mass effect leviathan – Trekking with Dennis

Questions that Mass Effect 4 will almost certainly need to answer

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the Mass Effect trilogy (including Legendary Edition).

It’s been a while since we last talked about the next entry in the Mass Effect series, but to celebrate my dedicated Mass Effect webpage finally going live here on the website, I thought it could be interesting to consider a handful of big questions that the team at BioWare will need to answer before a new story can be written. If you missed it, I now have a brand-new webpage dedicated to the Mass Effect series, and you can find all of my Mass Effect commentary, theories, and articles there. You can find this page by using the drop-down menu at the top of every page or post here on the website – or you can click or tap here to head there directly!

There hasn’t been much by way of news about the next Mass Effect game for a couple of years. BioWare released a brief CGI teaser all the way back in December 2020 confirming that the game is in pre-production, but since then, updates have been few and far between. BioWare provided a brief update in November 2022, saying that pre-production is “proceeding very well,” which sounded positive. In August 2023, however, BioWare announced that there were going to be job losses at the company. With production currently focused on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, and with these cuts taking place, the next Mass Effect game is unlikely to see the light of day before 2026 or 2027 at the earliest.

Commander Shepard in the Normandy’s cockpit.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t things to talk about! We may not see the game I’m tentatively calling Mass Effect 4 for a long time, but the studio will have already taken a number of big decisions about the game, its setting, its characters, and its key storylines. Today, I’m giving my two cents on what some of those decisions may be – and there are some absolutely massive ones that have serious implications for the state of the Mass Effect galaxy.

As I’ve said before, there are questions about the Mass Effect galaxy that BioWare simply can’t ignore forever. Maybe a single game with a focused story could sidestep one or two of these questions, but if Mass Effect is to survive long-term with new games (and perhaps even a TV series) being produced… sooner or later answers will have to come. What that means is that some of the biggest decisions open to players in the original Mass Effect trilogy will need to be given a canon outcome, one that Mass Effect 4 can build upon. To players who were adamantly opposed to playing the game a certain way, that could lead to hurt feelings and disappointment – but I see no way around it. Some of these points are too big, and the implications too diverse, for a new story to be written that could take so many different outcomes into account.

Bypassing a locked door in *Mass Effect 3*.

Some Commander Shepards died at the end of Mass Effect 2. That game’s suicide mission could, under the right (or should that be wrong?) circumstances lead to Shepard’s death, and that meant that players had to either restart from an earlier save or start a new campaign in order to play Mass Effect 3. The third entry in the trilogy was able to take into account a lot of decisions from earlier games – but Shepard’s death was a bridge too far.

I bring this up because the Mass Effect series has taken big decisions like this in the past. Mass Effect 3 couldn’t happen without Shepard being alive, meaning players whose characters died at the end of Mass Effect 2 didn’t get to see their decisions carried forward. The same will have to happen in Mass Effect 4 – albeit on a grander scale.

So let’s try to look ahead to Mass Effect 4, and – assuming the game will be the sequel we’re all hoping for – pick out some of the biggest questions that will need to be answered.

Question #1:
What colour were the explosions?

This is a deliberately facetious way of asking the biggest question that any sequel to Mass Effect 3 cannot ignore: which ending was chosen? It simply isn’t going to be possible for the game to try to account for all three possibilities; the differences between them are too vast for a single story to encompass wildly divergent states of the galaxy. So one ending will have to be declared “official” – and if I had to place a bet, I’d say that the “destroy” ending is going to be the one that’s picked.

All of the endings of Mass Effect 3 have points in their favour from a narrative standpoint, but “destroy” was the one that Shepard had been working towards across the entire trilogy. Not only that, but it’s the only ending in which it’s even remotely possible – based on what we saw on screen – that Shepard could have survived. “Destroy” is, according to stats about Mass Effect: Legendary Edition that were released by BioWare, also the most popular choice that players made. So there are a lot of points in favour of making “destroy” the canonical ending to Mass Effect 3.

The state of the galaxy is going to be profoundly altered by whichever ending to Mass Effect 3 was chosen, and I just don’t see how a new game could possibly take that diversity and variety into account. Mass Effect 4 would essentially need to be three games in one in order to accomplish that – and that just doesn’t seem likely. If Mass Effect 4 is to continue the series, perhaps laying the groundwork for a new trilogy or series of games, that divergence will only grow over the course of its story. So there has to be a single starting point chosen – even if that means disappointing some players who were particularly attached to one of the other ending variants.

