@CaseyDHudson: Parsing through your thoughts on the next ME game. Would you be more interested in a game that takes place before the trilogy, or after?
As long as a high quality of writing is maintained and internal logic is preserved, to me, it doesn't matter when the game takes place. However, there are two significant issues that need to be dealt with, should a post-trilogy game be created.
1.Schrödinger's Shepard: While Shepard's death is irrefutable in both the Synthesis and Refusal endings, her fate is less certain in the Control ending and even less so in the Destroy ending. Given a Destroy plot state, the developers will have to decide whether or not Shepard survived her ordeal on the Citadel beyond that single intake of breath and determine subsequent details of historical import, such as age at death, name of spouse, and number of progeny. With Liara T'soni's penchant for preservation, particularly of anything pertaining to Shepard, she would ensure those biographic details would survive for a significant period of time. This will need to be accounted for by the developers. My suggestion would be that, if Shepard survived (and make no mistake: this option will need to be made available in order to avoid a repetition of the backlash encountered after releasing ME3), she and her love interest would disappear (with the aid of the Shadowbroker, of course) to live out their days in some place warm so as to avoid being targeted by mercenaries out to prove themselves, Batarians still holding a grudge, and the Conrad Verners of the galaxy.
2. A Badder Big Boss: It would be difficult to conceive of an enemy more threatening than the Reapers. Battling the Reapers required uniting a galaxy. It is hard to imagine what it would require to fight a force surpassing the Reapers and any post-ME3 game would require a force at least equal to the Reapers, given a Control or Synthesis plot state. Furthermore, the distinctive appearance of Reaper troops made foe identification easy, which would be an additional requirement of a new enemy.
One possibility would be the Leviathans, but their numbers would need to increase in order to pose a viable threat. Also, due to the Leviathan Codex, the other races would know to give them a wide berth to avoid enthrallment, and without thralls, the Leviathans would not be able to secure the resources required to regain their status as the apex race. Another possibility might be the Yahg. However, now that the Alliance and the Council have intelligence regarding the secret Salarian up-lift process, this pre-spaceflight species would likely be kept in check. The Batarians have effectively been wiped out, so it is unlikely they will ever pose a threat. The Vorcha are a third possibility, with their rapid adaptability and the other races' tendency to be dismissive of their cognitive capabilities. However, gamers' need for novelty must be addressed and shooting Vorcha for hour on end would hardly satisfy that need. A controversial possibility would be humans, but after having battled Cerberus troops, that experience might no longer be considered novel. One tantalizing possibility would be aliens from another galaxy, but they would have to be very different from anything seen before and the motivations for their hostility would have to be carefully considered so the developers do not repeat themselves. Otherwise, the experience would be as satisfying as watching the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers slowly come to the inevitable realisation that they will have to form a Megazord to defeat their latest adversary.
My own opinion is that knowing the outcome of the Rachni Wars or the ultimate fate of Archangel's squad on Omega would not diminish the enjoyment I would derive from a game. As with reading my favourite books, I've lost count of the number of times I've played through ME2 and ME3. The immersive quality of the universe, the chance to escape and spend time adventuring with memorable characters, that is what I play for.
Of course, I'm an old-fashioned girl and I don't know if my demographic holds a greater market share than that of modern-day youngsters with foreshortened attention spans and rapacious appetites for anything new.
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