The next Mass Effect game will run on Frostbite, and is being made by a new BioWare team led by series veterans. BioWare Montreal studio director Yanick Roy made the announcements today in a post on the BioWare blog, where he outlined his team's pedigree with the series and gave a few hints about what players can expect to see in the post-Shepard era.
Roy said the game is built on Frostbite, and will also be "enhanced by many of the systems that the Dragon Age 3: Inquisition team has already spent a lot of time building." DA 3 is similarly based on Frostbite, as are pretty much all of Electronic Arts' upcoming AAA games from internal labels.
The Montreal team working on the game will take over main production from BioWare's Edmonton studios, though series leader Casey Hudson remains executive producer. The transition has been in effect since Mass Effect 2, with Montreal responsible for the game's N7 missions and roughly half of its cinematics. It produced the multiplayer portion of Mass Effect 3 and was also behind its upcoming Omega campaign DLC.
Roy revealed the new engine and story will bring some changes, but he hopes to retain what made the series so successful in the first place.
"[W]hile it will be very respectful of the heritage built over the course of the first three games, with the original trilogy now concluded and the switch over to a new engine, we are exploring new directions, both on the gameplay and story fronts. You can still expect the pillars the franchise is known for to be fully intact though, including diverse alien races, a huge galaxy to explore, and of course rich, cinematic storytelling."
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