BioWare General Manager Aaryn Flynn recently took to NeoGAF to talk about the upcoming Mass Effect 4, and mentioned that despite Dragon Age: Inquisition‘s high review scores and popularity, the next Mass Effect game will differ from it.
He begins by stating that although both games use the Frostbite engine and the next Mass Effect “uses some of the technology from DAI,” the games will actually be quite different.
All of our games are using Frostbite now. We’ve said the next Mass Effect (and our new IP, but I won’t expand on that yet) uses some of the technology from DAI. We’ve been enjoying building larger areas that you can explore with less friction, so that’ll be there as well.
But after that, the next Mass Effect will be (and should be) drawing on its own rich and successful past more than what DAI would say it should do. Take the Mako, something we’ve already shown in prototype form. We had that in ME1, and bringing it back is more related to a feeling that we can do it much better than we did before and fulfill the original promise of that gameplay. That has nothing to do with DAI. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that dropping the older consoles has had more impact on the overall gameplay goals of the next Mass Effect game than what DAI successfully accomplished.
We’re very proud of what DAI has achieved, but that does not set a “template” for what every other game we make needs to be. Each game franchise needs to innovate and improve their experience based on what’s best for it, not just what another game had success with because well that was successful.
Where those differences will be is anyone’s guess at this point, but hopefully we will hear more information on Mass Effect 4 in the coming months. What do you think about Flynn’s comments?
