T w e n t y S i d e d

Mass Effect, as we all know, is dead. It was a great while it lasted – a bona-fide full-3D, character-focused, worldbuilding-rich, fully voice-acted, and well-polished 3D AAA RPG. But then the third game had a silly ending, and then the whole “Andromeda” spinoff flopped out of the gate, and now it’s dead.

Or is it? This is a major IP. It was once a cash cow. Companies like EA aren’t in the habit of letting potential revenue just float off into the ether. More likely, the plan is to let the franchise lie fallow for a few years – let the audience’s goodwill replenish a bit, and then come back for another go. This plan might already be in motion for all we know. I figure that if they don’t put Mass Effect 4 into some kind of preproduction at some point, they’re leaving money on the table.

I don’t envy whoever has that job, especially considering that between Andromeda and Anthem I’m beginning to doubt Bioware’s preproduction skills. It seems like their strategy is to remain in preproduction for as long as possible, years if need be, and save production-production for a desperate, nine-month long crunch at the end. You would hope that EA has, by this point, noticed something is wrong and brought in someone who actually plays and enjoys video games to try and diagnose the problem. But that sort of thing isn’t really in EA’s wheelhouse. In fact, all of the major AAA super-publishers have wheelhouses that look increasingly bare of usable wheels these days, with most of the remaining ones labeled “P2W microtransactions” and “thinly disguised online gambling dens.”

So, if you’re working for Bioware right now, staring at a blank monitor in a room that seems to be inexplicably getting both hotter and smaller somehow, don’t worry. I have good news. One: you’re probably going to be given plenty of time; if anything, way too much time. Two: you’re not alone. None of us out here know how in the Athame’s name anyone’s gonna salvage this mess either. Three: the internet is, as usual, full of dubiously helpful and completely unsolicited advice from amateurs, which is why I’m here. You’re welcome.

Let’s look over your options:

• Do nothing: Big companies can get decision paralysis. It doesn’t really make sense to do nothing, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Mass Effect must look like an albatross to anyone in upper management, who I imagine are tiring of wrestling with the baying hounds of the BSN forum diaspora. Maybe years go by with endless meetings that go nowhere as everyone waits for someone else to jump on the grenade. Stranger things have happened.
• Carry on as usual: Why not? You can never be sure quite how reliable the numbers are, but business reporting seems to have concluded that Andromeda was profitable in the end. For that matter, so are other unpopular things. Rise of Skywalker has had its turn in the stockade with the tomatoes lately, but it’s still almost certainly going to turn a substantial profit. The thing that remains frustrating for those of us who are picky about our writing is that bad writing can be and frequently is bailed out by aggressive marketing. I fully expected Rise of Skywalker to be bad, but I still went to a theatre to see it anyway, just to see what happened, because I knew everyone was going to be talking about it. If/when a hypothetical Mass Effect 4 comes out, it could easily end up critically panned but commercially successful, or, in the language of the shareholder value model, “successful.”
• Sell the IP: Just cash out. It’ll still have value to someone, and maybe it’s time. Obsidian couldn’t afford the IP on their own, but now they’re owned by Microsoft Game Studios, who presumably have an expense account generous enough to let Josh Sawyer buy all the bicycles and frog helmets even he could want. And between KOTOR 2 and New Vegas they’ve shown ability with other people’s settings. As for the valuation of the IP? I have no idea how one would begin to calculate accurately. You’d have to try and quantify exactly how much audience goodwill isn’t coming back. Do they, or anyone else, really want to know? What if they shop Mass Effect around, and get only insultingly low offers? Giant, ruthless corporations fear genuine self-examination the way elephants fear mice in cartoons. Personally, I predict they won’t sell.
• License it: The halfway offer. But to who? They tried handing Andromeda off to an inexperienced studio and it didn’t go well. CD Projekt could probably pull it off, but they’re gonna be busy for the forseeable future and prefer to get their IPs cheaper anyway. Same with Larian, more or less, and their niche thus far has been isometric games. Bethesda wouldn’t know how to Mass Effect if they were made of eezo and you ran a current through them. That leaves Obsidian, but that’s risky. It could come out a buggy mess, so good it makes you look inept by comparison, or both (in the industry that’s referred to as “the full Obsidian”). Not only that, but Mass Effect is a prestige property, one that’s meant to prove that EA can do more than sports and shooting people. There’s an embarassment factor in admitting your giant, ostensibly industry-leading megadeveloper can’t hack it, and that the Brahmin have to sell the temple to the Dalits.
• Make either a prequel or sequel to Andromeda: I can already hear the internet gathering their collective shoulders into prime shrugging position at the mere suggestion of this. I do not personally believe there’s much demand for an Andromeda sequel. But Mass Effect proper? That well still draws water, I bet. No, the milky way is where the money’s at, and few people people are going to be interested in moving the timeline backwards.

That leaves one final option: make the game and do it right. You might think that’s impossible, but I say if a studio is in a slump, give it a challenge to rise to. Of course there are obstacles. The endings are a confusing mess even after the DLCs meant to address them, leaving the setting in a borderline unsalvageable state.

Notice I said “borderline.” Contrivance got us into this mess, and contrivance can get us out. It’s often said that the ME3 ending retroactively diminishes the events that came before it. Is it possible that this process can work the other way round? A game that takes the various head-scratchers of the Crucible/Catalyst and turns them into the prima materia of workable campaign hooks? Let’s assume it is. This series will try and figure out how.

Bob Case MrBtongue is the Pele of complaining about videogames and will soon be the Garrincha of complaining about TV shows. You can find his Youtube channel at youtube.com/user/MrBtongue.