Mass Effect 5 Needs To Be More Like Andromeda

thegamer.com:

Every now and then, I think about Mass Effect 5. Well, that’s not quite true. Every now and then I think about Mass Effect 4, which is what I have always thought of the new Mass Effect game as. This isn't supposed to rewrite history and expunge Andromeda from the record, but I’ve always viewed Andromeda as a spin-off. It takes place in a new galaxy, in a new era, and introduces the angarans while trading out the drell, hanar, elcor, and most perplexingly, the quarians. It’s not a continuation of Mass Effect, and more to the point, the next Mass Effect game will be, at least a little bit. There might not be Shepard (please, no Shepard), but Liara will be there and we’re back in the Milky Way. For that reason, I’ll think of it as Mass Effect 4 until told otherwise. Here though, let’s call it Mass Effect 5.

I’ll break my usual habit because the Mass Effect 4/Mass Effect 5 split is something of an ideological divide within the Mass Effect fanbase. You can play the centrist and call it The Next Mass Effect Game if you want, but a lot of people who use Mass Effect 5 do so to demand acknowledgement for Andromeda, while many of those who use Mass Effect 4 are pushing for the opposite. Mass Effect 4 is more popular on Google, which is in-keeping with the general consensus of the fanbase. While I am a Mass Effect 4 truther for more pedantic reasons, I’m throwing my lot in with the Mass Effect 5 gang and demanding that Andromeda be a core building block for The Next Mass Effect Game.

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I know Andromeda isn’t perfect. I’ve played through all four games multiple times, and I have much fonder memories of both Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 than I do for Andromeda. The first