Developer BioWare has confirmed that the choices you made in Mass Effect 3 will not carry over to Mass Effect: Andromeda.
I know Mass Effect 3 came out in 2012, but out of the goodness of my heart, I’m warning you that spoilers for that game’s ending are below this trailer…
As you may know, Mass Effect 3 presented you with a choice at the end of the game – specifically, you could control the galaxy smashing Reapers, destroy them and all synthetic life, or synthesize all organic and synthetic life.
Many will remember the that there was a pretty intense kickback from the ending of Mass Effect 3, as no matter what you ended up choosing, the outcomes were similar.
Despite this, Mass Effect creative director Mac Walters revealed in an interview with Eurogamer that because Andromeda is set in another galaxy, the consequences of your original decisions have yet to reach this area of space.
BioWare Edmonton general manager Aaryn Flynn said:
We want this to be a new story and it would be very hard to say it’s a new story, but also that you need to understand how [the past trilogy] ended. [. . .] We’ve done it in such a way that allows all of those decisions you made to remain intact in the canon of the universe, but also allows a new story to begin.
But while Andromeda will focus mostly on the new, Walters implied that we can look forward to a few throwbacks and references from the original trilogy.
He teased:
It’s important for us to have elements from the Trilogy for fans to have in the background. Ultimately this is intended to be a fresh story, but we want to have things for people to find and go, ‘Oh, I remember that character. There’s a coalition [of Milky Way races]. We needed to find a way to make sure certain species you’re familiar with come along with you on your journey to meet new ones.
A fresh start is probably the best option. After all, how many of us want to boot up an entirely new game and be haunted by a choice we made in another game from years ago? Regrets are for real life, not videogames.
Mass Effect: Andromeda will be released in early 2017 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, after being delayed from its original 2016 release date.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.