I felt that Mass Effect 3′s final chapter was trying to present “synthesis” as the better option. That was the one that was hardest to unlock, and in the epilogue, EDI seems to suggest that “synthesis” led to a kind of technological paradise, with the galaxy’s races living in harmony… but I always took umbrage with that idea. Not only was it literally the goal of the Reapers as stated by the AI that controls them, it was a completely different outcome to what Shepard had been fighting for. It was also not Shepard’s place to inflict such a radical change on the entire galaxy without anyone’s consent – and without even listening to a single other opinion on the matter! But more than that, “synthesis” doesn’t seem like it would lead to an interesting or relatable narrative. With human characters merged with AI, and with everyone living in a utopia… how could we as the audience get invested in the people or the world?

Question #2:
Did Shepard side with the Geth or the Quarians – or find a route to make peace?

Tali, Shepard, and Legion in *Mass Effect 2*.

The Geth-Quarian conflict was one of the most interesting in Mass Effect, and the way in which it came to a head in the final chapter was incredible. It was disappointing, however, that after the mission to Rannoch, the Geth and Quarians weren’t really mentioned much, and that all of the hard work involved in getting one or both of them to join the war effort was relegated to a couple of JPEG images in the war assets menu! But enough about the rushed end to Mass Effect 3!

There are galactic repercussions that will reverberate from the Geth-Quarian conflict, and how it was resolved will have a huge impact on the state of the galaxy in Mass Effect 4. If Shepard chose to side with the Geth, then chose the “destroy” ending… both races could be extinct. Or if Shepard found the pathway to peace and then chose either “synthesis” or “control,” both races could still be around and working together. Whichever outcome it is, whether the Geth, Quarians, or both are present in the galaxy is going to be a big deal.

Quarians in the *Mass Effect 3* epilogue.

Here’s my pet theory: one way or another, BioWare will include both the Geth and Quarians in Mass Effect 4 – even if that means ignoring one of the consequences of the “destroy” ending. Depending on how much time may have passed in-universe, the new game could claim that the Quarians rebuilt the Geth after they were destroyed – or perhaps the Catalyst either lied about the Crucible destroying all synthetic life or simply got it wrong.

I think that given the popularity of both the Quarians and Geth – thanks in large part to their squadmate representatives, Tali and Legion – BioWare won’t want to throw either away. If we stick to a literal interpretation of the Catalyst’s warning in Mass Effect 3 and assume that “destroy” will be chosen as the canon ending, then perhaps the Geth will be absent. But I wouldn’t bet on that, and I think a technobabble explanation for their survival or resurrection is plausible and could be made to fit.

Question #3:
Did Shepard survive?

Does this moment represent Shepard’s survival?

This is the big one! While not as galaxy-altering as the way in which the Crucible was used or the literal survival of entire races… from a character point of view, Commander Shepard is the player’s avatar in the Mass Effect world. If there’s even a slim chance that they might’ve survived, at the very least we should find out!

I can’t decide right now whether Mass Effect 4 will go down the route of making Shepard the player character once again. After the disappointment of Andromeda, there will surely be a temptation to “stick with what works” in the Mass Effect universe – and Shepard is clearly a big part of that. That being said, I think there’s absolutely scope to create a new player character and to expand Mass Effect beyond Shepard and the crew of the Normandy. If the franchise is to continue long-term, that will have to happen sooner or later.

A male Commander Shepard aboard the Normandy.

But regardless, news of Shepard’s fate should reach us at some point during the game – even if it’s only to confirm that they died centuries earlier. One thing that a lot of folks found frustrating about Andromeda was that the outcome of the Reaper War was left entirely unresolved, and I don’t think that the next Mass Effect game could get away with repeating that mistake.

After everything Shepard went through to defeat the Reapers, they have definitely earned their retirement! But if the galaxy is in danger once more – and surely, somehow, it will be – they could be the person that has to step up once again and lead a new fight.

Question #4:
What became of the Rachni?

The Rachni in one possible epilogue scene.

Depending on choices made in both Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 3, it’s possible that the Rachni may have survived. The Rachni were an insectoid race that threatened to overwhelm the galaxy centuries before the events of the games – and were believed to be extinct. Shepard was given the option to save the last known Rachni queen on two occasions – and the presence or absence of the Rachni could have wider implications for the state of the galaxy.

