back to its roots in many ways. Exploring the unknown, uncovering dark secrets,
interacting with a variety of alien species and discovering their cultures, and
getting to know a plethora of unique characters with their own backstories and
drama.
How do you sweep a lot of the baggage hanging on the franchise
and make a new start? Distance yourself from the previous trilogy, both in
terms of actual physical distance within the universe, and through time.
My vision of Mass Effect 4 takes place several hundred years
into the future, three to five hundred, whatever feels right. Also, it takes
place within Andromeda. In the post-Reaper War society, every race was clamoring
to rebuild their societies and expand their sphere of influence. Eventually,
tensions began to build as room for expansion started to run out. In order to avoid a second galactic war, those
races on the Council devised a solution – using advances learned from Reaper
technology, a bridge device was constructed allowing travel between the Milky
Way and Andromeda. This device requires a massive output of energy and element
zero to transport even a handful of ships across such a vast distance, so
contact between the galaxies is limited.
After the colonies began to prosper, resentment started to
develop toward the Council over the fact that the colonists’ leadership was
still in the hands of those across a vast ocean of empty space and that they
didn’t have the right to govern themselves. Minor rioting has taken place over numerous colony
worlds, but nothing on the scale of open rebellion.
The Ascendants seek to change that however. Augmenting themselves with illegal Reaper
technology, they have begun a campaign to stir up furor against the Council’s
leadership using terror attacks to incite retaliation that would lead on to
full blown war. They view themselves as the future of organics and see the rule
of those who they deem as inferior as a personal insult. They are composed of a variety of alien
species, and use a mix of advanced tech and biotic attacks in their operations.
Council forces within the colonies have already been
relatively light, but rioting and the threat of the Ascendants have caused near
lawlessness in some of the colony worlds. The Syndicate has taken advantage of
this. The Syndicate arguably has a monopoly on organized crime in the colonies – slave trading, weapon smuggling, drug trafficking, the Syndicate is criminal underbelly of the colonies. Their
agents use conventional mass effect weaponry, armor, and mechs when they are drawn into a fight.
A new threat lies on the horizon. The War Machines, the remnants of an ancient society, have begun
to emerge and threaten the colonies. Much about them is unknown, but when
active they are able to flash-forge entire combat platforms to neutralize their
enemies.
The protagonist is a soldier new to Andromeda and fresh out
of VR training. Given your lower profile, you are a prime candidate for a top
secret assignment, to go undercover and ascertain the identity of the leader of
the Ascendants. Along the way you will meet a variety of new characters, like
Liara T’Soni’s daughter, a Salarian Biotic, and a Raloi soldier, and run into a
number of factions, new and old, that have setup shop in Andromeda. Society is different
than in the Milky Way, and many of the races that you thought you knew have a
completely new spin to them. The Batarians, for example, experienced a cultural renaissance
after the Reaper War and in their success in the colonies.
After an on-a-rails sequence through the first couple of
missions to introduce you to the central conflict and many of the primary
characters and factions, a small starship happens to fall into your hands and you
are free to explore the galaxy in a much freer and less linear narrative. I
would hope that Mass Effect 4 would set the foundation for a new trilogy, so I
imagine the decisions you would make here would carry serious weight as you
went forward.
Of course, the game has to have MP modes. classic Survival
Mode pits you against any of the three villain factions in standard wave based
combat. Many of the weapons have survived the journey along with a number of
new additions. The number of kits would have to start off smaller, with a good
solid core of human kits along with a number of alien kits, leaving room for
expansion in the future. Right off the bat, platinum mode included along with
the standard bronze through gold difficulties.
A new feature of MP would be a co-op campaign. As a member
of a new mercenary faction, you and your squad take jobs throughout Andromeda
and experience an episodic story broken up into 10-12 chapters. This story
would flesh out the background of Andromeda and many of its characters and
could be experienced with or without having completed the main campaign.
And... that's pretty much it for my ideas. Hopefully some people think these ideas are at least somewhat interesting. They've been bouncing around in my nogin, and I put some serious thought into how we can go forward with the franchise while dodging the issue of "What is canon?" I hope that everyone can play ME4 and say "Yeah, this is the next Mass Effect game".
(edit: Ugh, serious formatting issues)
Modifié par Scottus4, 08 décembre 2012 - 08:01 .
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