Would you be ok if they went back to the Milky Way?

That's just it.  They won't choose to.  Not for a long time.

Ferelden may be ruled by Alistair, Anora, Alistair and Anora, or the Warden and Anora.  And Alistair may or may not be hardened by events.

The assorted boons that could be offered may alter Ferelden.

Amarathine may or may not have been burned to the ground. And if the Warden Commander was an elf, that may raise tensions.

The Circle tower may or may not have been anulled.

Branka may or may not be kidnapping humans and elves to make into golems

Etc.

Does it really matter?

Oh, I agree. I was just quibbling about when the problem became insoluble.

A canon trilogy would work fine for me. But as you said, our personal tastes aren't relevant to the question.

This is true, Dragon Age, in general, is not so sweeping in its "big choices".  And again, we move around form nation to nation, so who rules Ferelden or Orlais will matter little when we are in Tevinter, nor will the identity of "Divine Victoria" likely matter in a land where the Black Chantry holds sway.  They have also avoided giving the player choices that could mean the extinction of entire races, the depopulation of nations, or the destruction of systems vital for civilization.


However, that really only slows the process. Not stop it.  We will eventually run out of places to visit where "Big Choices" won't impinge on the story.  

Which is why I've come to believe that such choices should only be important and have consequences in the game where said choices are made.  

A lot of games do that as well and I am more then willing to accept choices that impact the game we are playing, but really have no impact beyond that game.  The Telltale games come to mind with that for you pick to save someone and they last a couple of chapters and then die themselves.  I think it is a smarter way as well for the Mass Effect Trilogy was a good example of not having closure for choices can also lead to greater expectations of the final closure of those choices.  The best example I can think of at the moment is the Rachni in Mass Effect 1, if you free the queen instead of just having her take off she comes to the aid during the final battle of Mass Effect 1 at The Citadel and is wounded/killed and that is the end of that choice instead of some players expecting a bigger and bigger consequence of that choice.

Yes.

There's also the krogan, which might or might not have been wiped out.
The quarians, which might or might not have been wiped out
The geth, which might or might not have been wiped out
The Reapers, which might or might not have been wiped out

The relay network, which might or might not have been destroyed
Earth, which might or might not have been destroyed
For that matter, just about any inhabitable world with a relay in the system may have been scoured of all life
Or everyone is happy, immortal, and green
Or wiped out by the Reapers
Or serving the Reapers.
Shepard's story fundamentally changed the Milky Way galaxy.  This was an idiotic way to end a trilogy if they had any idea they'd be continuing the franchise (well, let's face it, it was an idiotic way to end the trilogy anyway, but that's another discussion)  It burned the setting to the ground to the point where serious retcons would be needed to revisit it.  Which is a shame because the Milky Way was barely touched in the trilogy.

I don't think going back to the Milky Way in the traditional meaning is the right way forward. What i think Bioware could do is say that within the 600 years it took for the Initiative to reach Andromeda, the people in the Milky Way could have advanced their technology quite considerably. They would have had to re-build relays that got smashed in the Milky Way. That could lead on to them learning more about relay technology and how to create new ones with longer range travel distance. Travel distance that would allow people to travel back and forth from the Milky Way to Andromeda within a matter of minutes lets say.

WTF does that have to do with ANYTHING I just said?

I listed numerous MAJOR POINTS OF DIVERSION that could exist in people's games.  Whole species could be dead, planets could be destroyed, the galaxy in various states of ruin, all of which would have to be accounted for IN EACH INDIVIDUAL WORLD-STATE.

Please reread and give an answer that's actually pertinent to what I said.

I did read it. Like I said earlier, it was a trilogy, and you seem to think that the next game would have to account for all that. It wasn't going to, because such a game would never be made. Read the Final Hours book. Any future titles would come before (like MEA) or during ME3, but not after.

With the genophage, they'd just go through the long grind from functional extinction to full-on vanishing off the face of the galaxy. The problem is how to depict their faction in total when its behavior should be considerably different depending on what you chose. Would it just end up being a cheap swap of NPC dialogue in passing, like "Quads, I hate the genophage" and "With the genophage cured, I can finally start my dating service app"?