Where can Mass Effect possibly go after the monumental journey that was its original trilogy? Anywhere, actually. BioWare has confirmed its development of Mass Effect 4, hinting that the game will be profoundly different from the rest of the series at hand and, in the last few weeks, it’s opened up the suggestion box for thoughtful and assertive fans.

So we figured we’d inject some helpful advice. There are no major Mass Effect 3 spoilers here, so even if you haven’t reached the final ending (and somehow managed to avoid the salient details), it’s not too early to become invested in the franchise’s future. From navigation to multiplayer to playable characters and more, read on to see how Mass Effect 4 can get things right.

Flight Control

In the final assault against the Reapers, Mass Effect 3 took space combat to another level. With starships blotting out the stars, the collective might of civilizations put forth their finest hour in a maelstrom of missiles, torpedoes, lasers and more missiles. Reapers were violently dismantled, dreadnoughts exploded into detritus, and the combined tableau of awesomeness drew instant comparisons to Star Wars and Star Trek.

It sure was fun to watch.

And yet therein lies a core complaint with the Mass Effect franchise: Its galaxy’s many spaceships, the SSV Normandy in particular, are outfitted with a fascinating array of advanced technology and seem criminally fun to fly. But we can’t. Joker handles the acrobatics while Commander Shepard — the player — is relegated to a navigator with a shiny star chart. Are we really to believe Shepard no longer has an itch for the yoke? Is there really no mandatory flight exam before one is ordained Savior of the Galaxy?

Listen: Mass Effect 4 doesn’t have to predicate itself on playable space battles, but it could at least lay a foundation for a feature that, let’s face it, can’t hide forever behind a CGI curtain. Start with the basics: mini-games, side-quests, DLC, cannon operating (or calibrating). Work out the glitchy kinks. Ingratiate the masses. Then bring in the heavy metal. For a franchise that so often uses interstellar vessels for marketable, setpiece action, that places them in center of seminal narrative touchpoints, it’s only natural to think players would have the helm. Such transportation innovation, as Assassin’s Creed III recently discovered (see: naval warfare), might even go on to warrant a standalone title.

Cut the Trilogy Ties Entirely

We won’t spoil the ending of Mass Effect 3 (for whatever that might be worth by now), but from the standpoint of storytelling, it’s safe to say that Commander Shepard is finished. As BioWare has even admitted, he's now the stuff of legend. An icon. Destined throughout the galaxy to be immortalized in history books, monuments, museums, and syrupy nighttime grandfather parables.

And so because of the finale’s… finality, Mass Effect can’t simply pantomime Halo and retain the same protagonist and backstory and emotional threads as it segues out of one historic trilogy and attempts to find a foothold somewhere else; BioWare, to some degree, must restart the cycle — and we think it should happen with Mass Effect 4.

Whether a prequel or a sequel, the reason is quite simple: Anything drawing a clear line between itself and the past would only expand the imaginative freedom available to the creators, most notably the writers. Rather than worry about the infinite phylogeny of storylines players have already carved out (which we’re not even sure is possible to completely tie back in; the effort required would be insane), Casey Hudson and crew could incept new races or forge complex civilizations. They could play on fan-favorite lore (like the First Contact War), sojourning to bustling new cities and mysterious new systems.

It's not as though the current time period has run out of juice (although Mass Effect 3’s underwhelming “Omega” DLC didn’t help that case last week), but BioWare leaving it seems a fait accompli. Remember that feeling at the start of Mass Effect 1, that rush of excitement and bewilderment and kick-ass optimism? That was Mass Effect on a clean slate. It happened before and it can -- should -- happen again.

Versus Multiplayer

Though not without its worries at first, Mass Effect 3’s four-player co-op proved the series could assimilate an engaging, rewarding multiplayer component into its broadly-painted world that mingled with, but didn’t overbear upon the single-player campaign. Which is why we want more.

We’re not asking BioWare to create the next Call of Duty. We’re not asking them to create — perhaps it would be a more appropriate example — another Star Wars: Battlefront. After eight months of galactic readying, though, it’s getting hard to deny that Mass Effect 3’s lone wave-survival mode has a somewhat limited shelf-life. A well-built versus architecture in Mass Effect 4 would go a long way to freshen up the stock.

BioWare would scarcely have to change Mass Effect 3's admirable progression system. We much enjoyed earning credits, buying mystery item packs, modifying weapons and leveling up our cutout custom-class characters with skill points and upgrades — it proved a continuously redeeming concept through the aid of BioWare’s weekend event support. Now take these elements and layer them atop deathmatches, capture the flags, and free-for-alls, with the added hooks of clan rivalries, collectibles, and achievements: Voila! “Galaxy at War” and the Reaper threat might have become obsolete, but in this case we’re the ones yearning to conquer the cosmos.

