BioWare Aiming To Tell A Contained Story With Mass Effect: Andromeda

BioWare is ready to break new ground with the release of Mass Effect: Andromeda.

Nipping at the heels of yesterday’s grand unveiling, one which neatly aligned with N7 Day, Creative Director Mac Walters spoke to Game Informer about moving on from the original trilogy, and why he considers Andromeda to be a contained story.

Much of that comes down to the all-new setting, of course, but as more details begin to pour onto the interwebs, we’ve learned that Mass Effect: Andromeda takes place around the year 2785, a full 600 years after the events that transpired in ME3. That means due to the nature of space travel between galaxies, the core characters of BioWare’s sequel will be blissfully unaware of Commander Shepard and the Reaper war by the time Andromeda begins.

Per Game Informer:

“At the end of this, we want it to feel like a story has completed. Yes, for the universe, there’s much more you could explore, and we want to tease that, but it feels like its own story. It’s like, ‘Great. I had my Ryder sibling becoming-a-hero story. What’s next? Is it going to be Ryder? Is it going to be something else? Who knows?'”

On the topic of multiple endings, Producer Michael Gamble added that fans can expect a “different type of story. We want to leave the ending, and what we’re doing with it, as a surprise. This is a different type of story, so it will be something different than the trilogy. We can’t wait to hear what fans think.”

Mass Effect: Andromeda has been penciled in for release in spring 2017. It’ll herald a rather pricey Collector’s Edition, too, which even features a remote-controlled Nomad.