‘There will be no more Shepard’ in future Mass Effect games, says BioWare

I hope you are enjoying Mass Effect 3 because it looks like that will be the last time we get to play as Commander Shepard. If, and probably when, the franchise continues, it will be void of Shepard, BioWare told VG247 at a recent EA showcase.

"There is one thing we are absolutely sure of," BioWare Montreal producer Fabrice Condominas said. "There will be no more Shepard, and the trilogy is over."

“This is really our starting point. Now the Mass Effect universe is vast, and very, very rich. So at this point in time, we don’t even know what kind of time frame we’re going to be in. All we’re doing is more gathering ideas from the teams, gathering feedback to see several things," he explained.

“So first, we don’t want to make ‘Shepard 2′, or Mass Effect 4 with like, ‘oh there’s no more Shepard but you’re a soldier in the universe’. So this will be a very, very different context for sure, and nothing has been decided on the rest," Condominas concluded.

I understand BioWare's hesitance in continuing the franchise with Commander Shepard, but at the same time, we've seen what happens when you remove the iconic main character from a franchise as notable as Mass Effect. At the end of the Halo trilogy, Microsoft released several spin-off games that were in the same Halo universe, sans Master Chief. While they weren't horrible, it just wasn't the same feel as the original series — and now we have Halo 4 with the return of Master Chief.

So while I'm not opposed to saying goodbye to Commander Shepard once and for all, BioWare just needs to make sure they replace him with a character equally as likeable.

But I'd like to ask you: would you be interested in a Mass Effect game without Commander Shepard?