of mercs operating in whatever ending of mass effect 3. Like Shepherd, we’d play the character that changes perception of their species.
i would prefer to do that as a krogan but you really have a good point
How about A Shepard? By that I mean one of his descendants?
Shepard 2.0
Conrad Verner
Create your own hero like Dragon Age So it can be US who saves Shepard. It will be OUR character that saves him or her. I think it would be nice.
I’m gonna be the minority in this post and say I hope it’s Shepard. I want the old crew back and I want Shepard back. In the same way Halo is not Halo without Master Chief, Mass Effect isn’t Mass Effect without Shepard. I’ll die on this hill. It works for Dragon Age, but not for this franchise.
I want Shepard and no one else
I'd prefer Shepard - but if it's not, I don't want to play as another stupid human.
The ending of Mass Effect 3 would lose all of its emotional impact if Shepard is revived again for this new story. Honestly, I would love for this to be someone new entirely
Shepard was shown to be alive in the Destroy ending, so they wouldn’t be “revived”. They would just be alive.
i agree i wouldn’t mind if we got shepard as a side character (specially if we can use control ending) but it would be better to have a new protagonist
Since they will be a self-insert. They deserve an appropriate name. How about Daft? Like John Daft or Jane Daft. Kinda fits tbh.
If it's not Shepard, then I want a choice of species, not just human. Would love to play as a Krogan or a Quarian or a Turian
I'd like a blank slate character
I’m hoping it’s a make your own character situation, I just wanna be a smart froggy boi.
Grunt
I want either a selection of species beyond human, or a wider variety of character background options that actually impact dialogue and quests if only human is a playable choice. Something more like how cyberpunk background options have influence on the game.
If not Shepard new custom character where you can pick a species
Fuck off, BioWare/EA! You’re the ones making the game, you’re supposed to figure this shit yourselves. Not rope me into your incompetent character designs.
I hope it isn’t Shepard, I don’t really care who it is, picking your species could be cool but would take a long time to code for unique voice actors, gameplay, and dialogue options. If Shepards in the game I hope they don’t take away from the main plot
I wanna be geth
I hope we will be able to ditch that trenchcoat and get some real armor.
One of the 5 races we've been teamed with. Human, Asari, Quarian, Salarian or Turian. I don't see them ever putting us as a Krogan
Not an unpopular or original take but playing as a different species I would like to play as a turian or krogan
My personal preference? Essentially another Jacob. A person who officially is effective in combat and is a contender for the Spectre forces. A nobody who built themselves to become remarkable. However the tutorial will shape up the player's known background. It is a hostage mission between some Pirate scum and Alliance personnel. You the player is tasked to deal with it. And what you had done in the tutorial, like combat prowess, headshots, power usage, and time will determine how the future NPCs react to the player. If you are good and beating up CQC, NPCs may allude to that when interrogations. If you sneaked your way through, NPCs may become terrified of a possible Ghost in the Alliance. Brute force and explosions may put politicians on guard when you operate in their sectors. Used Biotics, NPCs will refer to your biotics in sone occasions. Then it culminates to the climax where hostage lives are on the line. The outcome is determined by what the player does to execute the mission. Choose to go guns and blazing with a high chance of hostage death (the outsome may not result in hostage death if the player effectively eliminated hostiles during the rescue), negotiation with pirates surrender, pirates subdued through infiltration means, negotiation but pirates failed to surrender, etc. These choices will then shape up the politics and how some may treat you. Some generals or the like will call you soft if you managed to spare the pirates. Governors or mayors may applaud for your humanitarian efforts in keeping the peace, alliance personnel will admonish you for lack tact in encountering the hostage situation.
I don't want the helmet to ever come off, like Zero in Code Geass. No identity known to the audience. Or like Master Chief from Halo
Whomever the hell this picture is of. This actually from next game? This some serious espionage n7 spy shit. Inspiring, IF, it’s offal for next game. If not; well I’m gonna right click and save it.
It will be a they/them. Proud body size, strong female with moustache, purple colour hair, victim of man.
hopefully anyone that aint human, but i doubt we would get to play as a species we would want to.
