BioWare has given us a tiny tease of where it will take fans of the Mass Effect series next. The developer previously confirmed that it is hard at work on Mass Effect 4 (or whatever it will be called) and that it will not feature characters, settings, and plot points from the prior trilogy. The E3 teaser didn’t add much new information beyond this (except that BioWare artists like to work dark rooms, apparently).
The new game will take place in a whole new region of space with a larger and more open galaxy than any previous entry in the series. There will be familiar elements at play, however. The footage shows a human in an N7 uniform and a Krogan warrior. The Galaxy Map appears to be returning as well. The footage shows a few massive, alien vistas, implying huge, new worlds for you to explore, probably in part with vehicles. Mass Effect 4 will run on the same Frostbite 3 Engine that powers most of E3’s top-tier releases these days, including Battlefield 4 and Star Wars: Battlefront.
The presentation ended with references to a new IP being simultaneously developed by BioWare Edmonton, but scant details otherwise. The tag to the Mass Effect presentation highlighted their efforts to build a completely new, larger, richer world than any previous games. An allusion to its desire to tell “contemporary stories” and a quick glimpse at a modern-looking structure implies that this new property will not be a return to BioWare’s high fantasy roots. Its focus is on world-building first, talking about what cities would look like and showing a dynamic day/night cycle.
Check out the footage below to see if you can glean any details we may have missed.
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