Mass Effect 5: 10 Perfect Ways Bioware Can Save The Franchise

3. Give Us A Compelling Villain And/Or Narrative Setup

Saren and The Illusive Man, both brilliantly duplicitous, interesting villains with depth, nuance and above all, memorability. Saren's hidden good side ultimately being able to be drawn out in that final battle was a masterstroke, and although TIM stays firmly on the side of evil, the notion of an all-seeing, all-controlling entity that boils down to one individual is always compelling from a fictional standpoint.

In Andromeda we got the Archon, a cookie-cutter, Marvel or modern Star Trek-style villain. One note, one M.O. (kill everything) and nothing to write home about after the fact, the Archon exists only as a slightly more verbose target; one to be shut up and put down as soon as possible.

For Mass Effect 5, we need a scenario that immediately sparks player interest. That came from these mysterious and driven villains in games past, yet in Andromeda, the entire driving force to proceed was "You want to explore? This evil being is in your way".

What about navigating a scenario similar to the First Contact Wars, or something that mimics another Genophage and the considerations that go into it? As we're seeing in the real world, mutually assured destruction and nuclear power are nightly news topics, so why not take those concepts and use sci-fi to truly break them down?