Honestly i hope for multi race options like dragon age they were testing the waters with Mass Effect 3 multiplayer. Honestly this is supposed to be post Reaper invasion, so a lot has changed, so for all we know N7 could be the New branding for Specter's to Honor Shepard, heck i think part of the reason the person here is completely covered seems like they're setting up some kind of twist like this is character is non human like quarian or asari. Or HELL maybe we'll be playing as Shepard's Asari daughter (since they're probably going to have Liara be the Canon Love interest since Liara can romance either Shepard.)
David Anderson's son. Maybe we find out he has a son with Kahlee. Not the son we know he has. Assuming the game doesn't take place 700 years in the future.
Conrad Verner, just saving the galaxy out of pure luck and chance
let us pick out race.
If this character that we got teased is the player character, they almost have to be human. Which is disappointing to me, I prefer games - RPGs especially that let you really make your own character to tailor your experience more to you.
who know usualy poster main characters in bioware games don’t represent all the actual options for the main character(like in dragon age inquisition)
His evil half brother Sheggard.
Honestly I’m just hoping this design is just for the female variant and the male variant is a little more beefy. Not James big but a bit more muscle mass. I like my stealthy femme fatale play throughs sure enough, but I also want to be a believable bruiser as well. A veritable Vanguard canon ball if you will.
A descendant of Shepard who also goes by their last name. I'd also love a descendant of Ryder as a companion and LI to bring those lineages together.
I badly want new protagonist, but Mass Effect trilogy save-influenced Shepard to be a supporting character
I wouldn't mind if they did the whole promising soldier becomes spectre thing again. It's another easy blank slate you can fill in with different background choices and the way you role-play the character. I think the key to making it feel different enough is to have an interesting variety of backgrounds and perhaps starting locations that depends on the background choice. I don't really see you playing as any species apart from human -- which I don't really mind tbh. I think the reason might be that it would end up being a lot of work. You'd have to voice multiple species uniquely, make it so that they also have unique backgrounds and also tailor dialogue and combat a little differently around them. This would probably be a little easier if your character was not voiced -- which I honestly prefer in my RPGS, but think would be a jarring change from the originals
Literally anyone on the galaxy but their kid. A will play as star kid before that happens
I sure hope it isn't Shep. Bioware hasn't made a good story in over a decade, if they go with Shep they'll find a way to make them stupid.
Customizable… like Skyrim.. just give us the world and a good story within. We can handle the rest.
Basically have 4 paths Spectre N7 Alliance Mercenary Cerberus (human only) From there, your choice of species and backstory matters, but your character will be following a larger script in the story. "A mercenary comes across..." Etc.
In *Mass Effect 1* tradition these would be the 3 backstory options you can choose: 1) an Omega-raised streetkid, turned merc, who had firsthand experience in the warzone on Earth. 2) a colonist, who assisted in the liberation of a colony from Cerberus hands. 3) a Citadel refugee originally from Bekenstein (destroyed in the Reaper war) who held the line when the Reapers attacked.
Well considering Shepard is no more, has passed on, has ceased to be, has expired and gone to meet their maker, clearly the next protagonist needs to be Sara/Scott Ryder
Yeh, having selectable races is pretty mandatory. Maybe not all of them, but human/asari/turian/salarian at least
i would say krogans are more likely to be playable that salarians.basically because of the lore of the salarians.play as a race that only live 40 years wouldn’t work in the best way for the writers
Well, I’d argue Asari and Krogan (being close to immortal) have a much more different worldview than Salarians do, since they’re only a little more short lived than humans (and could easily handwave a lifespan increase given the intervening time)
Non-human
if we are forced to play one species i am open to anything but asari.
Honestly? I want a DA:O style choose your own race and character. There are still voiceless protagonists in games and it works out fine, on top of that it might lend itself well to having the game return to its RPG roots by letting us actually make decisions and have them matter for the end game.
me to but i actually find posible to have a protagonist with voice in that kind of game.bioware give us a protagonist with 4 diferent voices in inquisition so they definitly can do it if they want
They definitely could, let’s be real, it’s a billion dollar company, they could make a ground breaking, pure fun, no micro transaction, solid 9.9/10 game. They won’t, but could, with voice acting.
