Mass Effect <\/em>is one of the most beloved RPG series of all time. The franchise got its start on the Xbox 360 in 2007 with the original Mass Effect<\/em>, which was, in many ways, a spiritual successor to BioWare\u2019s earlier Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic<\/em>. Commander Shepard and his quest to stop the Reapers became an instant hit with gamers, but it wasn\u2019t until Mass Effect 2 <\/em>that the series arguably realised its full potential; most people consider this followup an improvement on the original in every way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mass Effect 3 <\/em>closed out the trilogy with mixed results in 2012, and 2017\u2019s Mass Effect Andromeda<\/em>, while ambitious, was plagued by production problems, resulting in an unfinished game that arguably wasn\u2019t what Mass Effect <\/em>fans wanted. With that, the series entered a hiatus period, but now, we know that BioWare and EA are working on another Mass Effect <\/em>title. Will it be the followup Mass Effect 3 <\/em>deserves, or will it be another unfocused mess like Andromeda<\/em>? Here\u2019s everything we know about Mass Effect 4<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do we have a <\/strong>Mass Effect 4 <\/em><\/strong>release date or window yet?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mass Effect 4 <\/em>sadly doesn\u2019t have a release date or tentative release window yet. We simply don\u2019t know when we\u2019re going to get to play the next sci-fi adventure in BioWare\u2019s flagship series. It\u2019s a shame, but it looks like BioWare is quite a way off finishing the project (or perhaps even getting to a point where it can be demonstrated), so it might be a good while before we hear anything from Mass Effect 4<\/em>. Of course, that\u2019s also a good thing; when games are announced before they\u2019re ready, that\u2019s when problems, delays, and rushed end products happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s some potential bad news on this front, however. In March 2023, VentureBeat\u2019s gaming offshoot GamesBeat reported<\/a> that the Mass Effect <\/em>development team was being shifted to Dragon Age <\/em>in order to assist with development on that project. It looks like Dragon Age: Dreadwolf <\/em>is getting underway in a big sense, but that also seems to mean that Mass Effect <\/em>is being put on the back burner. To a certain extent, this makes sense; it\u2019s been nine years since the last Dragon Age <\/em>game and only six since the last Mass Effect<\/em>, so Dragon Age <\/em>needs a refresh more urgently. Still, this is worrying for lovers of sci-fi RPGs everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there a <\/strong>Mass Effect 4 <\/em><\/strong>trailer out there?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Happily, although we don\u2019t have much concrete information about Mass Effect 4 <\/em>right now, there is a trailer that we can comb for details. The trailer is simply titled<\/a> \u201cThe Next Mass Effect <\/em>– Official Teaser Trailer\u201d, and it was released on December 11th, 2020. In the trailer, we see several scenes of space with radio chatter overlaying them, as well as the telltale sound of the Reapers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A ship then soars towards a planet as signature Mass Effect<\/em>-style synth music plays. As we zoom in on the planet, an unknown figure reaches towards the snow and unearths something. The figure brushes the snow off the object and we see that it\u2019s a piece of Commander Shepard\u2019s original N7 armour. As the figure then looks towards the horizon, their hood slips, and we see that it\u2019s Liara, one of Commander Shepard\u2019s companions. She smiles enigmatically, and the trailer ends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does this trailer tell us? Unlike Mass Effect Andromeda<\/em>, it seems that Mass Effect 4 <\/em>will continue the stories of characters we\u2019re already familiar with. It\u2019s hard to imagine how BioWare is going to pick up from Shepard\u2019s story given how conclusively it ended (without wishing to spoil anything), but some of the criticisms levelled at Andromeda <\/em>revolved around its lack of familiar Mass Effect <\/em>elements, so that\u2019s likely why we\u2019re returning to solid ground with the new instalment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What platforms will <\/strong>Mass Effect 4 <\/em><\/strong>be on?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s difficult to make even an educated guess regarding what platforms we\u2019ll eventually be able to play Mass Effect 4 <\/em>on. This will entirely depend on when the game is released. However, given that BioWare felt confident in revealing the game in late 2020, we\u2019re guessing that it\u2019ll likely be ready in time for the PS5 and Xbox Series X\/S generation, so expect it at least to arrive on those consoles as well as on PC. Depending on what Nintendo intends to do, we could also see a version of the game for a potential Switch 2, but expect Xbox One, PS4, and Switch to be off the cards for this game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do we want to see from <\/strong>Mass Effect 4<\/em><\/strong>?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With so little information out there, it\u2019s difficult to know anything concrete about Mass Effect 4<\/em>. With that said, we do have a laundry list of things we\u2019d like to see from the game. Here are some of our wishlist features for Mass Effect 4<\/em>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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• Other playable races. <\/strong>This one\u2019s been a point of contention ever since the original Mass Effect <\/em>launched. Simply put, we\u2019d like the ability to play as other races. Humans are all well and good, but why not let us play as turians, salarians, or asari?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
• A less military-focused narrative. <\/strong>One of Mass Effect Andromeda<\/em>\u2019s biggest successes was letting players inhabit a character other than a soldier. The original Mass Effect <\/em>trilogy could get a little \u201cmodern military\u201d after a while, so we\u2019d like the chance to play in a different corner of the universe.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
• More tactical combat. <\/strong>At times, Mass Effect 2 <\/em>and 3 <\/em>devolved into pop-up shooting gallery-style cover shooters, and we\u2019d like to see a little more RPG-style complexity in the combat. We\u2019re not asking for turn-based battles, but more strategy would be nice.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
• Sandbox planets. <\/strong>Mass Effect Andromeda<\/em>\u2019s planet exploration was pretty nice in principle, but there was rarely anything to find. We want to see this system return, but we\u2019d like to see those planets being properly populated this time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Mass Effect is one of the most beloved RPG series of all time. The franchise got its start on the Xbox 360 in 2007 with the original Mass Effect, which was, in many ways, a spiritual successor to BioWare\u2019s earlier Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Commander Shepard and his quest to stop the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9899,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"close","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-videogames"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9897"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9898,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9897\/revisions\/9898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}