Rumour: New species + details for Mass Effect 4 from BioWare's private fan PAX panel #1
Bumperoony. Posting this here because there's no way to gauge it's reliability, and could very easily be totally made up, but here's a dude describing the private Mass Effect meetings BioWare held with a handful of select fans at recent PAX events.
So long story short I saw that tweet from Mike Gamble a few weeks ago that said "...if you love Mass Effect and are going to PAX Prime email me..." And so I did and then I stumbled upon this forum of like-minded people and thought I'd make an account in case there was something shown to support IT; cause if you're like me waiting for something, anything, is painful enough. Needless to say I was one of the 21 people that got to give feedback on the concepts as they showed them and gave us tiny cryptic bits of information.
So I'll start by saying that they did show us a metric shit-ton of concept art with very brief explanations. I don't even know of a logical order to start in.
They started off with the profound question of what N7 means to us which you might read into it not being a previous cycle I guess.
Then this was followed by asking us whether we wanted a direct sequel, a prequel, or something somewhere completely different at a different time. The resounding majority wanted a sequel series, which I think they knew already. And this is based completely off of my opinion but by judging the concept art it has absolutely got to be a sequel.
First concepts were of two new races. The first one being described as "Arrogant". They were really skinny, almost skeletal. Their bodies vaguely looked like a boney Turian. They had glowing eyes and a neck that frilled up from their chest (once they show it off you'll see how hard it is to describe. Their heads almost remind me of the aliens from Independence Day. The second new race was described as "Ancient, Advanced, and Guardian". They had a similar color scheme to reapers and they looked like classic fantasy/sci-fi golems. Sleek rocky or metallic bodies with bright glowing lines flowing all over them. Some had fragmented pieces and shattered bits floating in place around them.
So I'm thinking sequel because new races are kind of hard to explain in a prequel especially when it does take place in the current cycle and I definitely know that for sure because the next few things they showed us were really nice cg models of an asari, salarian, human, and krogan running in the new frostbite engine. They looked amazing by the way. Also they stated that, like humans having many different features from each other, they wanted to do that with other races. That showed off some salarians and krogans with interesting face and bone structures. They also asked an odd but hard question for everyone. They showed a lineup of a character from each main race in the series and asked us which two would we get rid of if we had to. I couldn't do it but I was sadly surprised at how many people said quarian and krogan.
Anyways, they showed off a random human model wearing various armors and configurations asking us what we liked and thought was potentially iconic. They also showed us a slew of land vehicles that would serve for different environments. And the most interesting vehicle was a personal sized Normandy-esque ship that could "fit a mako-like vehicle in it". So the new races mingling with the old ones and a ship that looks like normandy architecture, sounds like sequel material to me. They said that as always characters and choices are most important and that they want to focus on exploration and discovery again. And then they finished by showing off too many concept art screens in rapid succession for me to be able to grasp anything. Just a whole lot of beautiful and interesting landscapes.
So that's that, I know it didn't quite answer any of our IT questions but if you're like me and have been holding out for 4 holding the answer to IT and the original endings of some dark matter stuff then the fact that this is most likely a sequel is great. And honestly what they showed us was absolutely amazing and I can't wait either way, I just love this universe so much. Thank you all for checking this out.
Summary:
- Opened with "What does N7 mean to you?"
- Asked if they'd like to see a sequel, prequel, or something different. Overwhelming majority said sequel.
- "Arrogant" race. Thin and skeletal. Glowing eyes. Necks that "frilled up from their chest".
- "Ancient, advanced, guardian" race. Like sci-fi stone golems with Tron-like glowing lines over their bodies and floating fragments/shards.
- Asari, Salarian, Human, and Krogam shown in Frostbite 3.
- Want to bring across the model variety of human models to other races, giving them more diverse bone structure.
- Showed a line-up of the series' main races, and asked fans to pick two if they had to get rid of them. Most picked Quarian and Krogan. Speculation: The game has multiple playable races in campaign, and BioWare wants feedback on which they should be.
- Multiple human armour configurations shown. Asked which would be most iconic. Speculation: Marketing query, to work out what should be on the box.
- Multiple land vehicles shown.
- Focus is on character sand choices, but they want to bring back the focus on exploration and discovery.
EDIT: More.
They didn't show any female krogans to my remembrance, there were several various head configurations with face plating on the forehead, jaw line, and chin.
They looked very synthetic, give a typical rock golem the Tron Legacy makeover and you've got it. Reaper color scheme though. Kind of like Sylux from Metroid Bounty Hunters; slightly less robotic in appearance.
They did say that exploration and story are very important and that one of their goals to strive for was "a stranger in a strange land like ME1" I think that's the way Mike Gamble worded it.
Also you reminded me of the thing about save customization. Mike did mention that they were looking into leaving a kind of debugging-like menu in the game for picking plot flags when making a save file so you can have the exact file you want without having to do another crazy long playthrough or going through a really limited motion comic.
Also off topic, something else I remembered that was mentioned but not shown. They really want to do crazy customizable armor. Down to different pieces, colors, textures, materials, and whatnot.
.
