Mass Effect 4′s plot will not touch on Shepard’s story “whatsoever,” according to the third game’s lead writer Mac Walters.Speaking with Complex, Walters said of the plot, “Well, I can’t get into details, but the idea is that we have agreed to tell a story that doesn’t relate necessarily to any of the Shepard events at all, whatsoever.
“That’s what we’ve been deciding for a while. But throughout it all, one of the key things is that it has to be Mass Effect. It can’t just feel like a spin-off. It has to feel like a Mass Effect game at its heart, at its core. Just without the Shepard character or the Shepard specific companions.”
On ‘that’ Mass Effect 3 ending and the way Shepard’s story concluded, Walters added, “It’s been 18-19 months since it came out and my thoughts on it are that we addressed it the best we could in the Extended Cut. We’re obviously not going to be changing anything now. We’re only going forward.
“To be fair, I get people, especially at the conventions, who will say, ‘I loved it. It was heart-wrenching, but I felt it was right for my Shepard.’ And to me, that’s why it was the right path. But because there was no choice, it was going to be right for some people, and for others, in the middle, and other people were obviously very upset about it. In hindsight, I don’t think there was anything we would have changed about that, but it is a really good lesson learned.”
