Casey Hudson: Should next ‘MASS EFFECT’ take place BEFORE or AFTER Shepard’s mission?

BioWare’s Lead Satisfied With Himself Director Casey Hudson recently asked if we, the fans, would prefer the next installment of Mass Effect to take place before or after the Shepard Saga. Bro, here’s a fucking option: have some conviction about something. Holy shit. Between polling for Dragon Age 3, changing the ending to Mass Effect 3 (it sucked, but you caving sucks more) and now this, I’m flummoxed. Does the dude have any inspiration? Or is he and the rest of BioWare running around trying to jerk off every fan? I mean, Jesus Christ. I thought the thirteen different play styles they stuffed into ME3 was indicative of them losing their creative way, but this poll is ridiculous to me. Make an excellent piece of software, and leave it to us monkey-minded proles to decide if we like it. Craft a narrative that you find engaging, and then leave it up to us to either agree or disagree with your vision.

Kotaku:

That’s the gist of a question put forth to Mass Effect fans today by BioWare’s Casey Hudson, who wants to know whether series fans want the next game in the franchise to take “place before the trilogy, or after?”

How closely they’re going to be listening is anyone’s guess, since for all we know those kind of decisions have already been made, but it’ll be interesting to see people’s opinions regardless.

There will be people out there who want to see what happens after the trilogy, sure. We could all do with an explanation as to why there aren’t robot leaves.

Setting new games before the trilogy, though, gives BioWare a chance to wheel out every popular character, Star Wars prequel-style, and show them kicking it in their native habitats before Commander Shepard rolled around and blew everything up.

Casey Hudson [Twitter]