Home Gaming Did a Mass Effect survey reveal horde mode, city building and game size?

Did a Mass Effect survey reveal horde mode, city building and game size?

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N7 mass effect

The next Mass Effect is highly anticipated. I know I’m desperate to know more about what’s going on in that universe and I’m certainly not the only one. While this is pure rumor and shouldn’t be taken too much to heart, a new survey might have just revealed some details about the upcoming game. Of course, these should be taken with a grain or two of salt, as well as a celebratory margarita.

Over on Reddit, a user explained that he did a survey about Mass Effect 4 and found out a ton of details. According to him, the next Mass Effect game takes place in the Helius Cluster, far removed by time and space from the events of the Mass Effect trilogy. You are a pathfinder, leading an expedition into the Andromeda Galaxy to establish a new home for humanity. Of course, along the way you’ll need to collect resources, build colonies, and handle warring alien races.

Along the way, you will encounter the remains of a once powerful and mysterious alien race, the Remnant, whose forgotten technology holds the key to gaining power in this region of the galaxy. As you uncover who the Remnant were, and the mysteries their ruins contain, you are drawn into a violent race to find the source of their forgotten technology that will determine the fate of humanity.

Of course your crew will play an important part in all of this. You’ll need to select the ideal crew for each mission, as well as make decisions about how to handle their various loyalty missions. Meanwhile, you’ll be developing colonies, resource bases and settlements as you spread across the galaxy. You’ll need to defend these, upgrade them and make strategic choices about what they will focus on. From mining settlements that give you resources to recon settlements that clear the fog of war.

We already knew that multiplayer would feature in the new Mass Effect. There will be Strike Team missions that can either be completed by hired guns or you can do them yourself with a group of multiplayer friends. These are based on the various thematically appropriate situations of defending your settlements or assassinating enemies. If you chose to do it yourself in multiplayer, it will run according to Horde Mode:

The next Mass Effect’s “Horde” multiplayer pits you and up to three of your friends against waves of enemy troops on various battlefields throughout the galaxy. Players fight together to survive increasingly difficult enemy attacks and accomplish objectives, like disabling a bomb near a colony base or assassinating a target. Progress through multiplayer missions to gain XP and earn new multiplayer specific weapons, characters, weapon mods, and pieces of equipment, which can be customized between matches. Multiplayer play will also earn you APEX funds (in-game currency), which can be used to purchase items and gear in the Single Player game.

With a game promising to be over four times the size of Mass Effect 3, I’m already in awe. I really hope at least some of these rumors are true and I’m desperate for them to show this at E3. I absolutely need to get my hands on this. or at least my eyeballs.

Last Updated: April 20, 2015

81 Comments

  1. Ranting Raptor

    April 20, 2015 at 07:46

    meh. The only mass effect this is going to have on my gaming life is that it won’t be adding any weight to my game library.

    #Crickets
    #Chirping

    Reply

    • Lord Chaos

      April 20, 2015 at 07:47

      Think you need a coffee…

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief asked for this

        April 20, 2015 at 07:52

        Better make that a double

        Reply

    • konfab

      April 20, 2015 at 07:53

      Please go and make yourself extinct. We don’t need millennia old opinions here.

      Reply

      • chimera_85

        April 20, 2015 at 09:14

        Haha!

        Reply

    • Dutch Matrix

      April 20, 2015 at 08:23

      I am ever so sorry to hear about that lobotomy you had to suffer through. You know the one? Where they removed the “Good Taste” section of your brain? 😛

      Reply

    • chimera_85

      April 20, 2015 at 09:14

      You need Garrus

      Reply

    • Pariah

      April 20, 2015 at 09:20

      On Friday you left with a great series of posts. And you come back on Monday with this?

      Where did you go? Narnia? Did you follow the yellow brick road, but didn’t find the king?

      Reply

      • Ranting Raptor

        April 21, 2015 at 13:41

        More like I came out the other side to another week of work….

        Reply

        • Pariah

          April 21, 2015 at 13:47

          Ah, that’ll do it.