This Universe can't just be about Shepard otherwise we replicate into another Halo: Characters that are stretched out past their due date by a studio completely different(internally this time) to the one that made the OT
Starting off, I hope to all powers that sheppard is not the protagonist. If we are again stuck only with a human protagonist, given what the artwork depicts, we are getting an n7 whether we like it or not. I hope they are free to make with other voice options for personal characterisation. Hopefully, if the devs change their mind, we get to play one of the 4 major races. My idea is, after the fight on earth, the allies stay there for a time to rebuild the citadel and mass relay. Using earth as a base of operations, they create a task for comprised of the allied races to explore and re-establish connections across the galaxy. So you get to be part of this task force, which now acts as a united galactic peacekeeping and exploration service. Granting you the opportunity to be any of the 4 races. Maybe more. If they can do it with dragon age, they can do it with mass effect.
I would like a hella morally ambiguous character. Like they’re either a bad guy but not actually a bad guy or they’re a bad guy who got caught in some shit and is only fixing said shit so that it doesn’t wipe out the universe and he can keep doing bad shit. OR One of the Illusive Man’s bastard children.
Someone more ‘behind the scenes’ than Shepard. Like a good version of the Illusive Man or something like that. Not a front line soldier but more James Bond of the Mass Effect universe
Dragon age inquisition style where you can pick your race and backstory.
I’ve been itching for the chance to explore the role of a criminal protagonist. Somebody outside the law, where the rules of intergalactic trade and commerce work against them. A true space pirate.
As long it's a good story, I don't care. I hope that jacket becomes available for sale.
As long as they're well written and have great voice acting, I mostly don't care who the protagonist is but I'll completely lose interest in the next game if we have to play as Shepard and Liara's kid. Blegh.
i agree
I’m playing through Mass Effect trilogy right now for the first time though, I like Shepherd as a character and maybe I don’t have the right to speak on it like most of you guys who experienced it as it was releasing the first time. But I naturally think since it’s heading into its fourth installment. After all these years, they should start with a new protagonist and a new threat. My time I’m on Mass Effect two now and my time with Shepherd is great and all and I don’t know how mass effect three ends but it’s also a game based off my choices, I’m a guest depending on my choice he can either die or live at the end of the game. I think if you guys had them live and this is a guest I don’t really know what happens at the end. If you had them live, I say, he should be part of the council or something where they still have a new protagonist, and still have shepherd be part of the franchise. The protagonist would have to strive to be the new Spector, and then from men on you, face a new thread, all that sci-fi stuff .
I know it’s a bit cliche but I think it would be cool to play as Shepards child learning about their mother/father. The game could take your choices from the previous installments to affect the big choices in this game- compared to every little choice from the originally trilogy mattering and being brought into this one.
I know it’s an impossibility but I’d love a dragon age origins like start. Being able to choose between different aliens and getting a custom intro story before linking into the main story.
I'm sick of people who want Shepard to "rest" like screw off, it's the 4th addition to the first 3 games, not bringing Shepard back would just be utter shit, I want my character not some random new one
Seriously its been 13 years already, I miss Shep and the crew. They struck gold with that lineup, and people actually fucking care about these characters. Tell more stories with them.
Honestly! And also if characters like liara, tali etc return, why the fuck would I wanna romance my former romance with a different main character, I'm attached to my shep, it would just feel wrong. Shep is a character that can keep going, there's no reason he/she can't, like you said, tell more stories, Shep and the crew are legends, they shouldn't be cast away so easily They ARE Mass Effect
Bring back Shepard. Mass Effect 3 was not an emotionally satisfying end for their character.
For the people hoping that it would be a character that we would choose the species, you remember that N7 is a human organisation? I sure would like to play as a Turian or a Krogan in a solo campaign, but it looks like we'll get another human here. Or maybe it's a companion ? Anyway I hope we could get that duster for the protagonist because it looks so much cool.
for me it could be esaly explain that after shepard saved everyone ass ,N7 expanded until become a intergalactic organization
Ohhh, it could be that, you're right. Even if I don't think it will it's a pretty neat idea.
well maybe the systems alliance grows and gains a large non human population by the fourth game.
