Mass Effect 5 Wishlist: 10 Things Fans NEED To See

One way to shake off the, ahem, spectre of Shepard hanging over the game is to blast off into another galaxy, as Andromeda tried to do. However, when two of Shepard’s optional endings fundamentally change life as we know it, it’s still a little difficult to get away from that.

Another way to make sure Shepard and their decisions have no bearing on the game whatsoever is to go backwards. By setting the game before Shepard was even born, BioWare affords themselves a relatively clean slate.

It certainly worked for Knights of the Old Republic, as Bioware set that game almost 4000 years before the first Star Wars.

The First Contact War against the Turians is a possibility, and it’s definitely fertile ground. Especially if instead of saving the galaxy, this time around all you have to do is make sure you and your buddies survive.

The drawbacks to this approach come from limiting the amount of races that could be involved, and it means you’d likely spend the majority of your time interacting with other humans. This somewhat undercuts Mass Effect’s unique selling point - the whole "space exploration" thing.

However, there are plenty of options between the First Contact War and Mass Effect 1, and it isn’t until the third game where the Reapers started to affect the majority of the population.