Here's something that's sure to bring you some Christmas joy. It seems that BioWare is a lot further in the development of Mass Effect 4 then previously let on. Thanks to a tweet from Aaryn Flynn, BioWare Edmonton and Montreal's General Manager, the game has reached a playable state.
"Great time playing the next Mass Effect game in Montreal," reads the tweet. "Ambitious. Beautiful. Fresh but recognizable. And fun."
Informative? Not really. Encouraging? Hell yes.
While we'd no doubt prefer something a bit more telling, it's a reassuring development, especially in light of the problems facing BioWare's parent company, EA.
Given that the project is still in an early stage of development, we haven't heard much about the next Mass Effect. The last word from BioWare on the matter was that the game is being developed by a new team at BioWare's Montreal studio, and that the team is also getting additional help from the Edmonton branch. When work on Dragon Age: Inquisition is complete, staff will migrate from that project to help with Mass Effect and speed things along.
"The other staff that are not core team leads, the artists, programmers, audio, writers, animators, QA, etc move between projects when they are needed for the workload. Someone already mentioned Patrick Weekes. He's a good example. He was a writer on the Mass Effect series, now he is writing on Dragon Age Inquisition. Same with many staff here," wrote Community Coordinator Chris Priestly.
Mass Effect 4 is said to incorporate a lot of changes, perhaps most notable of which is the absence of Commander Shepard.
Said Mac Walters, Mass Effect 3's lead writer, "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."
Given the lack of Shepard, it's thought that the next game will feature long after the events of the original ME trilogy, or could even be a prequel.
More information on the game is said to be coming sometime in 2014, after the release of the next Dragon Age.