dunno which one I would prefer I just want more of that universe. Also picking a canon ending will piss some people off but they did it in Dragon Age 2 about the events of DA:O so they could do it again. Gr still don't like that my Warden from DA:O didn't get to sacrifice himself bravely in canon. but whatever.

Set it 5000 years into the future or something. Wipe the slate clean. Shep's story is over but the universe is very cool, so make another story in it.

Black Flag, a prequel of Shepard undercover as a pirate.

No?

Wrex Effect: Genophage, an Army of Two combat system with how Wrex and Mordin first met.

I feel that it might be a prequel, possibly when humanity first discovers the promethean ruins on mars. I would much rather have a sequel that expands the universe, but I'm willing to bet that the writers of the series are pretty scared to write anything that takes place after ME3.

There is a way to make a sequel without needing to canonize a red, green or blue ending or homogenize the three and reconverge the plot.

Make the Refuse ending canon but don't reveal it to the player until very late. Have the game set during Buzz Aldrin's time, so far into the future that whatever happened in ME3 doesn't matter, any ending the player could have chosen could still lead to ME4 in this era.

If Bio really don't want to trample on anyone's toes, have the game set in the Andromeda galaxy where lo and behold it turns out Mass Relays also exist. Whoever built them on the Milky Way also built them here. Hey, maybe Reapers are here too. Maybe this is where they go between harvests. Maybe they harvest every galaxy in cycles.

If they do a prequel, chances are humans won't be in it. It's hard to market a game with no humans in it. EA won't let that happen. The whole Galaxy at War thing where you have to play multiplayer (or play the iOS stuff) in order to get enough EMS to get the best ending in single player has EA's fingerprints all over it.

If you make a sequel set too close to ME3, it will anger a lot of people whose ending will turn out to not be canon.

Mass effect Origin only on Origin !

The way that Dragon Age II handled save imports was just weird. Some of your choices were recognized as canon while others could be completely contradicted because of what Dragon Age II decided to set in stone. I know that part of that had to do with the way that the Dragon Age: Origins clear save files were prepared to carry over, but there were some pretty awkward oversights on Bioware's part. With any luck, the save import story thing for Dragon Age III will allow for people to create histories that are more accurate to the way they played the games.

No they are not. If they are forced to manage and guide Mass Effect games then how is that "Bioware doing something else"?

The thing that keeps happening to other EA wholly own subsidiary is that they get shackled to some franchise. Mass Effect is going to be just fine with out Bioware's input or influence (or at least can't get weirder or worse) so why bother Bioware with this?

I would play the shit out of a game chronicling the entire lifespan of an Asari protagonist. Seriously, imagine watching over a thousand years of change to the Mass Effect Universe; entire casts of characters slowly dying while new ones are introduced.

God i hate prequels in just about everything. They're awful. They rarely add anything new. It's all leading up to stuff we already know about.

I REALLY hope they set it a few decades after the reaper stuff. So stuff has been rebuilt to a functional degree, but they're still rebuilding and unstable. Could be super interesting.

Sci-Fi prequels are the worst idea that exists and if Bioware doesn't realize that they deserve whatever they get.

Move things forward! Have some guts!! Take a chance!!

All they have to do is declare the "Destroy" ending from ME3's Extended Cut as canon, and then there could easily be a totally awesome sequel set a couple decades later about a fractured galaxy, where some places are still in the loop, other places are now a lawless frontier, and some places are literally cut off from society completely, and no one even knows what has happened to them! -You can have it all!

(In fact, maybe the other two endings still exist as well, but as weird unconfirmed rumors and conspiracy theories that you would uncover the truth about over the course of the game? Whatever! Fuck it!)

But no more "epic," galaxy-destroying omni-cidal threats-- just interesting, character-focused stories about space mystery, political intrigue, interplanetary wars, exploration, and technological advancements run amok. That's what people care about the most, anyway!

(Mass Effect 2 was the least Reaper-focused, after all... and it was Giant Bomb's Game of the Generation!)

I really hope Mass Effect 4 makes the right choices, because that universe is still the best and most well-realized setting in all of modern games. If they use it right, it can be spectacular.

I hope it's a completely separate story that doesn't reference Shepard at all. I'm still bummed about ME3, so I want a clean slate from that stuff.