          Reply

    • TheAnsible

      April 20, 2015 at 16:22

      #peopleThatdon’tAgreeW/u

      Reply

  2. Admiral Chief asked for this

    April 20, 2015 at 07:53

    I dunno man, after hearing what EA has planned for Battlefront (NO Clones/CIS or space battles), I’m skeptical about anything they have planned

    Reply

    • konfab

      April 20, 2015 at 07:54

      Given how fun Hardline is, I don’t really mind.

      Reply

    • Viking Of Science

      April 20, 2015 at 08:03

      EA need to cut the shit, and just Call it what it is, Battlefield with a Star Wars skin. And Stop F-ing with BattleFRONT fans’ expectations.

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief asked for this

        April 20, 2015 at 08:04

        Look, I’ll probably give in to the SW geek and get the game, but man, I LOVE DEM CLONES!

        Reply

        • Viking Of Science

          April 20, 2015 at 08:08

          I want to be excite. but EA has destroyed so many of my dreams….

          Reply

        • Matthew Holliday

          April 20, 2015 at 09:20

          ive been staring at that R600 pc price tag all weekend…
          WHY ARE ALL PC GAMES R600 NOW?
          new tactics to encourage piracy and harder forms of DRM?

          dont support etc.

          Reply

          • Pariah

            April 20, 2015 at 09:21

            They’re not O_o

          • Matthew Holliday

            April 20, 2015 at 09:28

            obviously not all…

            but:
            battlefront 3 is R599 on origin
            GTA V is R600+ from local retailers
            all CoD titles are R600

            Deus ex is R550

            Witcher 3 price has actually gone up from R450 to R500 since i initially preordered it.
            batman arkham knight is R500 aswell.
            mortal kombat R500
            project cars R500

            base game prices have increase by R50 since i ordered Witcher 3.

          • Pariah

            April 20, 2015 at 09:32

            15 years ago they were R300 a game non-negotiable. Indies weren’t a thing. Games have not gone up with inflation over the years. 15 years ago R300 was worth more than R600 is worth now. And as you’ve pointed out, not only a few games are R600. A lot are R500, and if you look at indie games you’ll be looking at around R200 or thereabouts for a quality release.

            Honestly, I don’t know why people complain about prices on PC.

            Now on the new gen consoles? R900 a game is extreme.

          • Matthew Holliday

            April 20, 2015 at 09:43

            15 years ago ps2 games were R400, PS1 games were R150 and pc games didnt have prices because the whole platform was considered indy and only played pirated copies of cs 1.6, starcraft and warcraft 3.

            PC games had been stable at R450 a game since 2008ish, CoD excluded, now a sudden jump from R450 – R500 in base game price, thats not inflation, thats the Rand:Dollar exchange having a direct impact on game costs.

            tbh, im surprised it took so long to affect our local retailers, the dollars been over R10 for ages now, but we were still been paying less for physical than digital.

            the same goes for hardware too. locally, prices dont drop, new tech doesnt mean old techs prices are going to drop, like it did in the past. now, new tech is just more expensive and old tech prices hold still.
            my R9 270 was R2500 on release, nearly a year ago, today, its still R2500.

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            April 20, 2015 at 13:18

            I remember the backlash MS got after they dropped Freelancer in at R500 when every other AAA game was R250-R300. Fun times indeed. 🙂

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            April 20, 2015 at 13:16

            That is the deluxe Edition btw. Normal I think is R400.

          • Matthew Holliday

            April 20, 2015 at 13:40

            was pretty sure i saw it had the “standard edition” tag.
            but thats origin prices. not retail. retail might be R500.

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            April 20, 2015 at 13:41

            Oh well does not really matter as I already dropped the cash for the Deluxe. 😛

      • Matthew Holliday

        April 20, 2015 at 09:15

        thats pretty much what the previous battlefront games were though.
        heck, battlefront 2 was terribad compared to battlefield 2, so saying battlefront 2 will be a reskinned hardline of bf4 is an improvement.
        this is battlefront, not KOTOR

        battlefront 2 was so bad, im surprised they brought it back for battlefront 3 at all.
        im glad they did, but man, that game was hond.

