I may not be myself, but I think long time fans have earned the right to know regardless.
Despite being a long time fan frothing at the mouth for any piece of news regarding, well, anything Mass Effect related, this really isn't true. No long time fan is entitled to anything at this point as the project is not theirs to dictate in content, marketing, and publicity. Fact of the matter is that Mass Effect as a franchise, and Mass Effect (4) as a project, are created, owned, and controlled exclusively by BioWare.
The right to know must come with a precedent that something is lost without knowing or specific history has benefited that right with knowledge. And neither case is true for Mass Effect (4). We're not talking about political secrecy or shady operations, we're talking about a video game that, as much as many of us don't want to admit, simply isn't ready to be shown no matter how much is "locked in" or for how long it's been this case. Fans, no matter how dedicated, gain nothing from knowing now instead of tomorrow or next month or whatever. The project isn't open to pre-order. No economic, emotional, or physical investment is required yet. Nothing is lost by not knowing, and in reality nothing is actually gained by knowing except for satiating curiosity.
What fans are a bit crabby about is that lore/story/narrative/themes are major components of the series and knowing BioWare is discussing the series but not discussing these elements gives said fans one less thing to digest. It's an important thing, but again, nothing is really gained from knowing now. It could quell some hype I guess, but the absence of knowledge is itself a state that should be recognised and used to manage expectations too. This is especially true when I feel BioWare wants to "get it right" when the time comes to properly reveal when in the timeline this is set, who you're playing as, where you're going, and the narrative hook.
There's a lot of big cards that need to be played and I feel BioWare/EA recognise that after the trilogy they need to play the right. One little thing revealed formally now wont, in reality, satiate the fans. It'll just open the floodgates for more questions, queries, and concerns. "We're proud to announce that Mass Effect (4) will take place canonically during the trilogy timeline, following a group of galactic explorers trapped within the Andromeda galaxy". A nice clean formal announcement doomed to be instantly hit with questions like "How did they get there?", "What is there mission?", "Why couldn't they travel there before, what is the reasoning?", "Will we see characters from Shepard's timeline?", "What of the Reaper threat?", etc. It's a domino effect. We're dealing with big information that ideally cannot be drip fed, which is unsurprisingly what they're trying to avoid when it comes to the narrative. They're drip feeding other little bits of info, like exploration, the mako, playable lead species, etc. But not the narrative. They're refusing to commit to any one thing just yet because they know once they do they're going to have to back it up.
Fans just need to be patient. They're not owed or entitled to information before that information is ready to be made public the way BioWare/EA feel it should be made public, especially since this is a project that has, in reality, promised nothing and has barely been formally revealed.
Retour en haut