I'd like to see a sequel that revises the ending of Mass Effect 3 so we can all move on from it. I don't mean that changes it, but that gives us a new way to understand it in which the universe can continue in an acceptable way.

They couldn't go too far back into the past if they still wanted humans in the game. I think they were only relevant on a galactic scale for something like 26 years when ME1 starts. If it was a prequel with a human as the main character, then it would probably be centered around the First Contact War, which might be interesting.

Speaking of years, am I the only one confused by how people in the Mass Effect universe use years as a unit of time? Almost all the planets have different orbital periods than Earth. Maybe each species translator automatically does the math and gives you the converted time for their homeworld, or something. I don't know. I think about this stuff a lot.

I'd love it to be a prequel set during the Turian/human conflict.

Yes, they are.

http://gamerant.com/bioware-mass-effect-4-new-next-gen-game/

Casey Hudson said:

“We are developing a whole new fictional universe at BioWare…that’s kind of our next thing. We’re focusing on building something new the way we did at the very beginning on Mass Effect.“

Getting weekly reports from the Montreal team is hardly going to stop them working on a game of their own, I don't even get what you are trying to say. I'm not making this up, they said months ago that they are working on something new. You do understand the concept of multiple studios, right? Bioware Montreal is a different developer that happens to be under the Bioware umbrella and are fully capable of developing a game while a different one is being developed in Edmonton.

Damn, I've been out of the loop for a straight minute... I didn't even know they were making a new Mass Effect.

I hope it's not a sequel that's for damn sure. Much like the Halo universe, I think it should have ended after the third installment in the trilogy. That being said, the Mass Effect universe is cool as hell so a game centered in that universe wouldn't be so bad, as long as they don't try to continue the story of the trilogy.

prequel, with Garrus as the main character... i'd play that.

Instead of picking a canon ending, they could go the route of the Zelda games and just have a grand Mass Effect Timeline with future mass effect games that could take place in different alternate universes based on the different endings and....actually, don't do that. You don't want people talking about the endings anymore so yeah, if they're gonna do a sequel they should probably just pick a canon ending or just set it so far in the future that it doesn't matter what happened because nobody remembers or the evidence got wiped out or lost Or maybe they just make an alternate universe with mostly the same species and say screw what happened in the other games, we just wanna tell some more stories concerning these different races.

I want a new ip, anything with the number 4 attached automatically screams over the hill to me.

The game I always wanted from the Mass Effect team (but knew I would never get) would be a collection of short stories from the time between the opening of ME2 and the rest of the game all about the different members of the crew. It would be a perfect method to incorporate new locations and gameplay styles into one lovely package, without having to worry too much about a big, new plot. Imagine being able to play Garus becoming Archangel, Kasumi pulling of heists or Samara chasing Morinth across the galaxy, how awesome would that be? Make it an episodic series of 4-5 hour campaigns and I would be happier than proverbial pig in mud.

Ugh.. Isn't there a single, great modern gaming series that we can simply leave intact? We've all gotten tired of the yearly CoDs, semi-anual Bioware games aren't anything to get excited over keeping the development times of DA2 and Jade Empire in mind. (Though Jade Empire did have a good story.)
For what it's worth, I hope it's an entirely different time-line, before or after, don't matter to me none. New story, new characters, new locations, new setting; no more spectre crap. Get some other terrific sci-fi voice actors in the mix, how about Fillion and Edward James Olmos?

Aaand now I'm getting excited despite myself, just great.

Man what the fuck happened to Bioware? They had such a great start to their new franchises with Mass Effect and Dragon Age and then all that potential was just squandered with Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2. Uugh. Time will tell if they'll be able to make a well made game again, but I'm not holding my breath.

Are the books considered canon? If they're not, the books are on the same level as fan fic and Bioware could pretend nothing in the books ever happened.

I don't really care if it's a prequel or a sequel, as long as it's something new. I don't want any of the same crew. I absolutely love the ME universe, so if they could make a more character focused game within that universe I'll play it no matter what.

A prequel would make the most sense being that the endings makes it harder to nail down a setting without choosing a canon ending and going with that. No matter what it is i bet it will be a few degrees removed from anything that has happened in the trilogy.

I would not mind playing a deep undercover N7 agent who is in a far away solar system in which he had to investigate a rebel faction or something. Which would place your character in a different setting and theme apart from the reaper threat or aftermath.

