Just for fun, I came up with a little document on how I’d lay out a new ME game. It’d be for next gen hardware so it’s quite ambitious in terms of features and there may be a little bit of wishful thinking involved but who cares. Anyway, just thought before I just delete those few pages again, I might as well post them here to read for people who are bored and have nothing else to do.
Feel free to post your opinion on this idea or to use this thread to write out your own ideas on how to design the next ME game (hence the thread title).
Cheers!
Mass Effect: Liberation
The PC:
- Can be of any council species (or a Krogan mercenary or possibly a Quarian)
- Has been running black ops for their government before (or for Aria if Krogan), against other council species amongst others. Generally has a rather shady past
- The PC is not necessarily a “good guy”. S/he can be more the ruthless mercenary type (although possibly in the military of their species) and can very easily be played with more negative characteristics than Shepard (e.g. as racist, callous, vengeful, etc.)
- Could have an origin story (much like in DA:O) for a tutorial, taking place during one of these missions
The gameplay:
In essence, it is similar to ME1/2/3. You’ll have a small core team (4-5 people) who you can choose to bring on every mission. Furthermore, several missions will give you the opportunity to include outside NPCs into your squad for just that mission. You don’t have to take them but if you do, it may give you extra dialogue or even a tactical advantage on the mission sometimes.
The ship:
You fly a mid-range fighter-transport hybrid. Space is cramped and barely enough to house your core team. However, you can fly the ship, similar to the games Freelancer or Darkstar One (in terms of controls but a bit more confined in terms of space). You will be able to fly within several “arenas” (e.g. outside the citadel, in orbit around planets, etc.). There will be a number of such flying hubs but since your fighter has limited fuel, you need to dock with bigger ships for long-range voyages e.g. within or between clusters. The idea here is to give the player a chance to fly freely and engage in some space combat while keeping a reign on the recourses required for this feature (hence some restrictions on “arena” like areas which you can fly in)
The Story:
The story starts shortly after the end of ME1. The PC is approached by the intelligence branch of their respective government to investigate strange events surrounding the aftermath of the destruction of Sovereign. It is because of the PC’s shady past that s/he is hired for this as it is almost expected that actions against council officials and/or other council races may be necessary in the course of the investigation.
The problem is that the governments got top secret briefings about what really happened at the battle of the Citadel but all research, concerning Sovereign and all material that was salvaged from the wreckage remains under lock and key on the Citadel. No outside access or disclosure for – so goes the official explanation – security reasons. The council has isolated itself from their own governments. However, the respective intelligence branch of the PC’s species wants to know more and so they send the PC to infiltrate the research labs on the Citadel.
The plot takes various twists and turns, as it takes place throughout the next 2 years. Here are some of the highlights:
- Basically, the main plot evolves around the research on Sovereign and the council’s cover up of the events at the end of ME1. The big revelation (and the big secret to uncover throughout the game) is that the Citadel itself (being reaper tech and all) mediates a very subtle and slow form of indoctrination. Everyone who lives there is being manipulated into ignoring the reapers. This form of indoctrination is not as strong as we have seen before in the ME universe. Individuals still make their own choices, they live their lives but they get ever so slightly nudged into directions, which prevent them from exposing the reapers and act against them (hence the cover-up, the general reluctance to investigate the citadel and the Keepers in the last 2000 years, the ludicrous decisions of the council, etc.).
- During the course of the plot, the PC will become an outlaw and a wanted criminal throughout council space. Therefore, even after making these discoveries towards the end of the game, this information never gets public (and e.g. Shepard never hears of it). However, the protagonist also makes some allies in shady/secret circles and therefore can still make an important (though silent) difference.
- The PC accomplishes two major victories at the end of the game: While s/he cannot do anything about the council which is making all the wrong decisions due to the citadels manipulation, s/he manages to turn off the signal. Those who are already exposed for a long time (e.g. the council) will not be changed back but at least new arrivals will not be affected any longer. Secondly, the PC manages to steal some of the Sovereign research (or parts of the wreckage) and transfer it to a secret Turian lab. From this material, eventually the Thanix cannon is developed. The head scientist of this lab will be introduced early in the game and will become one of the PC’s major allies.
A few things on the side
- One of the main antagonists would be a Spectre. Someone who suspects that something is wrong with the council (or at least is just as pissed off with them as Shepard is at times) but is too devoted to the council and galactic society to “betray” them (a charismatic player might be able to persuade the guy though). The idea is that the antagonist is actually a good guy, just on the wrong side. This antagonist should remind the player of Shepard at times.
- The player can import any ME trilogy save (basically, given the time frame of the game you only need the variables from ME1). Not a lot of variables will be used but a few things will be checked (e.g. if Shep saved the council or if Shep gave the Shadow Broker the info about Cerberus)
- The PC has several run-ins with Cerberus (s/he can even work with them if the player so chooses). One of the first instances uncovers how Admiral Kahoku was fooled into believing that the cell he uncovered in ME1 (the one that was planted as an Alliance black ops team) is the whole of Cerberus. Kahoku basically had bad information (linking ME1 Cerberus to ME2).
- In a later run-in with Cerberus, the PC gets to see glimpses of a secret Cerberus colony. Thousands of people work and train there, completely isolated from the rest of the galaxy, devoted to TIM (the idea being that there is some explanation as to where TIM got all the goons from in ME3)
- In one of the early side quests, the PC gets to witness the destruction of the Normandy SR1 and passes the information about the remains of Shepard on to Feron and the Shadow Broker but also Liara T’Soni, setting in motion the events of the Redemption comic
- There might be a brief run-in with Jacob and Miranda, while they are on their mission from ME: Galaxy or with Garrus on Omega.
- That’s all the references to the old ME trilogy. Apart from some unavoidable known characters (like e.g. the council), this game (and especially the main plot) stands on its own
Concluding remarks:
Basically I’d use this game to clear up some missing links in the ME trilogy. It is important to keep the balance between plot points that fit into the old games and new/original threads just right. Too many references and the galaxy feels too small. Not enough and it feels too isolated.
Because it is a midquel, the game doesn’t focus directly on the reaper threat (because the player knows already that Shepard will solve this issue in the end). The story rather focuses on the mysteries surrounding the citadel and discovering some new aspects of the ME universe. Furthermore, the story allows for known factions to be put into new roles within the story and therefore it allows the player to get a new perspective on them. Reversing (or rather blurring) who the good guys and the bad guys are should be interesting.
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