If the Rachni queen was saved, Rachni workers join up with Admiral Hackett’s fleet and contribute to the Crucible project. Given the scale of the Crucible, I don’t think the Rachni’s survival could be hidden in the aftermath of the war, so any hope for a return to hiding away on an obscure planet seems to be out of the question.

But not everyone would be thrilled about the Rachni’s return. The Krogan still view the Rachni as a kind of ancient ancestral enemy, and there may be Krogan and Asari who still remember the aftermath of the Rachni Wars. Even if the Rachni’s contribution to the success of the Crucible was public knowledge, there are many in the galaxy who would be wary – and some who might view them as a threat. Could an attack on the Rachni be the first sign of the Reaper War alliances breaking down?

Alternatively, it’s possible that the Rachni were never saved by Shepard and thus went extinct with the defeat of the Reapers. This would preclude their presence in the story as either a friend or foe – unless they could be revived, once again, by technobabble!

Question #5:
Did the Leviathans join the war effort?

The Leviathans were eventually tracked to their base.

Another pet theory of mine is that the Leviathans – who were originally DLC for Mass Effect 3 – will return as the “big bad” in a new story, seeking to reclaim a galaxy that they view as “theirs.” You can read more on that by clicking or tapping here, by the way. But for our purposes today, the question is whether they joined the war at all – or whether they were able to remain hidden.

Following the Leviathan story to its conclusion is not an essential part of Mass Effect 3, but it’s one that has far-reaching implications. The discovery of the Leviathans explains the origin of the Reapers, but it also introduces us to a very alien race – one that ruled the galaxy and enthralled other races aeons ago. Despite their defeat at the hands of the Reapers and the passage of tens of millions of years, the Leviathans seem to have lost none of their arrogant sense of superiority – so how they could possibly be integrated into a multi-racial galaxy is an open question.

Commander Shepard inspecting a Leviathan cave painting.

Regardless of whether they end up as the new game’s villains, though, I don’t think Mass Effect 4 could just ignore the Leviathans. Their numbers may be small, but with the Reaper threat gone it’s not inconceivable that the Leviathans would want to expand, leaving behind their watery planet. The consequences of this for the rest of the galaxy could be extreme – or not! But either way, the Leviathans will be a presence.

Players will want to know what happened after the Reaper War – and realistically Mass Effect 4 will have to at least pay lip service to all of the races and factions that were involved, telling us what became of them… or where they were last spotted. The Leviathans also have a lot to answer for, in a way, as the original creators of the Reapers!

Question #6:
Which of Shepard’s companions survived?

Concept art featuring Shepard’s crew from *Mass Effect 2*.

Across the Mass Effect trilogy, Shepard teamed up with nineteen main crewmates – and there were also a handful of others who served in that role on a temporary basis. Even if Mass Effect 4 doesn’t feature all of them, it would still be nice to get news of their fates. During the final battle of the Reaper War, it’s possible that not all of them would have survived, and Shepard had the opportunity to say goodbye to many of them before the final act of Mass Effect 3 got underway.

As of right now, we can safely assume that Liara survived! She was shown in the CGI teaser for Mass Effect 4 back in 2020, so it seems all but certain that she’ll make an appearance – somehow – in the new game. That doesn’t mean she’ll be a squadmate or playable character, but she could play a significant role. She could even be a kind of narrator for the game.

Liara as glimpsed in the 2020 teaser trailer.

Characters who were aboard the Normandy at the end of Mass Effect 3 seem to survive the end of the game – or at least most of them do, depending on the choices players made and how strong their war assets were going into the final clash. We can safely assume that the likes of Joker, Garrus, and Javik survived the immediate aftermath of the war, at least.

But that still leaves us with most of the folks from Mass Effect 2 – characters like Miranda, Samara, and Jack. All of them could have died before the endgame, but assuming they were alive going into the final fight… we don’t know what happened to them. If Mass Effect 4 is set many years later, discovering their fates could be spread across the game, and players could learn what happened to them without necessarily having them all make an appearance.

Question #7:
Was the Genophage cured?

A vision of Tuchanka if the Genophage cure was sabotaged.

Commander Shepard has the opportunity in Mass Effect 3 to cure the Genophage – or sabotage the cure. The Genophage was an artificial sterility plague that had been inflicted upon the Krogan by the Turians and Salarians, and there will be galactic-scale consequences depending on Shepard’s actions here.

