It doesn’t matter which colour-coded ending you picked when you were chatting to the ghost kid at the end of Mass Effect 3, as your ending choice won’t carry across to Mass Effect: Andromeda. It is in an entirely new galaxy, after all.
Mass Effect: Andromeda is still a year away, so dry your tears on our list of PC’s best RPGs.
Eurogamer had a chat toBioWare studio boss Aaryon Flynn and Mass Effect creative Mac Walters, both of whom confirmed that they wanted Andromeda to stand apart from the original trilogy.
“We acknowledged [your final decision] in the endings of Mass Effect 3 and I think that’s where we want to leave it for now,” Flynn said. “We want this to be a new story and it would be very hard to say it’s a new story but also that you need to understand how [the past trilogy] ended.”
Since Andromeda’s setting removed from the Milky-Way by considerable distance – and presumably time, with the woman protagonist shown in the E3 trailer awaking from cryo-sleep – it frees the writers up to leave Shepard’s story behind.
It’s probably for the best, as it’d be a bit jarring to see favourites like Garrus show up in a whole new galaxy.
“We’ve done it in such a way that allows all of those decisions you made to remain intact in the canon of the universe, but also allows a new story to begin,” Flynn added.
It does sound like there will be some nods to the original trilogy, however. I just hope BioWare keeps them subtle, instead of veering into fan service that makes little sense.
“It’s important for us to have elements from the Trilogy for fans to have in the background,” Walters explained. “Ultimately this is intended to be a fresh story, but we want to have things for people to find and go ‘oh, I remember that character’.
“There’s a coalition [of Milky Way races]. We needed to find a way to make sure certain species you’re familiar with come along with you on your journey to meet new ones. As in the tradition of Mass Effect, there will be certain people working together happily, and certain people working together less happily.”