New Mass Effect teaser dropped at The Game Awards

A new Mass Effect game was teased at The Game Awards 2020, and from the looks of it, it might take place after the events of Mass Effect 3. 

In a parallel to the story at Mass Effect's core, a camera sweeps through space, zooming past Earth and going far beyond it, representing humans finding the mass relays and using them to greatly advance their space travel capabilities. Then, the sound of the Reapers echoes out, and we see destruction - just like in the trilogy. 

Then, a mysterious figure walks across a snowy planet, with the husk of a dead Reaper in the background. The figure picks up what looks to be Commander Shepherd's omnitool or armor out of the snow, and the camera pans up to show Liara T'Soni, one of the original crewmembers in the trilogy. She looks to other figures in the background (Garrus is that you? Ashley Williams? Mordin?) and smiles before the words "Mass Effect will continue" appear on screen. According to Bioware, we need to look closely.

"We’ve got a lot more in store for the Mass Effect universe and while we’ve got a long runway ahead of us before we’ll be ready to show you more, we hope the teaser set the tone for where we’re headed next. The teaser is full of hints about what we are planning, and we hope you have fun finding them all," it teased in a blog post. 

This certainly seems like a Mass Effect 4 teaser, but could this next game feature Liara as the lead? Or, would Shepherd return once again? Based on how Mass Effect 3 ended, that doesn't seem likely...

(Mass Effect 3 spoilers) Mass Effect 3 has several endings - around eight, I believe - revolving around three choices (destruction, control, and synthesis) and three fates: that of Earth, the crew of the Normandy, and Commander Shepherd. Various different choices and your level of preparation going into the final battle affect your ending, but in almost all of them Commander Shepherd dies, unless you had an absolutely bonkers power level at the end.

However, Commander Shepherd has come back from the dead before - that's precisely how Mass Effect 2 starts, so it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to have Shepherd at the helm again...

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