Mass Effect 4: 10 Essential Non-Game Characters Who Must Appear

It's easy to forget there are books, comics and way more to draw from.

When it comes to memorable and downright loveable characters, Mass Effect ranks up with the sci-fi genre's elite, turning out game after game of people you just couldn't wait to spend more time with. There was a reason it was always hard to choose who to take on any given mission on the squad select screen, and when that's down to everyone being stuffed with so much conversational potential, it's a defining trait well worth celebrating. However, Bioware knew back in 2007 that they weren't just creating a series of games - instead, this was an entire universe of possibilities (something that they could fall back on following ME3's foot-shooting bevy of disappointment), and so, alongside the three major entries are a slew of comics and four main novels. With a string of teams handling each one,Drew Karpyshyn (lead writer on the first two games) also helped get things off the ground, and that's established a consistency and tone that fleshes out the backstory of certain characters from the main trilogy, as well as introducing new ones that would easily make the transfer to the next game. So, whether you've read the books or not - many people haven't, but they're great reads if you want a pleasant reminder for just how enjoyable this mythos is - with any luck the following 10 characters will see something of an appearance in the next full instalment either through continued canon or flashback missions. Note: As some of these have no illustrations due to their text-based origin, associative pictures are used instead.

Gaming Editor
Gaming Editor

WhatCulture's Head of Gaming.