        Reply

        • Viking Of Science

          April 20, 2015 at 10:36

          Battlefront 2 had SPACE BATTLES, though… and they were Awesome.

          Reply

          • Matthew Holliday

            April 20, 2015 at 10:48

            true, they were awesome, but they still felt like you were playing the 10 year older tie fighter game.
            dont forget that battlefield also has planes.

        • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

          April 20, 2015 at 13:18

          This.

          Everyone thinks it is a brand new IP … but it is not.

          Reply

  3. konfab

    April 20, 2015 at 07:55

    I suspected that it would be in a different galaxy. Nice way to get around continuity problems.

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief asked for this

      April 20, 2015 at 07:59

      Well, I’m intrigued to say the least

      Reply

    • Matthew Holliday

      April 20, 2015 at 12:22

      seems we had the same ideas about this.
      couldnt interface with the existing games, so they ran away.
      no doubt il play it and love it, but… yeah…

      Reply

  4. GooseZA

    April 20, 2015 at 08:19

    Want.

    Reply

  5. justlikemo

    April 20, 2015 at 08:56

    patiently waiting, download patch for graphics card, patiently waiting….

    Reply

  6. CypherGate

    April 20, 2015 at 09:01

    What im wondering about is this: Is this like a combination of RTS/Third Person shooter/Sim City-ish styled game? I get they want to make the game large and allow freedom to play the game however you like, but to me it just seems way too ambitious considering all the multiple paths you had previously and now with the new one they obviously want to expand that a lot more. The other thing is that if the game is going to be that large and with much more varying paths… when will this game actually be finished? I dont mind freedom to play and do as you please, but my fear is that they would be doing way too much and might get lost in the main goal of the game. Check RE6 for example. Also Im not interested in playing some form of RTS/3rd person/sim styled game. I just want a large world played in third person with an amazing story and interesting characters/alien species. I love the ME series and I truly hope this game doesn’t turn out bad. For me its like the ME series peaked early already with ME2 even though i enjoyed ME3 thoroughly as well.

    Reply

  7. chimera_85

    April 20, 2015 at 09:14

    OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO <3. Sounds rather epic if this is to be the actual case!

    Reply

  8. Matthew Holliday

    April 20, 2015 at 09:18

    i hope it doesnt fall prey to the stuff that was wrong with dragon age.
    expansive world, small story.

    Reply

    • konfab

      April 20, 2015 at 10:06

      Nothing wrong with an expansive world, they just need to fill it out properly.

      Reply

      • Matthew Holliday

        April 20, 2015 at 10:09

        the problem with recent games, is that they have been filling them out properly, im more than happy to step off track and spend hours clearing an area of objectives, side quests and collectibles, but then i totally forget about the storyline, like dragon age inquisition and farcry 4.
        they lost their focus.

        Reply

    • WitWolfy

      April 20, 2015 at 11:55

      I dunno Inquisition was pretty decent in size for me…

      Reply

      • Matthew Holliday

        April 20, 2015 at 12:00

        oh, i agree, i loved the game, played the shit out of it, any game that can convince you to spend 100 hours on one playthrough is pretty legit, but the main storyline was maybe 10 hours long, it only made up 10% of the game…

        the DLC felt better tbh, i had already finished the game and everything was out of the way, so there was nothing for the story to get lost in.

        Reply

        • WitWolfy

          April 20, 2015 at 12:02

          Yeah true true…

          Reply

  9. Ghost In The Rift

    April 20, 2015 at 10:35

    So basically they are doing “The first Contact War” in a different universe?

    Yeah i can see Boiware doing something like that.

