"Mass Effect 4" has been known as the assumed title for the untitled fourth installment in the "Mass Effect" franchise, but from what BioWare has been saying, it looks like people can start thinking about another name for the next game.
According to a report from EL33O on Thursday, BioWare community manager, Chris Priestly, said people should not call the next title "Mass Effect 4," but did not offer up any other potential names.
"To call the next game 'Mass Effect 4' or 'ME4' is doing it a disservice and seems to cause a lot of confusion here.
"We have already said that the Commander Shepard trilogy is over and that the next game will not feature him/her. That is the only detail you have on the game.
"I see people saying 'well, they’ll have to pick a canon ending.' No, because the game does not have to come after.
"Or before. Or off to the side. Or with characters you know. Or yaddayaddayadda. Wherever, whenever, whoever, etc will all be revealed years down the road when we actually start talking about it.
"I do not call the game ME4 when I talk about it ever, [because] that makes people think of it more as 'what happens after 'Mass Effect 3' rather than 'what game happens next set in the 'Mass Effect' Universe.
"Obviously fans are going to speculate content, character and story until we actually reveal details in the years or months to come as you have almost no actual details, just don’t get bogged down in 'well how are they going to continue ME3,'" Priestly said.
BioWare Edmonton chief Yanick Roy then decided to further elaborate on what Priestly had said before.
"What Chris is saying is that thinking of the next 'Mass Effect' game as 'Mass Effect 4' would imply a certain linearity, a straight evolution of the gameplay and story of the first three games.
"Story-wise, the arc of the first trilogy has also been concluded, and what we will do is tell a new story set in the 'Mass Effect' universe.
"That doesn’t mean that events of the first three games and the choices you made won’t get recognized, but they likely won’t be what this new story will focus on.
"I apologize for being cryptic right now, but it’s early enough in development that we don’t have much to share – things still fluctuate quite a bit," Roy said.
