Should bioware do one final shepard game?

I always thought a Shepard game set during ME2 time where you investigate mysteries as a SPECTRE - a bit like LotSB style- would have been excellent.

It could have played to bioware's strengths of character building without having to worry about the overarching narrative (so just like ME2!).

I'd happily have wandered a bit more around illium uncovering the seedy underbelly and delivering summary justice.

Miranda modified Shepard's DNA with her own improved healing factor that helps her, a nearly 40 year old woman, look like someone in her mid 20s. She needed to do that, in order to help speed up his self healing process, during project Lazarus. We didn't know it, because Shepard never asked about the process behind his resurrection. Probably because he was too reserved about what he might have found out about the entire process. Added with his cybernetic implants and whatever they are supposed to do, he's going to age considerably slower than any other human. There, explained away. It's another thing that we can further explore in Shepard, especially in his romance with Miranda and after facing his own clone in Citadel DLC.

Depends on the data they have from the old face scans, they might not need to. Vanderloo definitely looks older and while I wouldn't mind playing as Old Man Shepard, I would like to experience some of that "off screen development" Bioware so famously does outside of games, either in related media or in no media whatsoever.

Yvonne doesn't look that much older, in spite of the 10 years difference since ME2, just more tired, which is understandable, after the birth of her son. Here's a recent picture of hers



from the movie she is currently filming with Chris Pratt, called Tomorrow War. I would have been so much happier, had she got the role for Captain Marvel, instead of Brie Larson. Then both stars of Chuck would be Captain marvel.

People being down on a game with a moderately high amount of "controversy" both before and after release can't be equated to the response to a game without those problems. I think we need to see the response to a "normal" Bioware game before we make any assertions about the fanbase.

This is disingenuous. I'm saying the reception to a "bad" game can't be used to predict the reception to a good game. Fallout 76's reception does not predict Fallout 5's reception. Halo 5's reception doesn't predict Infinite's reception (a better example, since we can see the reception to Infinite right now, and it seems cautiously positive).



We've seen a 15 second trailer with a voice clip from Inquisition and obviously placeholder text. That's hardly enough information to draw conclusions from.

Time will tell. There's no metric for evaluating that right now.



When you say "complaints of the fans," what are you talking about? What pervasive systemic issues are the fans complaining about, as opposed to really specific things like "the tone in this game was off"? Does anybody think ME Next is doomed to have a milquetoast protag who can't be serious because of Andromeda? That's what this would need to be - fundamental issues persisting over multiple entries, and is anybody presenting such?



I'm talking about the reception. They've shown basically nothing publicly, so people-not-showing-interest doesn't mean very much. We'll see what happens when we get a trailer.

This isn't really an answer, and I completely disagree. There's a big difference between divisive and panned. ME3's ending was divisive (I liked it, but that's neither here nor there). Andromeda was panned. And for completely different reasons. This isn't an example of a trend in ME.



What makes you feel that way?



What about them? When the old BSN collapsed I drifted away (for unrelated reasons) so I haven't been keeping up. What are people saying about Inquisition and Anthem?



I'm not saying we're guaranteed anything. I'm saying we don't know.

The only systemic issues I've heard of being discussed, mainly from Schreier's two articles, is Bioware's lack of leadership (or lack of cultivating leadership). Andromeda and Anthem drifted for years because Bioware didn't know where to take the games. That's not an issue with Mass Effect. That's an issue with Bioware. If they can get that issue resolved, the issues with their games goes away (in theory). We'll see what happens now that Casey's here to direct things.

You can disagree, but brand damage is an established effect. Divisiveness guarantees a smaller userbase going forward. Do you think tRoS wouldn't have been more successful, had TLJ not been as divisive?


People walking out on ME is not a trend? People just didn't show up, because they didn't care for Andromeda, that's all there is to it. You can verify it, just by looking at Google Trends, comparing how high, or low, Bioware IPs are trending around their releases and each new Bioware IP is trending progressively lower, since DA:I. This is actual, real world data, from the world's premier search engine.


A general shift in Bioware's writing, since, at least, Inquisition. They are trying to engage a younger audience, only they don't look to be trying to engage just a younger audience, but a more immature audience. And by immature, I don't mean people that don't appreciate a mature themes for mature people like myself, with blood, guns, swear words, sex and drugs. I mean in a very superficial, juvenile kind of way. Bioware's characters feel more like self-inserts in happy go lucky adventures, with very little gravitas, hoping to appeal to target demographics, rather than prioritizing them feeling realistic. Kassandra, for example, fawning over Varric's gay fanfiction. While I don't disagree with Kassandra having any interest in reading, her character arc is "Varric, write that fanfic or I will arrest you. Oh, no! The Inquisitor". I don't know how many people find this fun or endearing, but this is not character development. This is memes. And this is all Bioware has been aiming for since, right down to Anthem and the girl talking to us about grabbits in Fort Tarsis.


That the protagonists lack nuance and player agency.


The idea that Bioware, after 10 years of trending down, which they will be by 2022, will somehow turn it around, with DA4, especially after Anthem, under the previously established conditions that it will be released, will tick as high up as ME3, which is Bioware's best selling game still, to justify its budget and ensure EA support is unlikely, at best. And do keep in mind, while Anthem broke even, after 7 years in development, DA4 will be an even more expensive title, for next gen consoles, with a production cycle of, effectively, 8 years, at the very least. DA4 is going to need to sell gangbusters. I don't see it doing that well.


Do you think that the Bioware brand, then, isn't suffering from brand damage? Or Mass Effect? Do you think Star Wars fans will turn up for the next movie, set in the new Rey-public? After all, it was tRoS that was bad only, right? I don't see SW, one of the biggest movie franchises ever, having a future, under the divide of TLJ. While it's on LucasFilms that this happened, the SW brand is damaged. It's broken. ME is suffering the same. And figuratively nobody turned up for Andromeda, because of that divide. We're seeing divisiveness being a non viable effect on franchises. Multiple franchises, as well. Dismissing Andromeda as a "one time thing", all due to "Bioware leadership" fucking up one time, is doing Bioware a disservice. And those leadership problems existed long before, long enough to cause the divisiveness, in the first place. It's a persistent problem that drove the fans away permanently. And Bioware isn't generating new ones back, exactly because of that.

It's posts like this that make me think you're a troll. I mean, you got this wrong in so many ways? For example Cassandra's character arc being about Varrics gay(?) fanfiction when that wasn't what her character arc was at all (it was only a single small quest). Her character arc was about the Seekers and the Chantry, with her faith in those institutions being challenged. Hardly juvenile stuff. Hard to try discussing things with you when you just latantly make things up to try to discredit the games.