Future Mass Effect Installments Will Be “Fresh”, BioWare Developing New IP

According to a report on Kotaku that summarizes a BioWare panel at this past weekend’s PAX East event, the developer’s Montreal-based studio is currently working a new “fresh” installment to the Mass Effect series, while Casey Hudson and some of the other key figures at the Edmonton studio have moved on to a new title in “a whole new fictional universe”. The important parts:

“We are starting to get ready to develop another Mass Effect game, and it’s going to be a new thing,” series executive producer Casey Hudson said at a Mass Effect retrospective at PAX East in Boston today. “We want to be able to give fans an opportunity to get back into the world with these things you’ve come to know and love about the Mass Effect experience but start something fresh and new a new way for you to explore the whole universe in Mass Effect.”

For series fans, even that little bit of info might be a welcome update.

The game will be developed primarily by BioWare’s Montreal studio, though Hudson, in the studio’s Edmonton headquarters, will serve as the executive producer. As we’ve previously reported, Commander Shepard will not be returning.

Hudson and the series’ lead designer Preston Watamaniuk will mostly be working on a non-Mass Effect project. “We are developing a whole new fictional universe at BioWare for myself and Preston [and other main Mass Effect trilogy creators.] That’s kind of our next thing,” Husdon said. “We’re focusing on building something new the way we did at the very beginning on Mass Effect.