Could playing as different Pathfinders have worked?

Could have, sure, but, damn, that would have been a very, very different story.

Obvious costs, though. A lot of the dialogue which is particular to Ryder being Alec's kid and the new Pathfinder would have to be rewritten to something generic. Some other rewrites too -- Cora, SAM, a few others. And then a bunch of race-specific dialogue so we're not just playing a reskinned human, or the project's pointless.

The whole premise of the game - finding a new home for humanity - would have to be scrapped, or at least re-worded.

I don't even want to try to guess how multi-species support would impact CC or armor/gear options for the PC - it wouldn't be pretty.

The DA franchise started with multiple race options, so it makes sense that the DA team would want to satisfy players' requests to play multiple species in DAI.  The ME team has never even suggested the possibility, and have thus created more different species in MEU than we've seen in DA.

I would certainly support a DLC that has us play a non-human character, an entire game not so much.  For my part, it would not be worth the cost.

No I think it would have been completely disjointed as an rpg

Those are the type of things that sounds wonderful on the paper but in practice it turns out to a much blander protagonist. When you try to do everything you're a good at everything and a master of nothing.
Don't get me wrong I'm not against the idea of an alien protagonist. I'd love to play as a Turian but only if the story take full advantage of the protagonist race other than some token dialogues. If you want to offer something new then fully embrace it. I really didn't like how in DA:I your race meant nothing other than a couple of different dialogues, in the end you were the Inquisitor a title that transcended all races and backgrounds. I really don't like that. I want a focused protagonist with a focused story and well defined background that matter in the universe.

Not a fan of the universal pathfinder idea for many of the same reasons Sanunes cited above. You lose any potential for the character-driven story element that you had with the Ryder family. The only Bioware games I've played where you could truly be absolutely any race or gender and have the game be no less compelling was Baldurs Gate 1 and 2. The only thing you really lost were some romance options depending on the race and/or gender you chose.

I may have enjoyed the game more if I didnt have to play as Ryder.

Exactly. It baffles me that not a lot of people actually speak up about this because it was one of the things I hated the most about the game, especially the way first contact was written despite having companions like Vetra and Drack who had already met angaras on Kadara and yet acted like the entire thing was something novel.

I'd say the best way to allow for different player races would be to create a different campaign for each race. Kind of like SWTOR, where all the different campaigns feed into a larger narrative...

I love it.

'New home for humanity', the NARRATIVE FOCUS, is stupid to me. MET showed how galactic this galactic society was (whatever one likes or dislikes about a species), and ME3 showed an at least briefly united galaxy, likely to become co-operative or at least more communicative. Maybe this will all break down, but that's off-screen.

I'd have loved to have 4-species selection. Male and female human, female asari (using human voice actress), male and female turian, male salarian (using turian voice actor); up to 4 voice actors, like DAI.

Perhaps plot could center relatively more on humanity, fine. Have it less than MEA did, as long as its much less than ME3/MET did. But otherwise have standout sections for each of the 4 species, and include in the human parts more cooperation with the others under umbrella of Ai. Alter some parts to focus on your species ark of choice, to have pseudo-'Origins' (but not so varied and resource consuming as those).

I'd even take Ryder and a family story, though this would probably cut out the twin focus. Each species could have a story, though this would probably mean less emphasis on it then we got with the Ryder dad/mom/twin thing. Each Pathfinder species selection could have their own twist here, but perhaps all of them about their own DIFFERENT species' considerations of what makes 'family' (and it all, in the end, at least considered generally valid; there's your progressiveness Bioware). This does mean more characters and actors(?), but it can also mean less worry about players not liking your family storyline if it isn't so crucial (or at least major secondary) to the narrative.

The personality of 'Ryder' generally, or 'Pathfinder', is not as hard to 'racially' unify as some think. The difficulty may be more about what happened with Inquisitor - considered too bland until revelations and eventual character progression and DLC lessons in practice, made them into finally a character fans may more easily love.


Personally for MEA what I was hoping for, before Ryder was revealed, was in this new age of Bioware, a scifi version of the Inquisitor that took lessons from that game and figured out how to still portray varied emotions and ideas (like Trespasser, IMO).

What I got was one part that (so yay), and one part making a pseudo-Shepard as much as otherwise possible. Which is nice in some ways as I'm sure the idea was to make it familiar and approachable, but it also meant that part of the time I just wished it was a newly-open-minded Shepard on this journey instead. Stuff like species selection could have really helped against this and differentiated the Pathfinder from the trilogy in really enjoyable ways.



While my ideal is to play a Geth entity or unit (not necessarily Legion-like but maybe), I'd have been super content with making Turians, Asari, and Salarians! All three, while arguably the more 'bland' species of ME, also consistently feel compelling to roleplay as, and I absolutely want it one day.

I still think of a MEA2 that:
1)Sure, it does its part in continuing MEA by having a Ryder(s) story and yadda yadda.
2)But also opens up species selection, distances itself from necessitating the Ryder background (but Human may have to be Ryder), and tells a broader story of the Helius Cluster having to use its basis to focus on exploring and exploiting new possibilities, not just 'finding a path' in what is already there for us to touch. On one hand, be a game that is MEA highly improved, but on another, be ambitious in particular ways that players may appreciate more, and this may include species selection. (And on a ..3rd hand?, by the way, maybe try to tap more into what makes people like the MET more; I'm not saying obsess over it though.)

Tbh, adding a playable asari would be the easiest to do, they share female player animations and are the most 'human' of the alien races.