“Mass Effect 4” has been getting a lot of discussion lately, and the future of the game is quite unclear at this point. Some conflicting rumors have been coming out of Bioware regarding the development of the game, while the studio itself has been relatively quiet, and hasn’t divulged any official information about their progress so far. They haven’t even revealed the game officially, so it’s not known for sure how far ahead they are in its development. And while many fans were hopeful that they would get to play the next installment in the saga this year, the latest leaks related to the game point in a different, slightly more disappointing direction.
A Twitter user who’s been known for leaking rumors that turned out to be true before, has now posted information that the game is scheduled for Q2 of 2016. It’s not known where Shinobi602 got the information, but they additionally stated that the game is in heavy development, and plans around it apparently keep changing, forcing the developer to reevaluate their release date on a regular basis.
The game is reported to be very expansive, with an even larger world than “Dragon Age: Inquisition”, and this has caused some problems with its development, as there is a lot of content that has to be prepared, and progress has been slow in some areas. At the same time, the overall development progress seems to be going according to plan, as slowly as that may be happening. The development team has been significantly expanded in order to accommodate for the increased workload, and there are now about 200 developers working on the game actively.
With about a year and a half left on its development, a lot can change until it’s released, so any rumors about actual gameplay or plot details should probably be taken with a grain of salt at this point. Bioware will likely want to push out the game rather quickly though, as attention towards it has been growing, and the studio risks entering the territory where their game will have too much hype to live up to if they protract its development for too long.
Will the wait be worth it? Dedicated fans of the series may be quick to say yes, but others will probably want to wait until the summer of 2016 to draw their conclusions. After the way “Mass Effect 3” ended, many have been hopeful that Bioware will not another botched ending that ruins an otherwise perfect and solid plot. Despite the fact that the studio issued an update to fit their mistake, the damage to the third installment had already been done by this point.