Mass Effect 5: Story Ideas
Hey all, I'm sure many of you may have heard that a new Mass Effect game is in "Very early development." I'm not sure about you guys but that got me excited and I immediately started to think about w...
Forum Discussion
"Because the player got to choose the end, going back would mean player choice doesn't matter and there is a canonical ending."
And that is where you are wrong my friend. There does not need to be a canonical ending chosen if the initiative sets up a supply line with the Milky Way and Andromeda. Let's break this down so you can see why. There were 3 different endings that need to be considered. Destroy, Synthesis and Control; and keep in mind this is 600 YEARS in the future so a lot can change.
When the Ryder siblings and scouting parties from the initiative return to the Milky Way what do they see?
Destroy Ending:
Easy enough. No Reapers because they were destroyed and the Milky Way has healed from its wounds and has now moved on stronger than ever. However, the Milky Way still has its problems with infighting and proxy wars and that can lead to a lot of great stories.
Synthesis Ending:
Everyone has green terminator Eyes.
So the Reapers didn't die in this ending, no big deal. The Reapers can be around walking on hub worlds doing custodial things like helping out the Milky Way sort of like the Keepers on the Citadel. Maybe have a few of them working on maintaining the Mass Effect relays as you jump from system to system.
OR
Better yet Reapers are gone all together. They self destructed because they no longer had a purpose and started to die off. There can still be conflict among the Milky Way which will still allow for some great story telling.
Control Ending:
Reapers are still around only this time they are being controlled by Shepard. Like in Synthesis, they have become something like the Keepers of Citadel only for the Milky Way as whole. They maintain Mass Effect Relays and can be seen walking around on hub worlds helping with building things. MAYBE you can even have a brief convo with Shep through one of the Reapers.
OR
Reapers are gone all together because Shepard felt as though he was losing control and took the remaining Reapers into dark space and self destructed all of them.
The point I'm trying to make here is that THERE ARE options if we want to return to the Milky Way while also respecting everyones decisions in the previous game. From a developers perspective I don't think Im asking too much to have them render some Reapers off in the distance if they want to have them around. A good enough writer can simply write around it make it so that it's no big deal for a dev.
Well that's the thing, its not as simple as that. For destroy there's no Geth but you'll have to incorporate them into the other two. If synthesis, will they want the Initiative to join them in it, or will it start a war?
Further, its not just the endings, you have decisions to incorporate from back to the original, such as did you kill Wrex and the Rachni queen which can change things substantially. Also, regardless of the ending chosen, the Milky Way now has Reaper tech, far more advanced than what the Initiative has which will change all the weapons and armor.
Also, players have voiced their opposition to a canonical ending because, as I mentioned earlier, it removes all the choices they made. And I don't think players will be satisfied with just seeing a Reaper here and there as a fitting aftermath for the legacy of the trilogy.
I get what you're saying, but essentially you're talking about two gamed rolled into one: Mass Effect Aftermath and Mass Effect Andromeda 2. Given how bad the development was for MEA I don't have faith this could be pulled off.
ME3 ending messed up the Milky Way for any future ME game......well other than a pre game or something going on during the later parts of ME-early ME3. But anything after ME3 would require a cannon ending thereby ticking a whole bunch of people off.
Synthesis(aka StarChild magic ending)...every living things was basically networked together according to what I remember, PLUS if Andromeda team came back, then they would be the ONLY pure biological group in the MK galaxy...thus almost a different race even among their original racial groups. Since all plants, animals, and races were combined with tech in Syn ending, there is even doubt that non-combined people could survive due to a lack of food, and possibly hostile reactions to micro-organisims who should also be combined. Since the Reapers were also involved in this, then you would have the combined knowledge of all the Reapers races back millions of years to sort through and integrate into modern technology, thus radically changing everything especially in 600 years time. Since eveyone is linked and the same, all conflict should be nil and a really boring place for a game.
Destroy...my cannon....ok, is it low or high destroy?? Low would possibly take thousands of years to fully recover with much of human and other races being destroyed, thus not much left to come back too. High destroy, would be best, allowing full recovery, lack of AI, Geth or Reaper based.... Which the Geth angle still makes absolutely no sense, due to GETH BEING SOFTWARE!!!! Geez, Bioware forgot their own story, since the red god wave shouldn't be able to distinguish between one 1010110 and 0101011001 which is all the difference between a Geth and a Suit repair program....Geth were living in and helping out Quarian bio-suits, for goodness sakes... But then you have possible wars, between Krogan, random new race, maybe a newer AI going wild.....
Control, there should be enforced peace by Shepchild and possibly strafe and resentment....or he is Emperor of the Galaxy by this time, no telling, but by no means should they be gone....
Oh, and don't forget Walk away...reapers win and the cycle starts again....
There isn't a good way to handle all these options with just a handwave of oh, it has been 600 years.....which both the Asari and Krogan live longer...maybe everyone in StarChild magic ending....because in two of the endings, you have peace, and Reapers, one you can't probably live off of the supplies it would give, one possible to still be in ruins, one possible in war or wiped out by AI, one ending you would been seen as a possible threat to his control, one ending you are a threat or lesser race due to being pure Biological, and one ending where nothing of the old worlds exists and it is a new cycle...
Yeah, leave the MK galaxy as the burning trash heap that Bioware created and walk away to the new better and still open to new ideas Andromeda Galaxy. I wish people would stop pining for the old ME galaxy, cause Bioware put paid to it, and that Trilogy is done and they burned the bridge behind them. Do I wish it wasn't this way....yeah, they could have done a much better ending, much more lore friendly and made a future possible, but they didn't and thus without stepping on many feet and burning many choices they are stuck.
Now will they burn those choices...maybe, they are the ones who came up with the stupid idea anyway....I still think if you want a future in the MK galaxy, then they needed to make the indoctrination theory cannon and make different endings....Shepard wakes up on a lifepod after the destruction of the Normandy, and all of ME2 and ME3 was a dream....
LOL, that would chap some people, but to me it would still be better than the ME3 endings.
All I can say to both of your responses is that 600 years is a LONG time for things to happen. By the time the Pathfinders returns to Milky Way, there could possibly some cataclysmic event that wiped out all life in the Milky Way that has nothing to do with the Reapers and thats what they return to. That in itself could be a good story. You absolutely can write around the endings and make it so that you can return to the Milky Way while also respecting the the alternate endings in ME3. I think the problem that most people have with the Mass Effect universe is that they can't move on from the Shepard trilogy.
I've been ready to move on from the Shepard trilogy and would like to see more of the Ryder trilogy while also bringing the the Milky Way into the fold. Will they be able to pull it off? Maybe but their track record says otherwise. I hope they have good writers for this next one because they need to do a complete overhaul of Ryder's character.
For the love of GOD's I hope they don't do a prequel. Never understood the appeal with those when you already know how things end for that charchter.
I agree with you that the ending can be written around and players can't get past the Shepard trilogy. However the latter is really the big problem as MEA showed just how big that problem is. It was a good game but people found every problem they could with it.
I honestly feel just expanding Andromeda is the way to go as there is so much potential laying around; it was just screwed by bad development from the get go.
I also agree they shouldnt do a prequel. It would obviously be the Turian conflict but i dont see much story there. I think people who want that are just desperate to get back to Shepard.
