Moving back to the Milky Way, where things are more familiar to the original trilogy fans, means backpedaling on the stakes that were raised during the 600 year journey to Andromeda. This is a problem with the entire idea of the new Mass Effect abandoning Andromeda, with the start of a storyline being left behind in order to relive some of the older hits. The toughest choices in Mass Effect would now equate to Commander Shepard putting people they don't like on ice, since it's apparently possible to bring people like the original council back from complete obliteration. This is the kind of thing that opens up dozens of plot holes and minimizes the impact of what should be powerful character moments where the player has to choose who lives and who dies. It's the trivialization of death that might make the biggest impact on the Mass Effect series, with someone who had been utterly destroyed in the ways that Shepard had just popping back into place. Unfortunately, both of these options make way for either a strange situation where somehow Shepard's leadership wasn't needed for 600 years and they were fine with sitting by while the world went on around them, or death has no meaning. Either Shepard never died and decided to immediately enter stasis and wait for the effects of the upcoming title, or another Project Lazarus brings the character back to life the way it had in Mass Effect 2. There are only two options for how to bring Commander Shepard in line with the current timeline of Mass Effect: Andromeda in the way BioWare has been hinting at. So, cutting Ryder off before BioWare can really flex the character in the way Shepard was allowed to would be doing a real disservice to what had already been established in Andromeda. Shepard's bad dancing, the majority of their romance options throughout Mass Effect, and the subtler ways they interact with the crew really didn't develop until the sequel. In the case of why fans are so attached to Commander Shepard in the first place, the character didn't really come out into their own until their second outing in Mass Effect 2. So, there really is no reason to give up on the Pathfinder now, as long as BioWare can focus together to deliver on the type of game that the developer has done time and again already. For one, Mass Effect: Andromeda's positive Steam release shows that the game underneath all of the bugs and glitches was a worthy addition to the series, but the game being rushed out in a broken state applied a stigma. The overall execution of the ending may have fallen short for some fans, but walking a Shepard that players had grown attached to over the course of three games to their death did still maintain a significant impact.Īside from undermining the death of Shepard, bringing the character back before fully exploring the narrative that Ryder had already begun would be cheating out another quality protagonist of their real chance to shine. Reassessing that might be an issue worth addressing in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, but Commander Shepard's sacrifice isn't the type of thing that should be retroactively removed in a future title. This of course leads to the critical response of Mass Effect 3's ending, namely that fact that it had been almost universally panned by fans for having done far too little to account for every decision the player had made up until that point. That being said, deciding to revive the original protagonist runs the risk of completely undermining the character's sacrifice made at the end of Mass Effect 3 to stop the Reaper Invasion. So, when it comes to creating a new game that could appeal to the widest audience of fans possible, bringing Shepard back alongside Ryder might be a compelling option. The temptation to take Commander Shepard out for another adventure is definitely there for most fans of the series, especially those who were disappointed by the state of the Mass Effect: Andromeda launch.
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