While theMass Effectfranchise was put to the side following the release ofMass Effect: Andromedain 2017, it thankfully hasn’t been abandoned for good. And while the reception forAndromedawas mixed, canceling all DLC projects for the game may not have been the best course of action; now, there are several questions that fans will be expecting the next entry in theMass Effectseries to answer.
The current rumor mill suggests that aMass Effect Trilogyremake is in the works, which isn’tMass Effect 5by any means, but itissomething that fans have been craving for years. If that rumor is true and a remake of the original trilogy is forthcoming, then that couldpave the way forMass Effect5–and answers to several burning questions about events in both the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies.
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Beyond a potentialMass Effect Trilogyremakewhich should absolutely happen, there’s pretty much no information about the next entry in theMass Effectseries, beyond the fact that it’ll happen someday. But will it be a continuation of theAndromedastoryline? Will it be new galaxy standalone, thus makingAndromedaone as well? There was enough left hanging by the cancellation ofAndromedaDLC to warrant a sequel, and whether or not BioWare goes in that direction, the fans will want answers.
The Quarians
Here’s the biggest question of them all: what happened to the Quarians? The last anybody had heard, something must have happened to their ark on the journey. TheKeelah Si’yah(which is quarian for “by the homeworld I hope to find one day”) was designed to not only transport quarians, butother alien races: Drell, Hanar, Batarians, Elcor, and Volus. Thus, building the ark to those specifications took more time than the rest, and theKeelah Si’yah’s departure was delayed until after the first wave of arks left the Milky Way.
By the timeAndromedastarts, people are still expecting theKeelah Si’yahto arrive in time, even as the other arks have a less-than-ideal introduction to the Andromeda galaxy. Hyperion, the human ark, is the only one to make a safe arrival at the Nexus, and “safe” is putting it lightly; the Hyperion only docked after nearly suffering a fatal run-in with the Scourge. The Asari, Turian, and Salarian arks had an even rougher go of it, and at the time it seems like theKeelah Si’yah’s delay will be its saving grace.
However, there are hints during the game that things may not be going well for the Quarian ark either. Later on, Pathfinder Ryder discovers that theKeelah Si’yahdid in fact make it to Heleus, but that something is wrong; a distress call comes in from the ark. However, because the Quarian ark is currently “unsafe” somehow, its location is not included in the broadcast. At the time, it seemed like this would be something that Ryder would uncover themselves through later DLC.
With the cancellation of the Quarian ark DLC, however, this huge plot thread was just left hanging, to many fans' dismay. Did technical difficulties from the base game really warrant the cancellation of a significant piece of DLC? Moreover, does BioWare ever plan to address this glaring issue in afutureMass Effecttitle?
On the one hand,Andromedaclearly didn’t do as well as BioWare hoped it would, so it wouldn’t be a complete surprise ifMass Effect 5was in a completely new galaxy much likeAndromeda. On the other hand, there’s already a ton of established lore ripe for using inAndromeda, with the added benefit of huge chunks in the galaxy still unexplored, a whole Scourge still needing to be dealt with, and other problems in need of addressing. Should BioWare discontinue theAndromedastory, it won’t be for a lack ofplotlines to follow.
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The Future of Andromeda
The thing is, whatever else fans thought ofAndromeda, its story wasn’tbad. There were bugs that made things difficult, and some fans may have had a hard time emotionally moving on from Shepard and the Milky Way (especially given the strange and unsatisfying ending thatMass Effect 3provided), but that shouldn’t invalidate the good things inAndromeda’s plot. After everything players did to make the Andromeda galaxy safe and habitable, it may be similarly unsatisfying for BioWare to just move on from that game because of prior missteps.
The biggest question left is still the quarians' whereabouts–andwhat they look like under those suits–but there’s plenty more. For example, what’ll happen with the Ryder family? The twins had just discovered that their mother was alive, albeit still sick with a deadly disease; their father had hoped that the cure could be found in Andromeda, and who’s to say it can’t be? And what about the future of Andromeda as a whole, with Ryder heading the effort to settle Meridian? Ryder’s relationships,both romanticand otherwise, can still be followed up with.
If the quarian ark can’t be DLC, then it should be part of whatever comes next in theMass Effectfranchise. This could be made even better by aMass Effect Trilogyremake; now with the plot of Andromeda laid out, the remake could contain hints and easter eggs throughout that make the lead-in toAndromedaeven more satisfying, and thus also increase the hype forMass Effect 5.
Basically, there’s a lot to cover shouldMass Effect 5take place in Andromeda, and so long as BioWare can take better care this time around, there’s no reason it shouldn’t.
The nextMass Effectappears to be in development.
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