Mass Effect 4 release date and features: Set for 2016 with new characters and places
Mass Effect 4: Release date
That's a long time to pass since the last instalment and although BioWare has released Dragon Age: Inquisition, it has been hard at work on a new edition of Mass Effect. It should be available on at least PS4, Xbox One and PC. See: PS4 vs Xbox One review: how Microsoft and Sony's games consoles compare a year after launch
In April last year, studio director Yanick Roy said on Twitter that development of Mass Effect 4 was 'somewhere in the middle'. Design work started in late 2012 which was around 18 months prior to the tweet. Add another 18 months and it takes us to October of 2015.
However, that is when development should be finished not when the game will be released. The latest, via industry insider Shinobi602, is that Mass Effect 4 will arrive in 2016.
"Massive' in terms of size/scale, that's all. Yea 'optimistic' but not unlikely or anything, it could very well be ready by Q2 2016, the date's still not set even internally." he said on NeoGaf.
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Mass Effect 4: Features, characters and vehicles
At Comic-Con in San Diego a special Mass Effect panel entitled: "Charting a Course: Developing the next Mass Effect" was held and revealed details about the game.
"We're years away from being able to say that this is the exact game that we're making. Take this with a grain of salt. What you see here may not be the same as in the final game, but we want to show it anyway," said producer Mike Gamble (watch the entire panel at the bottom of the page).
For starters, the new hero will be human and would have something to do with N7. The firm showed off two customisable armour outfits (above) for male and female players which includes a glass helmet.
Mass Effect 4 will see the return of the Mako, a six-wheeled vehicle used in the first Mass Effect game. The good news is that it's being tuned to be speedier. "It's a really agile Mako, it's much different to the one you've seen before. There's no cannon on it, maybe it can hover maybe it can jump - I don't know," said Gamble.
At E3 2014, EA's press conference revealed, via a BioWare docu-trailer, that Mass Effect 4 would feature "new places, new characters and new people to fall in love with."
It will be set in a new location in space with exploration as a key element. It looks like you'll be able to jump between planets at the touch of a button.