One day we’ll have to talk about this storyline in more detail – because I find it one of the most interesting and morally dubious storylines in the entire Mass Effect trilogy! But for today, suffice to say that curing the Genophage, or refusing to cure it, will have major ramifications for the whole galaxy.

Happy Krogan families – if the Genophage was cured.

If the Genophage was cured, there will be a lot more Krogan around – but they should be friendly, right? I mean, Shepard cured the Krogan people, and if Wrex and Eve survived to lead the Krogan, that knowledge will be passed down and celebrated. But there are some potential issues here! Even Wrex seemed to suggest that Krogan expansion was on the agenda – and centuries ago, Krogan expansionism led to war.

On the other hand, if the Genophage cure was sabotaged, the remaining Krogan will likely feel betrayed and could launch a new rebellion. At the very least, Krogan will be hostile and unfriendly if the Genophage wasn’t cured. Having spent a lot of time with Krogan characters across the trilogy, I think it would be hard to pull off turning them into villains next time around, even if there’s a narrative pathway that makes sense in-universe. But a story could be crafted in which, no matter what decision Shepard made, the cure was ultimately sabotaged and doomed to failure.

Question #8:
Who gets to be on the Council?

More broadly, we can even ask whether there’s a Council at all in the aftermath of the Reaper War – but somehow, I suspect there will be. In the Mass Effect trilogy, humanity’s rapid ascent from newly-encountered species to full Council membership was a contentious issue with some of the other races, and after everything that happened with the Reapers, a shake-up of the galactic order could be on the agenda.

From our own history, we can point to how World War II led to the creation of the United Nations, and how the pre-war order was transformed in the aftermath of the conflict. Something similar could happen in the Mass Effect galaxy, with races like the Krogan, Quarians, Batarians, or even the Rachni and Geth all being potential members of a broader, more diverse and democratic Council.

A Vorcha, Salarian, and Volus served on the Council… in the movie *Blasto*!

If several races were invited to join, those who were snubbed might feel particularly stung! And others, like the Leviathans, for example, may not wish to join a power-sharing arrangement – they might prefer to seek conquest and total power for themselves. But there are many who’d happily join the Council.

The pre-war order of the Salarians, Turians, and Asari being the dominant forces in galactic politics could be at an end – but will they be okay with that? Will the Salarians genuinely listen to Krogan input, and will the Asari really be willing to see the Quarians as equals? Will there be arguments about how to direct the resources necessary to rebuild? There could be a lot of points of tension!

So that’s it!

We’ve looked at a few questions that the next Mass Effect game – or a future sequel to Mass Effect 3 if that game turns out to be something different – will have to address. Some of these points could be bigger and more important than others depending on what kind of story the new game aims to tell, but sooner or later there are big questions about the state of the galaxy that will have to be tackled.

Andromeda tried to sidestep these questions and do its own thing – which was probably not a bad idea in 2017, coming so soon after the trilogy had wrapped up. But there were other problems with Andromeda that meant the game didn’t stick the landing – and when it was already feeling like an overblown side-quest, some fans were left disappointed when it didn’t address any of the big questions facing the Mass Effect galaxy.

There’s an opportunity for the next game in the series to not only answer some of these big questions, but to use the answers to set the stage for a brand-new adventure. Taking what happened with the Leviathans, for example, and expanding on that story to create a new villain is one possibility that I think is worth keeping an eye on!

So I hope this has been a bit of fun, or at least interesting. There are definitely other story points that a new game could address that I didn’t include here; it’s by no means an exhaustive list. And we may return to some of these questions and ideas in the future to talk more about them or give them a longer write-up. I had fun thinking about where the next Mass Effect game could go, at any rate!

Earlier this summer I replayed the Mass Effect trilogy, and that was part of what prompted me to create a proper webpage for the franchise here on the website. Although I don’t talk about Mass Effect all the time, it’s a series I’ve enjoyed and I am certainly looking forward to seeing what comes next.

Don’t forget to swing by my new Mass Effect webpage. You can find it by clicking or tapping here.

The next Mass Effect game is in early development and most likely won’t be released for several years. Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is out now for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X. The Mass Effect series – including all properties mentioned above – is the copyright of BioWare and Electronic Arts. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Mass Effect 4 theory: Leviathan

Tue 31.08.21Fri 15.04.22Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Mass Effect: Legendary Edition and its ending.