    Reply

    • konfab

      April 20, 2015 at 10:44

      Quite a few people did want Bioware to make a game on the first contact war IIRC

      Reply

      • Ghost In The Rift

        April 20, 2015 at 11:07

        Yeah but the lore already explained much about it, and the ending of ME3 didn’t help allot with that, so doing it in a different universe is a smart move, i like the idea of stating fresh in a galaxy and carving it the way i want without knowing the future of the galaxy, just not gonna be the same without the Citadel lol

        Reply

        • konfab

          April 20, 2015 at 11:12

          Consider this:
          The citadel was basically a large Mass relay that linked to dark space. Pretty much all endings of Mass Effect 3 lead to a much greater understanding of technologies and relays. Who knows, they might have re-purposed it to link to another galaxy.

          The fact that humanity is leading the expedition could back this theory up since the citadel is now orbiting Earth.

          Reply

          • WitWolfy

            April 20, 2015 at 11:54

            I still wanna know how the hell the “mass relay” know as the Citadel moved to Earth to begin with… Does that mean any relay can move as they please??? EXPLAIN YOURSELF BW!!!

          • konfab

            April 20, 2015 at 11:58

            Here is the official cannon explanation.

          • WitWolfy

            April 20, 2015 at 13:51

            LOL That made my day!

          • Matthew Holliday

            April 20, 2015 at 12:13

            jumped it with other mass relays, or it jumped itself. the specifics after that dont really matter.
            whether it was towed to and from the relays by reapers or if it can move by itself is irrelevant.

          • WitWolfy

            April 20, 2015 at 13:44

            Yea now its irrelevant, but back in 2012 this ended friendships and started wars among countries.

          • Matthew Holliday

            April 20, 2015 at 12:17

            I would be more of a fan of scrapping the mass relays and discovering a new FTL method.
            or the new game needs to expand on how theyr dealing without FTL travel.

            both of them sound legit with the whole exploring and pathfinding concept theyr dealing with.

            just no more mass relay tech please.

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            April 20, 2015 at 13:21

            They already said that making it a different galaxy is so to not upset what happened in the other games. Your theory still has to take the 3 endings into account then. In about 22 of my games that means humans are half cybernetic now and that does not really fly with me.

          • konfab

            April 20, 2015 at 13:24

            Shepard was already significantly cybernetic from ME2 onwards.
            Hence the glowing eyes of doom (*__*)

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            April 20, 2015 at 13:33

            True but humanity as a whole essentially died out. What they are not is pretty much cyborgs. I am still just waiting for them to go “We are the Borg.Your Cultural and technical knowledge will be assimilated into our own.Resistance is futile”

          • konfab

            April 20, 2015 at 13:36

            Why do you say that?

            Unless you are a Terra Firma supporter….

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            April 20, 2015 at 13:38

            Terra Firma supporters dislike aliens. I just dislike the fact that everyone got turned into cyborgs without their consent.

          • konfab

            April 20, 2015 at 13:43

            That is war, the actions of a few affecting the lives of many. Not everything can be put down to a referendum.

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            April 20, 2015 at 13:45

            Problem is that it was not the many but rather the ALL. 🙂

            That is why in most cases nowadays I prefer the “control the reapers” )or blue) choice

          • Matthew Holliday

            April 20, 2015 at 13:37

            not just humanity. the whole galaxy turned into half reapers with happy smiles on their faces.

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            April 20, 2015 at 13:40

            And I hate that fact. It was not the only option because if you played it correctly you could see AI and organics working together. Just ask Tali in that playthrough.

          • Matthew Holliday

            April 20, 2015 at 14:07

            i agree, but really, going green was the only real option.
            every other option left edi either dead, or a slave.
            i didnt choose green for humanity, or the galaxy, i chose green for edi, i chose green for my team…

            fight a battle for the galaxy, get to the end, every option is a win, but only one is a win for edi… edi is basically the deciding factor for the fate of the galaxy.

            sounds legit.

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            April 20, 2015 at 14:10

            I went green because of Legion. Every other colour is just a disservice to his sacrifice.

          • konfab

            April 20, 2015 at 17:55

            “edi is basically the deciding factor for the fate of the galaxy.”

            Correct, the relationship between organics and synthetics.