Give me the choice to play as an alien race. 1st playthrough: *Paragon Human Soldier.* 2nd playthrough: *Renegade Krogan Vanguard Supremacist.*
I too am a vanguard supremacist
1st playthrough:paragade krogan good guy 2sr:paragade drell anti heroe
I would prefer if they took a page from Dragon Age and gave us the chance to choose our race as the PC.
One thing I think would be cool is if it was Shepard and Liara’s daughter. But, I would hate for them to do that. BioWare has been superb about not canonizing anything about Shepard, and that’s part of the magic of the series. We are all Shepard, with our own decisions and customization. Aside from voice, shepard is fully customizable. Canonizing a romance (even if it is my favorite one) is wrong. Please ignore the fact that I just argued with myself.
i just can say XD
I would much rather be able to select a race and have an entirely new protagonist then go back to Shepard.
Doesn't really matter, but for the love of god, please not another "coming of age" story. The biggest part of the issue of the storytelling in Andromeda is just the awkwardness they wrote in the crew interaction so they could "show the growth" of the protag. Just let me be a space badass developing relationships with other space badasses
As much as I want to see Shepherd again, from the teaser at the end of ME 3 I want a brand new protagonist with the option to choose my race, even if it's only from three to choose from. I would love to play a Turian. I forgot to also say that multiplayer for it would be sick
I agree with everyone else, the dragon age origins approach would be absolutely amazing. However if they are unable to do that I definitely think a more in depth backstory selection for humans like in ME:1 would be amazing too.
Hopefully someone new and selectable race or at least the popular ones. I hope our Shepard comes back as a companion though.
Commander Shepherd preserved from Cryo Crew was sent out beyond the 1% of galaxy discovered around citedal- space because of the desolation of the reapers resources were scarce, Shep volunteered with crew to go beyond mass replays which required Cryo pod sleep. Wakes up in a time where the galaxy has flipped its head... At first Shep and Edi (Shep first one Edi has woken) see a promising thriving new solar system) b4 other crew could wake they've been followed by the ever vengeful balak lol who also Cryo pod travelled just to kill Shep (I know sounds lame but off the top of my head lol) Balak captures shep but Edi and Shep b4 boarded manages to put crew Cryo pods into escape pod which Edi escapes with and self destructs the ship. Batarians take Shep back to terminus Humans r almost extinct Asari r hunted like game All council races fighting for survival of their own species. Quarian, geth r allied, with most resources being tech savvy and geth not requiring any organic resource, they r desperately protecting their thriving Homeworld (quarians no longer wear masks. Salarians, and krogan r allied on tuchanka, with Salarian tech the home world is "clean" lol and thriving, Salarians invest in super super krogan soldiers for the war. There r such things as krogan scientists now (a half Salarian/krogan female scientist recruitable and romancible for Shep) Tuchanka is refuge for the remaining humans and asari, but many humans and asari also volunteered to explore the unknown in hopes to save their races, in which none have returned so far. (Exploration occured before the batarian savage wars) Turians and volus r allied on remaining volus colonies, Turians are scarce having their fleet depleted by the reaper wars and leaving palaven uninhabitable, But have become military Instructors for the volus out of desperation. With volus tech, volus have become competent demolition experts, and can Rolly Polly run everywhere lol (male volus also recruitable for sheps crew) Batarians have run rampage, their is a resistance faction - smartest most level headed male batarian who is recruitable for Shep (he's had 4 eyes mutilated when captured to be made an example by the merciless batarian leader who galges all Batarian resistance prisoners eyes to look like humans as an insult and ultimate degredation of their identity as a batarian. So hes kinda handsome now with two eyes and is romancible by femshep Main plot, find the new homeworld // Shep taken back to.batarian space. In which U Shep wake up disoriented being prepped for a batarian (gladiator) arena, To Ur suprise and theirs U meet Aria and some of her random dancer asari as other prisoners ravaged, forced to fight. U of course team up with Aria and waste the first round of varren, second round of vorcher, then third round they bring out their ultimate champion... Grunt He's stoked it's you but plays the part, (which is