I agree that either a prequel, something that runs concurrently with the originals, or something that takes place long after the fact would be good, because we can't hold on to the Shepard story forever (as much as I do love it). But, I also get the appeal for something that continues his story, so try this one out in your head. It might get a little long, so bear with me:
Three critical decision-imports would affect the overall story, others could affect minor aspects as needed. Those three are:
1. The Final Decision from ME3
2. Who survived the events of the trilogy
3. The love interest
It's shortly after (a few months to a year after) ME3. First, the 3 possible baseline scenarios based on the final choice you made:
1. Destroy. The Reapers are all gone, the galaxy is starting to rebuild. The races are working together, but military strength is still at an all-time low and populations have been decimated. At this desperate time, some new, unknown threat is rising. Maybe the Leviathans, or possibly some incredibly powerful creatures or race from another galaxy that the Reaper's had a secondary job of keeping away from the Milky Way when they were out in Dark Space (Shepard: "Oops" [not actually in the game]).
2. Control. The Reapers have begun helping to rebuild the galaxy, but suddenly they start disappearing (turns out they're being destroyed by whatever the chosen antagonist is, which you'd find out later). Eventually one Reaper remains, preserving the consciousness of Shepard, but is unable to do anything about whatever is coming.
3. Synthesis. Same as control, without the one Reaper surviving. Or maybe even with it surviving, with some semblance of Shepard being transferred with his DNA when it was sent out in the green wave.
Gameplay would bounce between several smaller teams of characters from ME1-3. For example, Tali and Garrus are both high-level leaders of their people and have been facilitating cooperation between them, occassionally going together to help establish new colonies or to find resources to rebuild, etc. Dialogue would change based on the romance situation, but at some point they run into trouble on an uncharted world. Play mission. Cut to Ashley/Kaidan, James, and Cortez, who are working with the alliance military to oversee building projects and act as liaisons to other species due to their experience working with them. Just some possibilities, with other teams of characters with their own tasks (Grunt and Wrex working together while constantly competing to see who the better Krogan is could be hilarious). Whichever team has the love interest would also be involved in its own private, hopeful search for Shepard when possible.
As the game progresses, the storylines come together, then split, then come back together throughout (kind of like the movie Crash, if you will). If a character from a team died during the series, then that team is down a person. If the absence of that character makes the team too small to be a good play, then the members of that team are rolled into one of the other storylines. For players who lost a lot of companions, this could add some replay value to the original games.
Eventually, the storylines all converge and lead up to the climax, with some kind of appearance by Shepard. Some possibilities would be:
1. Destroy. Shepard was found in the rubble on the Citadel (could have taken a while, since he was in a part no one had seen before). Whether he is alive or not could depend on the EMS from ME3.
2. Control. The final Reaper recreates Shepard (if Cerberus could do it, you know the Reapers could) to preserve his consciousness before being destroyed.
3. Synthesis. Either Shepard doesn't appear and there's some teary moment as the love interest discovers the search is hopeless, or something similar to control, depending on how the developers wanted to play this one.
And then Shepard, if alive, helps out in the ending as an NPC. Or as a playable character he leads his team one final time before riding off into the sunset, and his fans rejoice.
Not perfect, but I think it has possibilities. Bonus reputation points to anyone who actually read that whole thing.
Modifié par btdhill, 03 octobre 2012 - 06:28 .