            Do you view EDI as just a replaceable robot, or do you view her as a fellow sapient? Do you value her and the Geth over the biological purity of your species. The game was intended to be about hard choices.
            People were just mad over the ending because it gave people one.

          • Matthew Holliday

            April 21, 2015 at 08:57

            organic or synthetic, doesnt matter, i saw her as a squad member.
            its not that it was a hard choice, no one gets left behind, there was only one choice.
            it wasnt even about the reapers. they tied the fate of one of my team mates to the fate of the reapers. not cool.

          • WitWolfy

            April 20, 2015 at 13:52

            The glowing eyes was just a mechanic to show the player when you were more renegade then paragon… Nothing more.

          • Ghost In The Rift

            April 20, 2015 at 13:29

            That is a good theory, it can work since we know the keepers signal could be manipulated,Earth would have started to examine it but was there much of the Citadel to save after it exploded, with my Shepard along lol

        • Matthew Holliday

          April 20, 2015 at 12:20

          i just think that expanding to a new galaxy is a cop out. couldnt figure out a legit way to interface with the previous mass effect games, so theyr running away.
          no doubt they can make a new galaxy interesting, but they could have done the same thing with a new IP instead.
          mass effect was always about the mass effect galaxy.

          Reply

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            April 20, 2015 at 13:22

            They messed up the endings and thus NEED to move away.

          • Ghost In The Rift

            April 20, 2015 at 14:24

            Well cuz they fucked up ME3 ending, no way they could continue after ME3 without upsetting a few fans.

          • Matthew Holliday

            April 20, 2015 at 14:49

            the ending was a fuckup yeah, but i still think they could have worked on it.
            but you’re probably right, no matter what they do, the fiasco with the ending is too high profile to bring back into the spotlight by defaulting to a “destroy the reapers” ending

      • Matthew Holliday

        April 20, 2015 at 12:14

        first contact war is too closed off. the series prides itself on the illusion of choice, if the story is already set in stone, the illusion of choice is gone.

        Reply

        • konfab

          April 20, 2015 at 12:27

          Time travel :3

          Then ME7-9 can be in the Original Trilogy’s time period.

          Reply

          • Matthew Holliday

            April 20, 2015 at 12:36

            commander shepard & garrus volunteer to be test subjects for the whole “repurposed citadel mass relay” thing you mentioned.
            accidentally get sent back in time to the begining of the first contact wars and work to bring peace to the humans and turians super fast.

            prevent the Genophage, replace the shadow broker, save the rachnii queen, assassinate saren, defeat the reapers befor they become a threat, leave no need to leave the galaxy to explore and pathfind, Liara introduces you to her un-indoctrinated mother, matriarch benezia, get married to liara with kaiden and ashley both alive to serve at your wedding, which is presided over by the now alive Admiral Anderson.

            the universe lives happily ever after again, thanks to shepard.

          • konfab

            April 20, 2015 at 12:40

            To get really geeky: going faster than light already implies time travel 0__0

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            April 20, 2015 at 13:24

            Sounds like the fan fiction I wrote except that Shepard only gets married after she has a little on with Liara.

          • konfab

            April 20, 2015 at 13:47

            “Sounds like the fan fiction I wrote”

            oh dear, I might need to get my shotgun 🙁

  10. Lardus-Resident Perve

    April 20, 2015 at 11:21

    That describes gameplay I though up in the early 2000s, back when Mech Commander and Mech Warrior were the bee’s knees. I loved the command aspect of Mech Commander and the thrilling combat from Mech Warrior. Also loved Masters of Orion and dreamt up something similar to what you are describing in this article.

    Reply

  11. WitWolfy

    April 20, 2015 at 11:52

    So a prequel.. Everything Bioware promised the next Mass Effect wont be…

    Reply

  12. Tulipdame

    April 22, 2015 at 06:24

    Mass Effect 4 and (hopefully) a new Fallout. They’d be the first I play in each series (did play New Vegas) but I am SUPER excited

    Reply

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