Choose Your Own Race

Progression wasn’t the only high point of Mass Effect 3 multiplayer; at long last, selection of playable races inched its way into the franchise through the unlockable turians and salarians and krogans and more who lent their services to the co-op survival mode.

With the wide array of species established by the canon (not to mention the broadening diversity of current trilogy: a female Turian appeared in the games for the first time in last week’s Omega DLC), it shouldn’t be hard to craft a campaign pliable for more than one genome. Such a flexible fable, after all, would mirror the styles of BioWare’s Dragon Age and Star Wars: The Old Republic titles. And should the narrative approach of Mass Effect 4 jettison the character-study model that gave us Commander Shepard, who better to fill in the blanks than, well, anyone we create: a turian assassin with a guilty conscience, a krogan warlord with a bristling bloodlust, an orphaned human in search of a better life, a wayfaring quarian completing her sacred Pilgrimage, a hanar Spectre on a crusade for… well, okay, maybe we’ll stop there.

But you get the idea: Race -- and, perhaps as a resulting bonus, backstory -- customization would serve as a template for a previously untapped creational benefit of the RPG — one fitting for a Mass Effect 4 strategy sim, a Mass Effect 4 stealth thriller, or the series’ extant blend of familiar shooter/RPG action.

 Ship Customization

Flip through the Mass Effect codex and you'll find them: Dreadnoughts. Freighters. Cruisers. Carriers. Scout Ships. Reapers. BioWare's sci-fi universe is a bouillabaisse of interstellar culture, and the ships passing through the Milky Way’s mass relays and docking stations offer a perfect testament to that. So: like race, like recruitment, like their very flight controls, why have our spacecrafts felt so... predesigned?

Ship customization would fill a potentially challenging vacancy following the era of the SSV Normandy, SR’s 1 and 2 both. Few outside the Alliance (and this is especially true if Mass Effect 4 is being developed as a prequel) are known to possess the confluence of resources, skills, and state-of-the-art technology that went into Shepard’s stealthy starships; it’s quite possible that BioWare has already shown us, and exhausted, some of the best its universe has to offer. However, if our protagonist ends up far removed from the Galactic-Hero-with-carte-blanche-to-storm-across-the-stars-and-save-civilization role, the allure of meticulously tinkering with hull designs, weapons, armor, compartment layouts, drive core specifications, on-board AI’s, combat perks, interior/exterior color schemes and even — let’s not forget — ship names would more than make up for any loss of luster or prestige. Even more ambitious would be a ship leveling structure comprised of various classes, tiers, and combat styles — allowing our hero to purchase bigger and better models throughout their progress in the game.

 Wait for the Next Generation

One perusal through a Mass Effect 4 forum thread is all it takes to figure this out: Even if BioWare has the raw materials in place, even if its finance department promises a revenue windfall, and even if the coffee in the Mass Effect 4 writer’s room exhibits unearthly magical properties, most gamers won’t be ready for another Mass Effect in 2013. They’re still busy digesting the events of Mass Effect 3 like a post-Thanksgiving food coma: so much investment, so much indulgence, so much choice — and wow, that reddish, greenish, bluish stuffing did not go down easily.

The remedy (and we’re pretty sure BioWare plans to oblige)? Keep Mass Effect 4 on the sidelines — hell, keep it under wraps in 2013; save it for a deeper slot within the next-generation. The reason? While varying clues abound detailing the power of Microsoft and Sony’s impending consoles, the basic improvements implicit to any generational leap — graphics, gameplay engines, AI, memory, audio — would assist a Mass Effect reimagining immensely. Just think: The next generation could mean a fully traversable Citadel. It could mean destructible environments, destructible cover, and the exigency of reacting to both in combat with our squad. It could give players more planets to land on, faces more animations to draw on, and elevators more grease to grind on.

The Mass Effect trilogy has left an indelible mark on the current console generation and it deserves to remain unaltered. But anything the series wants to add  — anything we’ve mentioned here or anything else that might already be in the works — could lead to something truly unique and resonant if the developer bides its time. Some companies have recoiled at the next-generation reset button; BioWare has every reason to press it.

It's one of Mass Effect’s many comparisons to Star Wars that its fans are skittish about a sequel. BioWare, without question, crafted an immensely rich lore and buttressed it with a fashionably grand, emotionally engaging world throughout the Commander Shepard trilogy. And yet the fragility of it all was exposed by some controversial writing decisions at the end of Mass Effect 3.

However (also, it seems, like Star Wars), new additions to the canon may invariably carry on. The limitless opportunity afforded to Mass Effect 4 in terms of gameplay, storytelling, and user experience offers every justification to savor that chance — to relish it, even, for reasons that other entertainment mediums don’t always enable.

That’s my motivation for an ME 4 wishlist. But maybe you have a different one… and a different list of demands. Let us know how you feel about Mass Effect 4 and how you want to see BioWare bring it to fruition in the comments below.

Follow Brian on Twitter @Brian_Sipple.