Mass Effect 5 has the potential to make or break the future of the series. After the disappointing reception of Mass Effect: Andromeda and the poor performance of BioWare’s newer IP, Anthem, the studio needs the next Mass Effect to stick the landing on the next-gen consoles.
To do that, the game should make big changes which will help create more roleplaying opportunities and recapture the curiosity players had with the universe of Mass Effect when the first game released back in 2007. One key way Mass Effect 5 can do this is by ditching human protagonists.
The Races of Mass Effect
There are a few different ways BioWare could approach an alien protagonist in Mass Effect 5. The first way is more risky, but could allow for tighter, more character-driven storytelling. BioWare could choose one of the main races from the original trilogy to become the lead - the Krogan, the Salarians, the Asari, the Turians, or the Quarians. In this case, players could choose the gender but not the species of the protagonist, like Shepard.
This could allow for a more developed story which is more specific to the chosen species. A Krogan or Salarian protagonist, for example, could be used in a story set during the war between the species which ended in the creation of the Genophage. The downside would be that any given single alien option would likely be very alienating to a lot of players.
The other option is allowing players to choose from a select group of species in a similar way to Dragon Age: Origins or Dragon Age: Inquisition. Mass Effect could develop the different introductions for each race in a similar way to Origins, with prologues that merge into the main plot.
One of the other big advantages of telling a Mass Effect story with non-human protagonists is that it opens up a far greater amount of time settings available for the game. Mass Effect: Andromeda had to be set in the far future in a distant galaxy in order for BioWare to avoid declaring a canonical ending to Mass Effect 3, but this has a lot more options.
New Settings in Mass Effect
Mass Effect 5 could be set before the humans of the Mass Effect universe even discover the Mass Relays, an event which takes place only a few decades before Shepard’s birth. Any new Mass Effect game with humans would either have to take the Andromeda route or be set in a very slim timeframe with a limited amount of lore to work with that would likely limit the player’s ability to affect the world.
A Mass Effect with alien heroes could take place hundreds of years before humans discover faster-than-light travel, allowing players to have a genuine impact on the story, and potentially for there to be a threat with the same sense of scale as the Reapers. There are some huge galaxy-level events which took place before humans entered the galactic community in the Mass Effect lore.
The Rachni Wars, for example, saw the Salarians turn the once primitive Krogan into warriors in the Citadel’s army. It could be very interesting for BioWare to develop prologue stories which see this change take place if a player chooses either of those species, with separate origins for the other options. However, the game would likely have to take place at a time when all of the major Mass Effect races were a part of the galactic community aside from humans, which makes the time period around the Krogan Rebellion a good fit, as it’s also around the time the Turians joined.
If BioWare takes a risk with Mass Effect 5 and tells a story which allows players to choose from the alien races and which takes place before humans join the galactic community, the game could recapture the roleplaying opportunities and sense of exploration of the original trilogy. With a remaster of the original Mass Effect trilogy rumored to be coming net year, it could be a great second move to restore the series to its former glory.
Mass Effect 5 is in development.