Despite what you've been hearing from Bioware execs lately I firmly believe we will never get another Mass Effect game. The in-house team surely is looking for a way to stretch their creative muscle but the big daddy in the house, Electronic Arts isn't willing to let them play ball in the park. Say what you want about Mass Effect Andromeda the fact of the matter is the game had a lot of potential, it could have been very good but EA simply didn't want to make it. They cut corners everywhere they could and as soon as the game turned any kind of a profit they shut the operation down. MEA was never meant to make anything more than a nest egg for for EA's big multiplayer bets, Battlefront 2 and Battlefield 5. While Anthem has often been criticized for leeching funds from Mass Effect the fact of the matter is EA was counting on it's next two franchises to carry the load. Unfortunately, neither of them did and that leaves Bioware holding the bag.
But wait a minute Bromo, if EA's big multiplayer bets have flopped why won't they just go back to the old tried and true? As it turns out there's a lot of reason why EA won't go back to single player, linear games. In fact, there's about 8.5 BILLION reasons why and those are all the dollars Epic Games made off of Fortnite and it's microtransactions. EA has it's eyes on the prize and that prize is microtransaction revenue. Something Mass Effect simply can't provide.
Although Mass Effect 3 and Andromeda both offered in game purchases the multiplayer modes never proved to be quite as popular as the modes in games like Titanfall 2, or Call of Duty. This is a shame because the multiplayer co-op feature is a lot of fun but EA is going to go where the money is. Iterative expansions, while popular among gamers also don't rake in as much cash as those pesky loot boxes something else that the Mass Effect series has been known for. Last but not least the shut down of Visceral Games and the cancellation of their single player driven Star Wars game, codenamed Ragtag put the final nail in the coffin for Mass Effect's future. Blake Jorgenson came right out and said that we gamers: "Don't have as much fun with linear story driven games as we used to." My question to him is have you played Uncharted lately?
While I have no doubt that Bioware is hoping to turn the scandal ridden publisher's mind around 180 degrees I also have no doubt that they will fail. Anthem is going to be the direction that Bioware develops games from now on and while that isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself (Think Destiny franchise...) it doesn't leave ANY room at all for Mass Effect. Sure they could try to slap the Mass Effect name onto something Destiny-esque but I highly doubt they'd be willing to do that. After all, Bioware is known for engaging story lines and compelling characters something Anthem is going to be in very short supply of.
Look, I love Mass Effect as much as anyone and I'll play the trilogy on my deathbed but it's time we faced the facts. Mass Effect the series died with Alec Ryder and Commander Shepard.
