Mass Effect 4: 12 Mistakes Bioware's Next Gen Sequel Must Avoid

7. Having A Useless Ship

In space based games with lots of exploration, having a cool ship is par for the course. But for an RPG, the ship is a particularly important part of the overall puzzle. It's a mini-hub, where you get to interact with NPCs and party-members, fly around to visit planets, and possibly have space battles in it. So getting the player invested in the spaceship is a good idea, and for that to happen, it needs to be useful beyond going from point A to B. One way of doing that is having a lot of interaction on the ship. One thing that Bioware succeeded at was making the Normandy a major conversation hub. But there usually wasn't a lot beyond that€“maybe a few items that would do something or trigger conversations, plus team and equipment management stuff. Even the ship minigames in ME2 or 3 didn't really add that much value to the games after the first playthrough €“ all the tech savvy players modded their saves to avoid having to mine minerals and search for war assets. Another way is doing something that the previous Mass Effects never allowed: customizing the ship. While Mass Effect 2 did allow players to upgrade the Normandy, everything was mostly internal (except for the pop-out Thanix cannons), so Bioware could pre-render all the ship fighting scenes. But customization takes the ship and makes it your (the player's) ship through the part choices you make. While losing the slick spaceship visuals does suck, it more than made up for by the fact that you can do more with the ship and potentially get better minigames out of it. Even a basic procedurally generated space race scenario would be better than flying around scanning planets or searching for random items in solar systems.