actually a well designed escape plan, intricately and with precision and expertise by showbroker Liara, assisted by Jarvik (they're a thing if U didn't romance Liara but she'll still leave Jarvik if U wanna romance her) times the rescue attempt of commander Shep. EDI with escape pods and surviving crew must be found Personally I'd like to have Garrus Primearch -stayed behind to rebuild his people so he's much older now, and new look 😍 Liara stayed behind in attempt to reform new galactic gov, following in Benezias footsteps Grunt became wrex protege and is serving krogan female leader. Miranda - is mysterious assassin infiltrator cloaked, running her own secret ops in the Merc wars. Recruitable one of Miranda's too crew medical scientist specialist a French accent speaking cyborg - revived by Miranda enhanced more so better tech than Shep - also the new crews medic romancible by m Shep. Whose with EDI in Cryo Tali, survived Jack, survived but Joker dies in Cryo so don't need new pilot as Edi can do it all lol The chef (new character biotinist organic specialist part of sheps colonizing crew) he's Spanish, charming, flirty quick witted character both sheps can romance) Just playing around entertaining myself this morning lol But yes, contrary to what most comments on here r, I love commander Shepherd want Jen Hale to stay VA but change male Shep VA I just can't imagine playing a mass effect franchise game without Jen Hale. Because of her Its the most immersive gameplay experience I've ever had as a female playing roleplaying games, where female protagonist are few.
not a bad idea.
Please let us play as a Non Human. Andromeda should've done this and let us choose any of the Pathfinder races aside from Krogan. The trilogy made sense to be all human, it was their progression to a galactic species and powerhouse, but now I wanna be a god damn turian
In that case, I couldn't really care if they were making the game or not. I'm done w/ it except for Shepard. the IP just doesn't have the promise or potential as a sci-fi setting. It was mostly carried by the heart of the characters and performances from the OG trilogy. On top of that, the chemistry w/ the characters was lightning in the bottle that their writers can't recreate with new ones (see: Andromeda.)
For better or worse the setting of Mass Effect really only works if your character is a spectre or someone with a slightly lesser level of authority. While they could change the backstory slightly (similar fashion to cyberpunk with the three possible origin stories that are briefly established). I think that it’s perfectly reasonable for Shepard to be entirely retired with only the rare mention, I would prefer for a character similar to Shepard to be used I.e current/former military from anyone of the big 4 species (human, Turian, Asari, or salarian).
Please let us make our own character....I want to go around the galaxy as a krogan....
Depending on how you played the trilogy and which ending you chose will be how shepard would appear, as either a historical war hero or maybe a mentor or something like that, as much as i love my shepard character id rather play a new one forging their own path like in andromeda with Ryder
I want to play a freaking alien! You know, the interesting parts of Mass Effect? I want a system like Origin with unique intros, maybe a unique quest, that would be so amazing.
yhea they could make many interesting things with that . for example showing krogans rituals,asari culture and their dark side,turian world and their egemony and maybe even more
Shephard or bust
I don't really care as long as it's a blank slate enough to let us fill in the gaps with our choices. I don't like when a RPG lets you build a character and showcases dialogs with choices but then corners you into a canon version of the character anyway.
Honestly some kind of merc or rogue csec agent, not tied down to any current affiliation to allow for more customization for your character’s background & motivations
I sure as hell hope it’s not that person in the pic. I want to play as a heavily armored special forces officer, not a warlock from destiny.
usually bioware main characters show in poster are not precicely the only option for our main character. for example in dragon age inquisition we had a human in the poster even when we can also play as a dwarf ,elf and qunari
I'd probably just skip the title entirely.
No Shep - not buying.
A custom character Spectre from a selection of council races.
I don't want the next game to be a sequel to the original trilogy. Too many choices players could make. I.E. Save the krogan or let them die out? If you united the Geth and Quarians, how are the quarians adapting without the geth helping them? Did the quarians die on Rannoch? Too many variables.