It's been in "early development" for years and years. Multiple N7 Days has come and gone and for the past few years it's sounded like they were only just getting started on figuring out what it was going to be. It's absolutely insane how much time they've spent on what now amounts to nothing.
Seriously we had the entire original trilogy come and go in the time the fifth game has taken. I doubt it went much further than the concept art stage.
It all goes back to those endings. They wrote themselves into a corner with those and they never have been able to get themselves out of it. Andromeda was an attempt to side step them but when that went poorly, they had no way to move the forward. If the studio had a suitable plan then then they likely wouldnt of closed it. It sucks but Bioware and their "artistic integrity" are just as to blame as EA
This is going to be a bit controversial but I always saw the Citadel DLC as the beginning of the end for Bioware. Don't get me wrong, ME3 needed it after those endings, but Bioware took all the wrong lessons from Citadel's success.
The jokes and banter in that worked because of how dark the rest of the game was. But in every game after that they made that the new standard. Their games became about friendship and banter, over friction and story. Inquisition struck an okay balance, but anything went all-in on the quippy bullshit. It ruined what made these worlds believable and Bioware special.
I dunno if it's "hot", but it's my take: there was nothing wrong with writing themselves into a corner. The intention was for the story to end, and that's okay. But at some point, shareholders or studio executives or whoever realized they had a highly marketable IP sitting around gathering dust, and there's just no room for both "respect for the concluded story arc" and "potentially making fuckwads of cash" in the same place.
Honestly, while the endings do present a very real problem for them it only really impacts things if they want a true continuation of the OG series.
However, if they want a sequel that simply takes place after one of the choices (that they'll be forced to canonize) it's actually a pretty good setup for new characters. Let's say they go with canonizing the 'destroy' ending. The galaxy is reeling from a massive invasion, reaper technology is inert, plentiful, and offers opportunity for a massive technological leap. Homeworlds are destroyed and need to rebuilt, power-vacuums are everywhere, species are scattered everywhere without a way to get home.
It's a solid setup for exploring reconstruction and the impacts on society and cultures that come out of it. What they're missing is the 'big bad', but it could just be a different sort of game.
Now that I think about it, the endings may have been a much larger factor in the development time than I thought. Every little thing has to be accounted for. It's entirely possible, but when you also have other problems with the studio outside of just the writing and accounting for everything that the trilogy ended with, you can see how it can become a logistical nightmare, at least I can.
It seems natural for a follow-up that they would pick a canon ending and then go from there. Probably destroy. They couldn't immediately introduce another universe ending calamity to a universe still rebuilding from the last one, so it would be an entirely different vibe with lower stakes.
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u/-ForgottenSoul 8h ago
This is depressing so the IP is basically over.. I dont understand why they wouldnt release the game when its been in development for ages.