10 Ways Bioware Can Still Save Mass Effect

2. Have A Brilliant, Multi-Faceted Villain/Antagonistic Force

Across the trilogy, we've only really had one great Mass Effect villain. Yes, the Illusive Man lived up to his name and facilitated the "What's his real agenda?" framework better than most, but he wasn't a patch on Saren; the initially sadistic evil mastermind who came with a plot twist resulting in a great 'save-him-from-himself' finale.

For Andromeda, it was the thoroughly generic Archon; someone who gets teased as an evil scientist type dissecting the Milky Way galaxy's races and combining them to create a 'perfect being' - only for it all to get discarded in the final third as he yells "You're all going to DIE!"-type insults instead.

Basically, like the various layers to Mass Effect's world, we need a villain who isn't just trying to make a name for themselves. Alongside being revealed as a puppet to Sovereign, Saren genuinely thought he was doing the right thing for the greater good - a thought actually referenced in an Andromeda easter egg - yet these 'grey area' setups got more ironed out over time.

Like the various race-related issues and smoothing over of tensions we'd have to contend with in a standard ME campaign, why not have a villain that also exemplifies how 'human' we all really are?