Mass Confusion Effect

Welp, according to Chris Priestly over at the BioWare forums, speaking in a thread ironically titled "How is Bioware going to keep everyone happy in Me4?" the upcoming Mass Effect 4, which has been confirmed as being...sort of in existence for to come at a future point...type thing. But yeah, Mass Effect 4, ain't Mass Effect 4. Nor even will it necessarily have anything to do with Mass Effect. Sort of. Make of it what you will, 'cause I'm pretty confused despite his efforts to dispel the confusion. Apart from, you know, the fact it isn't Mass Effect 4.
"To call the next game Mass Effect 4 or ME4 is doing it a disservice and seems to cause a lot of confusion here. We have already said that the Commander Shepard trilogy is over and that the next game will not feature him/her. That is the only detail you have on the game. I see people saying "well, they'll have to pick a canon ending". No, because the game does not have to come after. Or before. Or off to the side. Or with characters you know. Or yaddayaddayadda. Wherever, whenever, whoever, etc will all be revealed years down the road when we actually start talking about it.
I do not call the game ME4 when I talk about it ever, bucause* that makes people think of it more as "what happens after Mass Effect 3" rather than "what game happens next set in the Mass Effect Universe", which is far more accurate at this point. Obviously fans are going to speculate content, character and story until we actually reveal details in the years or months to come as you have almost no actual details, just don't get bogged down in "well how are they going to continue ME3..."
*bucause even professionals make typos. That's directly cut and pasted, not retyped. Just pointing that out for the lulz.
Posted 08-02-2013, 08:55
Precisely. And, dude, seriously. way to be an asshat. People are all "Mass Effect 4, awesome!" and BioWare respond with "it's not F@&KING MASS EFFECT 4!!!"
How about a "thanks for being so supportive despite us being asshats" for once?
Douche
Posted 07-02-2013, 17:57
The only sense I could make of it is that he could mean it's set in a completely different part of space from the original trilogy with completely different races and therefore serves no relation from that perspective. But, really, should he be bothering with any of this at all just now? I understand that he doesn't want people endlessly wondering how they'll tie in a direct sequel but if the game's only in its early concept stage then it's certainly prone to change and he may well say the opposite of this a year from now. Just seems kind of pointless to me.