Mass Effect Fans Divided Over Protagonist Replacing Shepard

The next Mass Effect game — tentatively dubbed Mass Effect 5 by many — is seemingly years away, and so far BioWare has provided nothing more than two teaser trailers, which don’t reveal much about the upcoming RPG. To this end, it’s not even clear who the protagonist is going to be. So far, both teasers indicate it won’t be Commander Shepard, but don’t confirm as much. Meanwhile, comments from the voice actor behind Commander Shepard also signal that the protagonist of the trilogy is not the protagonist of the new game, but they don’t confirm as much. And in the absence of confirmation, fans hope, speculate, and debate. Naturally, there are a great many Mass Effect fans who want to see the iconic sci-fi character return as the protagonist. There are plenty of fans who want to move on to something new, though.

This divide is demonstrated over on the Mass Effect Reddit page, where one of the top posts is a post about this very debate. And the divide is pretty much split down the middle. The post itself shares an image of what some believe to be the protagonist of the series, noting they hope it’s not Shepard for a variety of reasons.

“I Really Hope This Is Not Shepard”

“In the age of soft-reboots, I sincerely hope Bioware is wise enough to avoid treading old ground,” reads the post in question. I honestly just feel like resurrecting Shepard a second time would be the least interesting way to reintroduce us to this universe. Not only did Shepherd’s first death and resurrection not have as much narrative weight in ME2 and ME3 as it could have, but I don’t imagine a second round will do it any better.”

As you would expect, there are some comments that agree with this sentiment, while others cast doubt on the relevance of the character above, assuming they are nothing more a stand-in for early promotional material. That said, there are plenty of comments that reveal many fans do want the Commander back.

“I really hope Shepard is the main character again,” reads one of these comments. Another adds: “’ll get downvoted for saying it, but I want Shepard back and some OG characters. The ending just wasn’t satisfying, even after the update. It’s hard to let go after how good these games are and how connected you become to the characters.”

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Right now, everything points to Commander Shepard being in the new game in some capacity, but it doesn’t look like they are going to be the protagonist based on the teasers and based on the aforementioned voice actor comments, which claim BioWare has not contacted them about a role reprisal.

Unfortunately, no matter what BioWare does, many fans are going to be disappointed. The BioWare team that created the original trilogy is not the BioWare team making this game. They are not going to be able to deliver a game that recreates the trilogy, and based on their recent releases, it’s not clear the studio is even capable of this level of game anymore. To this end, it’s probably best they do something new. They should play it safe, but do something new, which is what we suspect they will do, lest they make another Andromeda mistake.

All of that said, and as always, feel free to leave a comment or two letting us know what you think, or join the conversations happening over on the ComicBook Forum.