BioWare today confirmed that whenever the next Mass Effect game is released, you won’t be playing as Commander Shepard. There will be a new main protagonist “who doesn’t resemble Commander Shepard in any way”. BioWare Montreal producer Fabrice Condominas had this to say about the future of the Mass Effect series:
“There is one thing we are absolutely sure of – there will be no more Shepard, and the trilogy is over.”
“This is really our starting point. Now the Mass Effect universe is vast, and very, very rich. So at this point in time, we don’t even know what kind of time frame we’re going to be in. All we’re doing is more gathering ideas from the teams, gathering feedback to see several things.”
“So first, we don’t want to make ‘Shepard 2′, or Mass Effect 4 with like, ‘oh there’s no more Shepard but you’re a soldier in the universe’. So this will be a very, very different context for sure, and nothing has been decided on the rest.”
BioWare has hinted that Commander Shepard would not be back in past interviews, but this confirms that we will be playing the next Mass Effect game with a new hero. In addition, this is basically the only thing we know for sure about the next Mass Effect game, other than it probably won’t be out for a while. The fact that BioWare is only at the fact gathering stage for the next Mass Effect game indicates it will probably be at least two to three years before the next game in the series is ready for release.
I actually think this is a good idea, as much as I loved my Commander Shepard I think the series needs to move in a different direction to stay fresh. I actually hope that in the next Mass Effect game you can make your character a different race outside of human. For me personally it would be amazing to play the next Mass Effect game as a turian, asari, or just for fun an elcor.
What do you think would you like to play through the next Mass Effect game as a different race or are you disappointed that you won’t be able to play as Commander Shepard in the next game.
