Just finished listening to this week's bombcast and I really like Jeff's idea of a Star Trek style version of Mass Effect, where its the same characters having different adventures and none of that saving the galaxy crap. Don't get me wrong, I love Mass Effect, but the whole overarching story is probably the weakest part. What makes Mass Effect so good, as least for me, is the universe, characters, and idea of just traveling around the galaxy.

So what if some years down the line, Someone decides to pull a Star Trek 2009 and just makes a new Mass Effect series in an alternate universe. Its the perfect excuse to have all the characters back and keep giving them new adventures.

Do I think anything I just said will actually happen? Probably not. But it's fun to think about. Would guys be interested in something like that?

As another fun aside, if you could have any episode of Star Trek done with the Mass Effect Universe, what would it be? I'd do the one where Data gets the emotion chip but replace Data with EDI.

I'd rather they just go back in time and do that very thing (smaller or just more reasonable stories) with new cast members. This could surely be done.

I love when stories don't need to be so sweeping in these sci fi universes if I find them compelling in themselves. It's part of why I am/was (depending on the state of that game now) looking forward to Star Wars 1313 as a criminal tale in the Star Wars unvierse.

I hope whatever Mass Effect 4 is, it just gets down to details like that instead of being sweeping. That allows more room for fun and detail. Stuff they try to do in ME at times but feels stupid because of the need to push forward as dictated by the plot.

@artisanbreads: I think that's why Mass Effect 2 is by favorite because the majority of that game is self contained stories. Stuff like Tail on trial or Garrus wanting revenge are ultimately more interesting then the whole Collector thing. Although I do like the Collectors, they made cool enemies.

I think they need to get away from the current characters and introduce some new ones personally. What's interesting about them is getting to know them, and learning about their little corner of the universe from them, and that's not something that can be done with the same people over and over and over again. That being said, I do think they've written themselves into a corner. I mean I don't want a grand sweeping story either, but they've basically forced themselves to make this a prequel, and I don't feel like that gives them much leeway to introduce new elements to the fiction, like new races and such.

I agree though it kind of felt dumb because the series wasn't made for that. To me the whole Collectors story felt like "why is this going on when we know about the reapers?"

I would love if ME going forward was structured like Star Trek or something. Or just have contained stuff, like let me be an agent on the Citadel.

They should go Cloud Atlas on it and have a game set thousands (or maybe just hundreds) of years after the trilogy and without any grand epic space quest for freedom, and have characters from the trilogy reincarnated so we can go on adventures with them like the Citadel stuff without having to stupidly contextualize it. All that reaper stuff is done, the universe is saved/changed/what-the-fuck-ever-it's-thousands-of-years-later.

Or just make new characters.

Not sure why we need all these contrivances. I like the ME characters don't get me wrong but you could make new better ones. The universe is the best aspect.

I want to play as any of the other races and see more of their respective worlds. It can be anything from a prequel to a sequel to something concurrent with the ME1-2-3 storyline it doesn't matter. Let me explore more of that universe through the eyes of any of the other races.

This would be awesome, video games in general get too wrapped up in universe ending shit and narratives in which you're at the centre of everything or 'the chosen one,' the quality of smaller, more focused stories like the walking dead make it that much more obvious but it's all part of the video game power fantasy trip I guess.

I, like a lot of people would love to see the more contained star wars story that doesn't involve the fate of the galaxy too. In general people are clamouring for these kinds of smaller in scope more nuanced stories instead of the ancient aliens prometheotheon story.

this has already been expressed by several above, but they created such a rich universe that i don't think they need to do a reboot. just zoom in- give us some good new character writing (like star trek), and ease up on the stakes. they could go anywhere- film noir, suspense, war story, police procedural, swashbuckling, heist or crime film...that's the beauty of setting up a strong backstory- it's a platform for any story you want to tell. and that's all sci-fi's ever been anyway...merely a prism through which existing stories are refocused.

I do think ME1 worked the best, because it was a relatively self-contained story. They left some hints and kind of built up the Reapers in the background, but the focus was on the actual characters and universe. It's a shame they pretty much dropped that in favour of doing their "epic" trilogy.

Make the next game about a c-sec detective who has to solve crimes and I'm back on board.

Nah man, reincarnation is where it's at.

I would think a game just about C-Sec would be fun. Think Sleeping Dogs but in space!