A recently released BioWare book has introduced three new pieces of artwork from the upcoming Mass Effect sequel. The new game was officially announced earlier this month on Mass Effect day. It was announced alongside Mass Effect Legendary Edition, which will offer remasters of every game in the original trilogy, along with all of their DLC content. Legendary Edition was the worst-kept secret in the gaming industry for months before it was officially announced; its development has been followed closely even before it was made public.
Many are calling the Legendary Edition and the new sequel last chances at redemption for Bioware. The sequel will be the first new Mass Effect Game since 2017's Mass Effect Andromeda. That game is widely considered an absolute failure by all counts. Poor animations and a mediocre story plagued a game that already had a lot of weight to bear from anticipation; the original trilogy are widely beloved games (barring a rather notorious reception to the ending of Mass Effect 3), and Andromeda completely failed to live up to expectation. It's widely considered one of the biggest disappointments in modern gaming.
Unfortunately this just puts all the more pressure on the new game, which has the unenviable task of redeeming an entire franchise. As reported by Eurogamer, fans are getting a small taste of what the future of the franchise might hold thanks to a recently released book. BioWare: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development is a substantial coffee table book that lays out the history of the well-known development team. Included in its pages are four pieces of concept art from the new Mass Effect game. One of them, which had been previously revealed when the sequel was announced, depicts a spaceship on an alien world, accompanied by a few silhouettes of people. One of the silhouettes looks like an Angaran, an alien race introduced in Andromeda, which seems to indicate that the new game will take place in the setting of the previous game. This is corroborated by another picture from the book, which seems to depict architecture from the Remnant, an ancient advanced civilization that also featured in Mass Effect Andromeda.
Given the poor reputation of Mass Effect Andromeda, it might seem odd to return to that setting in the new game. But it makes a lot of sense, too. Andromeda set up a lot of lore threads that warrant further exploration, and distancing the future of the series from the setting of the first three games will make it easier to work with the controversial choice-based ending of Mass Effect 3. One of the pictures shows the construction of a new Mass Relay, a piece of technology that enables faster-than-light travel throughout the Milky Way in the original games. A new one being built in Andromeda might allow transportation between the two galaxies, further opening up storytelling opportunities and drastically expanding the potential scope of the game.
At the end of the day, there's still much that's unknown about the Mass Effect sequel. These images provide a tantalizing glimpse into the future of the series but they don't offer much in terms of concrete information. Still, with this sequel on the horizon, and Mass Effect Legendary Edition looming even closer still, the future is bright for Mass Effect fans.
Source: Eurogamer