Mass Effect is one of the most well-known sci-fi video game series out there, and fans had a huge surprise in store during The Game Awards 2020. BioWare announced that Mass Effect would return with a brand new game, on top of the remastered Mass Effect: Legendary Edition launching in 2021.

It's been three years since the release of Mass Effect Andromeda, which brought the franchise to a bit of a standstill. Between loads of bugs and complaints about writing, Andromeda was a step back for a lot of fans.

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While the teaser trailer didn't show much, there were a few details fans could glean, including the return of Liara T'Soni. By all accounts, it looks like the next Mass Effect game will connect the original trilogy with Andromeda, and could even visit both galaxies.

When Mass Effect 4 Might Take Place

Mass Effect Galaxies

The Mass Effect teaser is sprinkled with little hints about where the series might be heading, including the image above. The galaxy in the front is the Milky Way, while far in the back is the Andromeda galaxy. This suggests that both galaxies will play a role, and there is a way they could be connected. Andromeda takes place 6oo years after the original Mass Effect trilogy, when the members of the human ark, the Hyperion, starts to wake up. This means that most of the characters from the original trilogy would be dead, although not all of them. Liara is a focal point of the teaser, and Asari can live for up to 1000 years. At the start of the original trilogy, Liara is 106 years old, making her just over 700 by the events of Andromeda. She clearly looks older in the trailer, and Liara may have become an Asari Matriarch by this point.

Other shots in the trailer suggest that the Reapers are dead, so the next game could make the Destruction ending of Mass Effect 3 canon. The snow planet near the end of the trailer has a figure traversing a dead Reaper, and Liara finding a piece of an N7 helmet in the snow. With the destruction ending technology in the Milky Way would be severely hampered, including Mass Relays ceasing to work. If players listen to the audio logs in Andromeda they find out that Liara was in contact with Alec Ryder, and knew about the Andromeda Initiative. It's also important to note that Liara has become the all-powerful Shadow Broker by the end of Mass Effect 3. The civilization in Andromeda still has totally working technology, and even highly advanced technology with the terraforming network of Meridian and the Remnant.

Mass Effect 4 will most likely see the civilizations of the Milky Way and Andromeda meeting, and Liara could even be searching for a way to contact Andromeda, therein reuniting the civilizations. A particularly interesting line in the trailer says "Ark 6 is away, Godspeed" This is obviously referring to the Arks sent to Andromeda, however, up until now there was only known to be five Arks; Humans, Turians, Salarians, Asari, and the final Ark holding Quarians, Elcor, Hanar, and more. The Quarian Ark still hasn't arrived by the end of Andromeda, but a teaser in the Epilogue hints that the ship hit serious trouble. If there is, in fact, a sixth Ark that launched that a massive revelation, and one that key members of the Andromeda Initiative didn't even know about. Perhaps a sixth Ark was launched specifically to re-establish contact between the Andromeda Initiative and the Milky Way, with some kind of Mass Relay technology onboard. At this point, it's impossible to say what exactly Mass Effect 4 will be about, but it's clear that Andromeda and the Milky Way will both play a vitally important role. For even further proof Michael Gamble, project lead at BioWare said that the inclusion of both galaxies in the trailer was intentional. It certainly leaves a lot for Mass Effect fans to think about.

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