‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’ Rumor: It's About Politics, Not Saving the Galaxy

Let the Mass Effect: Andromeda hype cycle begin (hey, we’re only eighteen months shy of its planned 2017 release date). Late on Tueday, a Neogaf user who goes by the handle anexanhume released some marketing documents that seemed to reveal the basic plot details for the next installment of Bioware’s flagship science fiction video game series.

According to the leaked documents, “Mass Effect: Andromeda takes players to the Andromeda galaxy, far beyond the Milky Way, where players will lead the fight for a new home in hostile territory—where WE are the aliens—opposed by a deadly indigenous race bent on stopping us.”

The documents also promise that the fourth Mass Effect installment will contain all of the open world, customization-rich, squad-based goodness that they’d expect from the series. The only real surprise is the context of Andromeda, which is a far cry from the original trilogies much debated “Space Jesus” fixation.

Assuming there’s any truth to these documents — which, at this point, is a long shot — it would seem that the folks at Bioware are keen to trade off the morally upright “let’s save the Universe” plot of the original games for something a little murkier. As intruders traversing an alien landscape, Mass Effect: Andromeda may just be setting up its core characters as something a little more nefarious.

The game has always featured a karma-based system of progression that hinged on the player’s actions, though the choice was always between being a “mean” good guy and being a “good” good guy. Perhaps a less righteous protagonist will open the door for some actual evil decisions.

It’s impossible to say whether or not any of these documents are real. After all, they’d be super easy to fake. However, it’s important to point out that this isn’t the first time that someone has claimed to know Andromeda’s plot. What’s more, this most recent leak and the one from late February seem extremely similar, which may add an air of legitimacy to these surveys.

If they are genuine, then everything on the page could still be subject to change assuming the people taking the associated surveys don’t like the idea of a morally ambiguous hero. In other words, as potentially exciting as this is, a lot could change between now and release day.