The next chapter in theMass Effectfranchise, for now known asMass Effect 4, is on the way. Based on the trailer released at The Game Awards, it seems likely to take players back to the Milky Way as seen in the original trilogy. There is also evidence, however, that suggests that BioWare may have found a way to integrate characters and species fromMass Effect: Andromeda.
The events ofMass Effect: Andromedatake place hundreds of years after the end of the original trilogy. However, based on cut storylines from the original trilogy, Dark Energy could be the key to getting Ryder and theAndromedacrew intoMass Effect 4.
RELATED:Mass Effect 4 Probably Shouldn’t Bring Shepard Back
Two Galaxies
There’s evidence to suggest thatMass Effect 4won’t just leaveAndromedaand its characters behind. Originally, the leap through time and space to the Andromeda galaxy 600 years after the original trilogy helped BioWare tell a story which wasn’t dependent on the outcome ofMass Effect 3’s ending.
Thereception ofMass Effect: Andromeda, however, was disappointing, and it seems BioWare intends to resolve this by closely linking it back to the oriinal trilogy withME3. The Game Awards trailer for it shows dead Reapers, Liara T’Soni, and a piece of N7 armor all indicating that player will be back in the Milky Way and maybe even the shoes of Commander Shepard in the next chapter. All of this also indicates thatMass Effect 3’s “Destroy Ending” in which Shepard wiped out all synthetic life in the galaxy is canon.
However, it has also been hinted that BioWare may be finding a way tolinkAndromedaandMass Effect 4despite the time difference between the third game andAndromeda. At the end of the trailer from The Game Awards, Liara looks out to the horizon, and a ship with several silhouetted figures is visible behind her.
This background is almost identical to the “mud skipper” image released by BioWare. On closer inspection, one of the silhouetted figures is clearly based on Jaal the Angara fromMass Effect: Andromeda. The Angara are natives of the Heleus Cluster in the Andromeda Galaxy, and were only discovered by the Citadel races during the events ofAndromeda.
RELATED:Mass Effect: 5 Key Things That Need To Stay In The Games (& 5 That Should Change)
Dark Energy, Biotics, And Time
If there’s an Angara inMass Effect 4,then it’s possible for Ryder and otherAndromedacharactersto return in the next game as well. There is a precedent for time manipulation in a cut plotline from the originalMass Effecttrilogy.
At first, theMass Effectdev didn’t have a clear idea for how the Reaper plot would end, but it did begin to develop some threads inMass Effect 2which would later be cut short. The recruitment mission for Tali inMass Effect 2involved a sun affected by “Dark Energy,” but the concept was never really realized in full. In one idea, Dark Energy would have affected the space-time continuum in some way connected to the use of Biotics. This would cause time to move quicker, bringing about the end of the universe. Since only organics can use Biotics, the idea was that the Reapers wanted to exterminate them to prevent this.
If Dark Energy and biotics hold the key to time travel they could be instrumental in linking the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, and Ryder and otherAndromedacharacters toMass Effect 4. How exactly this is pulled off based don the teases and the other effects a discovery like this might have onMass Effect 4’s story, if it were to happen at all, remains to be seen.