Though the release of the underwhelming Mass Effect: Legendary Edition earlier this year was partly a money-making ploy on the part of BioWare and Electronic Arts, there is another significant factor in the development of what we’ll generously call a “remaster.” Legendary Edition had the task of rehabilitating the series’ reputation following the disappointment of Mass Effect: Andromeda, and was also tasked with bringing in new fans – as well as getting existing fans hyped up – in time for the upcoming release of Mass Effect 4. In that sense, Legendary Edition does seem to have largely succeeded, as excitement for the next entry in the series is higher than it’s ever been.

No details have yet been announced for Mass Effect 4, and we’ve only had the tiniest of teases in the form of a CGI teaser trailer, so any details of the game’s story are complete unknowns. But based on what we know about the Mass Effect galaxy, perhaps it isn’t too early to speculate about what might come next for Commander Shepard and their crew… assuming Shepard is coming back, of course!

One of the key things Mass Effect 4 will have to balance is the scale of its story. Whether we get to play as Shepard or not, Mass Effect 4 will almost certainly be picking up the story in the aftermath of the Reaper War. This conflict saw the whole galaxy – led by Shepard – fighting for its very survival against a seemingly unstoppable foe, so from a narrative point of view that kind of epic tale can be hard to top.

This was the fundamental problem that befell Mass Effect: Andromeda. Even if that game had been launched in a better condition, without the bugs and visual glitches that would go on to define it for many players, the underlying story still felt anticlimactic. I’ve described Andromeda in the past as a game that feels like an overblown side-quest, and partly this is because of the story that came immediately before it. Andromeda was an attempt to branch out, to take Mass Effect away from Commander Shepard and spin it out into a larger franchise. But it failed not because of its bugs and other technical issues – though those were catastrophic in their own right – but because it told a story that many players simply weren’t interested in.

Coming on the heels of the Reaper War, Mass Effect 4 has to avoid feeling anticlimactic in the way Andromeda did. But it has to balance that against telling a story that’s too derivative or repetitive; another galactic-scale threat caused by invaders from beyond the galaxy would feel like a cheap knock-off of what came before. Look to Star Wars’ old Expanded Universe for countless examples of this, as fan-fiction versions of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia battled clone after clone of Palpatine and fought dozens of bland, derivative Sith Lords and Imperial wannabes.

What comes next for the Mass Effect galaxy has to feel consistent, too, with what we already know about the setting. After Shepard succeeded at uniting the forces of practically every major faction in the galaxy, having one of them turn on the others and become an antagonist wouldn’t only be difficult to pull off narratively, it would risk upsetting fans and coming across as annoying.

The next Mass Effect game has to tell a story that follows on from the Reaper War.

So I think we can rule out stories like a krogan or turian uprising, or the sudden return of the long-dead Protheans looking to conquer the galaxy! Those kinds of stories might seem interesting – and perhaps the game will ultimately try to go down a similar path – but for the reasons mentioned I think they’d be too difficult to execute in a satisfying way.

Instead I want to focus on a faction from Mass Effect 3′s DLC – the Leviathans. The Leviathan DLC is integrated into Mass Effect: Legendary Edition (albeit not especially well; there are some issues which arise from the timing of its insertion into the story) so I think we can safely assume that it’s fully canon and that most Mass Effect fans will have played it. Leviathan introduced Commander Shepard to the titular Leviathans – ancient lifeforms with the power to control minds.

Commander Shepard meets with one of the surviving Leviathans in *Mass Effect 3*.

The Leviathans revealed to Commander Shepard that their species created the Reapers; much like the way the quarians created the geth, the Reapers were artificial intelligences designed to aid the Leviathans. Of course, they soon betrayed their masters, having interpreted their directive to “preserve” all life in an apocalyptic manner.

Commander Shepard encountered a handful of Leviathans hiding deep below the surface of an uncharted ocean world. These were the survivors – or more likely the descendants of survivors – of a race whose empire once spanned the entire galaxy. The Leviathans were unapologetic for their dominance of other “lesser” races, who they forced to worship them as gods. The survivor who spoke with Commander Shepard had little regard for humans or other races, and seemed only willing to act in the Reaper War out of self-interest.

The Leviathans wanted other races to worship them and pay tribute to them.

Despite being in hiding for millions of years – perhaps longer – the Leviathans’ sense of self-importance was undimmed. They regard themselves as the galaxy’s “apex race,” and used their mind control powers to attack or kill anyone they perceived as even a minor threat.