Your not trying to save the world this time but just surviving in a seedy solar system while dealing with different factions, new planets and forming allies and a ragtag crew. I would love for it to be more open like the first game but have way more stuff to do on said planets, which would have cities and such and not be a wasteland that have one or two crime warehouses to raid. Let us explore the whole solar system at will and bring back upgrading your ship to make it easier to travel in space.

This way you really don't have to address the trilogy all that much if any, and you can make it much more of a wild ride being that most character can be expendable since it will be a new setting and new characters.

Whatever it is going to be, I'm just kind of "nooooooooope" at this point

I would love it if it took place in that universe prior to human involvement in the rest of the galaxy, but I doubt that's what will happen. A post-reaper universe could be interesting too. Either way, I'll probably play because I love some ME and the ending of 3 didn't bother me, so I'm not carrying ill will towards Bioware/EA over what they've done with the series

Neither. The universe is a big place. You wouldn't want to see a completely different story in a completely different section if the universe? I'd like to see them play with the idea of going deep deep space.

Supposedly there's a thing going around on tumblr (lol tumblr) that seems to indicate that Bioware is going with a sequel-- but I'm just going to guess the article is possibly fake/spoof whatever because like there hasn't already been tons of those.

I wouldn't mind either way.

I think they could go forward with the series and not really say "This ending is actually cannon" by having the reasons for the mass relays being damaged being unknown so to speak.

If they when to the past then I think they should explore more of the past cycles which was hinted at, maybe show something of the prothean's or the advanced race before them.

Basically I would rather sit and watch a trilogy of Mass Effect films showing the first contact wars.

Three out of the four books were written by the lead writer of Mass Effect 1 and 2 and there are references to events from the books in all three games. They are most certainly canon.

I don't have any hope for Mass Effect 4. While it was a great game, Mass Effect 3 ended badly. Bioware blew their best chance with the franchise, when everyone was coveting the final game of the trilogy. So what is the chance of them making a new and engrossing storyline?

I am betting on prequel but who knows? When they eventually turn it into an mmo property it will be in the "sequel" space.

Mass effect is dead to me.

I hope that'll it'll be so far into the future after the events of Mass Effect 3 that the original trilogy is barely touched upon.

Its going to be a prequel.

The three endings in Mass Effect leave the galaxy in such different places that they would have to create a lot of content to accommodate for different post-3 endings. Also, it can't be a parallel story because 3 took care that every plot point or conflict in the galaxy was neatly resolved by Shepard, so there is nothing left of importance for another protagonist to address (and the grunt work was covered in the multiplayer).

However, fuck prequels. The most interesting thing about Mass Effect was the setting. Getting to explore the Citadel and learning about all the races was what hooked me into the series. However, the game was pretty much set at a point where that was still relatively new. If the next game is just about humans, fighting the first contact war with the Turians and hardly being able to interact with them or any of the other space faring races, its going to be a lot poorer as a game...

I would be more interested if they just choose one of the endings as cannon and make a sequel after that...

@ll_exile_ll:

Who needs humans? :D "The main character could be a privateer sort of free agent of any race, really."

As much as I would love to see Shepard and co. again. It started out as a trilogy and it should end as a trilogy.

I can't see myself falling in love with a whole new cast of characters all over again, Citadel DLC was a great send off for the series, just end it at that.

Completely off topic, am I the only one who enjoyed ME3?

I agree humans aren't a requirement for a good Mass Effect story, but I was referencing the fact that you included humans in your scenario. Also, Bioware would never make a Mass Effect game without humans.

What are you guys talking about? My Warden's sacrifice carried over. The only thing they contradicted as far as I know was the aliveness of Leliana for some players, which considering it took place at the very end of the game, I always assumed that there would be some sort of in universe explanation to come in the sequel. Wouldn't be that far fetched for her to be brought back to life given her connection with the maker and Andraste, especially if she died trying to protect the ashes. There's even in universe precedent for resurrection via Wynne

@ll_exile_ll: Oh, right. See what happens when I don't re-read my own posts? o.O Just ignore that, and we'll pretend I added in some sort of Bill & Ted Excellent Bioware Adventure, in which you can choose to travel to the 1980s, in space, or something. I'm a creative genius. Nearly at this level. ;)