Mass Effect 4: 10 Core Gameplay Tweaks That Would Improve Everything

2. Narrative Branching And Impactful Choices

It's worth pointing out that two of the biggest choices in the entire trilogy are from the first game - choosing Ashley or Kaiden, and whether or not to shoot Wrex. Following that for ME2 you'd be making minor choices throughout, but nothing as story-defining as those two, at least not until the Suicide Mission, and even that barely factors into ME3 as many of the characters were reduced to side roles. Telltale's Walking Dead proved you can create a world that appears to live and breathe off the choices you make, much like Mass Effect, producing an end product that every player feels was individual to them - something that was the biggest issue with majority of ME3. When you were deciding something like whether or not to save the Council in the first game, there was a huge amount of weight behind every decision, and whether or not Bungie are writing a bigger, galaxy-altering tale for ME4 or a smaller character-focussed narrative, they really need to let their dialogue and writing stand centre stage. It might mean they're devoting time to in-game assets that some players won't even see, but choices that get under your skin and really making you question whether or not you did the 'right thing' are the ones that end up defining the franchise overall.