N7 Day Leaves Unanswered Questions

When November 7th rolls around each year the nerdy Mass Effect fanbase gets all a tither.  November 7th roughly aligns with Commander Shepherd's N7 rank in the series and has become the date on which BioWare rolls out some info about upcoming Mass Effect projects.  This year they rolled out several teasers filled with cryptic binary codes and challenged the most ardent fans to decode tiny tidbits of information.  I'm a member of two fabulous groups on Facebook--one dedicated to Mass Effect and the other to the Dragon Age series--and the ME group was buzzing about a new poster release that is supposed to be chock full of clues as to the next entry in the series.  Take a gander:

The description of the content of the poster on the BioWare gear store is one sentence:  "Prepare for a bold new future with this brand-new art print commemorating #N7Day 2023!" Absolutely no hints as to what any of this actually means. There was much conjecture about different aspects of the poster--is it depicting a new protagonist? Could it be Shepherd reborn? Much of the guessing was focused on the lower portion--if you zoom in there's what appears to be a depiction of a bar/nightclub scene. In that scene you can plainly see the original ME races depicted--there are Turians, Asari, Salarians, Humans, and Quarians. Some very keen eyed folks also pointed out the fact that they could see what appears to be a Geth and an Angara. Does this potentially suggest that there is going to be some sort of tie-in with Andromeda? There's plenty to question in this very cryptic teaser.

Much of the debate seemed to center around two things--firstly, who will be the protagonist in the next game. There is definitely a faction of fans who very much hope that they plan to bring Shepherd back in some form (this, despite the fact that the multiple endings of ME3 all pointed at the demise of our favorite commander). Many pointed out the fact that the teaser trailer from last year showed Liara picking up a fragment of a broken N7 helmet which would indicate the the next game at least has some sort of tie with the original series and could potentially be steering itself away from the redheaded stepchild that is Andromeda. The figure in this poster appears to be female (which doesn't mean much since the series features a male/female option for the protagonist), is rocking a very cool Cyberpunk-esque jacket that gives off a sort of assassin vibe, is carrying what looks like a silenced pistol, has the signature N7 red stripe, and is wearing a helmet that is vaguely similar to the helmets in Andromeda. Personally, I don't love the Shepherd theories and think the series needs to move on to a different protagonist. Many were also proposing ideas about potential descendants of Shepherd (supposing the game does take place in the future), but that seems even more far-fetched to me.

The second area of debate centered around the bar/nightclub scene depicted in the lower portion of the jacket. Hardcore internet sleuths dedicated a lot of bandwidth to zooming in and trying to pick apart every detail in the scene. Some claimed to see Garrus and Liara; there's supposedly a Geth and Angara in there too. Does this suggest that the game will take place in the Milky Way with some sort of link to Andromeda? If so, the timeline would be odd--it would need to be far in the future (at least 600+ years). The teaser from last year also seemed to point to this scenario with many people pointing out that Liara looked much older in the trailer. Many fans were declaring a hope that the remnants of the crew of the Normandy would be involved in some way--to me, if it does take place in the future, that would be tough. Some of the species are long-lived, but not all of them, and 600 years is well beyond the supposed lifespan of many of them. I also think it would be unwise to completely pretend that Andromeda didn't happen and that it would be beneficial to tie it to the original series. It would be nice if the Andromeda series continued in some way.

So, what did we actually learn from this smattering of cryptic information? Not a whole heck of a lot, to be completely honest. A new game is being developed. That's basically it. One of the hotter post-N7 Day takes came from PC Gamer who rolled out this article openly criticizing BioWare for essentially stringing fans along and not really providing any substantial information about the development of either of its flagship games--Mass Effect or the more upcoming Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. Sadly, most of the news out of BioWare lately hasn't been good--ugly layoffs and staff protesting over getting severance pay. As much as I want to disagree with the author of this article, I really can't. There hasn't been anything meatier than the N7 day teaser trailers. I don't want to be pessimistic, but I don't have high hopes for either the new Dragon Age game or the much farther off Mass Effect. I believe the era of strong writing, memorable characters, and stories in singleplayer RPG's is basically over...sadly replaced with more gameplay that centers around microtransactions and continuous profits. Many other fans have also bemoaned the fact that that BioWare's golden age has likely passed. People will point to the last two games as clear evidence--the flop that was Anthem and the much maligned Andromeda.

But we can always hope, right? Here's to hoping--and here's the full teaser trailer: