168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mass Effect has a deep lore stretching across the galaxy, and a much wider collection of developed races than most other games. We only meet three drell throughout the entire series - two are father and son, and the other has a bit part in a DLC pack. Of the father and son duo, while Thane is a squadmate and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a crucial part of Mass Effect 2 (before being 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:done dirty in ME3), his son has an equally small role as that of our DLC drell. Yet because the story around the drell is so fascinating, many people would have the drell as their favourite race in the whole series. That's not a fact that can be said for humans, so why are there always so many of them?
Initially, it made sense. Regardless of who our favourite characters and races are after we've spent hundreds of hours in the games, humans are easier for us to relate to at first, so for the original trilogy, Shepard is the right pick. It also tells a tale centred around humanity - we are the first human Spectre, and it's through us that we see humanity's position in the galaxy. Though the series sides with the military-industrial complex too m🎃uc♔h to explore the idea, humans in Mas🍸s Effect are essentially following in the footsteps of our colonial forefathers. Humans are new arrivals in the galactic community, but we deserve a seat on the council.
We see ourselves among the elite, with the turians, asari, and salarians. We're above the brutish krogan, the nomadic quarians, the dull elcor, the zealous hanar, and the feeble volus. The story doesn't spend enough time on our position as interlopers for it to be fully examined, but it's a rich part of Mass Effect's texture. Added to that, the increased prominence of Cerberus from Mass Effect 2 onwards preaches Pax Earthica, just as humanity has endured Pax Romana, Pax Britannica, and Pax Americana before it. Humans are The White Man arriving in the galaxy's New World.
The game has had its chance to interrogate that idea, and has largely dodged the question. The trade-off for letting humanity slide though was much more focus on the other races. The drell became fan favourites almost entirely off the back of Thane, but the asari feature so prominently in the series that it often feels like the galaxy belongs to them and all other races are just visiting. Meanwhile, the krogan quickly reveal a nuanced tragedy 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:beneath their rugged armour plates, and the quarian and geth conflict is the most fascinating story in the whole trilogy. This is further elevated by Tali's loyalty mission, the best side quest in gaming. And I haven't even mentioned the turians, who are probably the most popular race overall.
That's why the next game does not need humans at all. We've had a story told from a very human-centric point of view for the entire trilogy, then followed it up with another human story in another galaxy. Even more disappointingly, budget constraints meant Andromeda only got to introduce a single new race to the canon - two if you count the kett, but they're just Andromeda's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:version of Husks.
I've written before that we shouldn't play as a human in the next Mass Effect, and settled on the idea that if we play as a set character rather than an Elder Scrolls-style choice, turian is the most likely. They're popular, equally as militaristic as humans, and bipedal, meaning it's a fairly easy chance as opposed to letting us live out our Blasto fantasy as a hanar. By that measure though, even if we couldn't play as them, it's time for more interesting squadmates in the next game. The characters we've had so far have been great, Jacob aside 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:(shut up, you know it's true), but they haven't made the most of the galaxy yet. We've always been given new races in our squad each game, be they drell, geth, salarian, prothean, or angara, but we've never had a hanar, volus, or elcor. Nothing not bipedal, and even of the bipedal races, the vorcha and the batarians haven't had a look in.
Just letting us play as a turian with a hanar by our side might not go far enough, though. I mean, I'm expecting a human with a crew of asari, turians, quarians, and krogan again, but in an ideal world, this drastic change to turian and hanar might not be enough. Mass Effect seemingly cannot avoid its obsession with humans, and perhaps the best way to fully explore the other races is to tell a game without humans entirely. This would need to be set before the First Contact War, or perhaps even during it but told from the perspective of the galactic community rather than the humans who decided to shoot the first aliens they saw on sight. It seems like t𒐪he next game is a sequel with L𓄧iara involved, so First Contact is out, but ⛦Mass Effect needs to move away from humanity. What did the humans ever do🐻 for us?
Mass Effect's universe is begging to be further explored, but we can never truly see it through the eyes of a human. Some time soon, Mass Effect needs to forget humanity and start telling other stories.