The Leviathans seem to regard the entire Milky Way galaxy as their own personal fiefdom; their domain. Sharing power or joining a broader galactic community is simply not on their agenda, and with the destruction or removal of the Reapers, it seems at least plausible that they might seize the opportunity to emerge from hiding to reclaim the empire they had lost in the distant past.

The planet 2181 Despoina was the Leviathans’ hiding place.

On a much smaller scale, this was the Protheans’ idea. At least two Prothean facilities – on Eden Prime and Ilos – were designed to host hundreds of thousands of Protheans in hibernation, to emerge after the Reaper threat had passed. The Protheans failed in their goal – though a single individual did survive – but the Leviathans didn’t. They managed to sustain a viable population at the bottom of the ocean on an uncharted world, and although we only saw a few individuals it’s possible that there are hundreds, thousands, or even more Leviathans. They may even have populations on other worlds.

Of the three endings offered to the player at the conclusion of Mass Effect 3, a Leviathan return works best with the “destroy” ending. If Shepard opted to take control of the Reapers, it stands to reason that the Leviathans would still consider them to be a threat, whereas if Shepard chose the “synthesis” ending then presumably the fusing of organic and synthetic DNA across the galaxy would also have affected the Leviathans.

The “synthesis” ending would surely have affected the Leviathans as well as everyone else.

But if the Reapers were destroyed – the most popular ending choice – suddenly the Leviathans could find themselves in a galaxy where their biggest foe has been vanquished. Not only that, but with the Mass Relay network critically damaged and the combined fleets and forces of the galaxy all massed around Earth (and feeling a lot worse for wear after months of conflict, no doubt), the Milky Way might appear to them to be practically undefended – and ripe for the taking.

Striking out from their hidden undersea base, the Leviathans could use similar tactics to the Reapers to gain control of key worlds – using their mind control abilities to sway military and political leaders and bring them into the fold. From there, Leviathans could abandon their base, taking up residence at key locations around the galaxy before the survivors of the battle for Earth even realise what’s happened.

Amidst the wreckage of the Citadel and the ruins of Earth, it might be a long time before anyone realised the Leviathans were attacking.

Repairing the Mass Relays will take time – if the assembled scientific minds can even figure out how to do so – and with communications and travel disrupted across the galaxy on account of the long war, the Leviathans could establish a commanding position even if they didn’t make their move immediately.

A power vacuum on this scale is chaotic – and many war-weary citizens and refugees might even welcome Leviathan rule if it were accompanied by stability, and if the Leviathans could provide them with basic supplies like food and shelter. By the time the Council races realise what’s happened, large swathes of the galaxy could already be under Leviathan control – perhaps even including three of the four Council homeworlds.

The Leviathans could be the next threat for Commander Shepard and the rest of the galaxy.

Fighting the Leviathans would be similar, in some ways, to fighting the Reapers – their armies would largely consist of enthralled mind controlled victims of the galaxy’s races. The difference might be that taking on an actual Leviathan would be comparatively rare – unlike the Reapers, the Leviathans don’t seem like they’d want to get involved on the front lines, preferring instead to sit back (or hide) and let their enthralled victims do their dirty work.

So that’s the extent of this theory, really. To summarise it in a single sentence: with the Reapers defeated, the Leviathans finally emerge from hiding, intent on reclaiming a galaxy they’ve always considered to be “theirs.” Commander Shepard may be pressed back into action to save the galaxy all over again, or maybe we’ll take on the role of a new character when Mass Effect 4 is ready. Please keep in mind that, as always, I don’t have any “insider information.” This is nothing more than a fan theory – and it may very well be completely wrong!

Despite how I felt about Legendary Edition, I do like the Mass Effect series. In fact, the reason I was upset at BioWare for the sloppy work and unimpressive upgrades that Legendary Edition offered was because the games are so enjoyable – the series has the potential to be so much more than Legendary Edition made of it. I’m hopeful that Mass Effect 4 will be a game worth getting excited about – but there’s no rush. If BioWare and Electronic Arts have learned anything from recent releases, it should be to take their time!

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is out now for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X. A new Mass Effect game – referred to above as Mass Effect 4 – is currently in development, but no release date has been announced. The Mass Effect series – including all properties mentioned above – is the copyright of BioWare and Electronic Arts. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.