User blog comment:James12708/Possibility of a Mass Effect 4/@comment-5529312-20120922015913

The problem with creating a sequel to Mass Effect 3 is that the possible endings for the game affect the galaxy much more than Mass Effect 1 and 2 did.

Mass Effect 1: The major consequences in the galaxy are; if you allowed the Rachni Queen to leave or not, who died on Virmire, and whether you saved the council or not.

In Mass Effect 2 the results of these choices do not affect Mass Effect 2 significantly enough. If the Rachni queen was allowed to leave she will contact you through an asari on illium, and nothing else (and offering a small amount of EMS in ME 3). The Virmire survivor will feel betrayed and consider you a lost cause no matter if it is Alenko or Williams and will not affect any major part of the story after Horizon (and in my opinion does not tie into the plot in ME 3), and Wrex will be present on Tuchanka or his Wreav will and both will not be very important to the story...yet. Depending on whether you allowed the council to live or die you will regain your spectre status or lose it. Keeping Shepard's spectre status does not offer any significant benefits and you will regain it in all cases in ME 3.

Mass Effect 2: The major consequences are: Who survives the Suicide Mission, whether you choose to destroy the Collector Base or not and Tali and Legion's loyalty Mission. The DLC's LOTSB and Arrival do not offer any major consequences as not going to the Shadow Brokers lair with Liara only results in the death of Feron, with Liara still becoming the SB. Shepard will propel an asteroid into the Bahak's Relay despite having the Arrival dlc downloaded or not.

Again the choice to destory or keep the Collector Base does not affect the story or outcome of Mass Effect 3. Having chosen to keep the Larvae Reaper will result in a insignificantly higher EMS and a some details changed during the assault on TIM's Base. Anyone who died during the suicide mission is replaced with another character (Except for Kasumi ,Miranda and Zaaed but their involvement only ensures more EMS not any actual outcome) but again unless Legion or Tali survived there are no harsh consequences.

The Loyalty missions do however impact the story but only Tali's and Legions can be considered absolutely notable and influential. This is probably the only other moment were Shepard changes the galaxy for ever,since his/her choices result in the extinction of the quarians or geth or in a ceasefire resulting in peace.

For a sequel to include those choices the sequel would need to take in consideration what Shepard choose to do on Rannoch. If for example, the Quarians were wiped out by the Geth the sequel would not be able to present Quarians. To actually incorporate these choices in a sequel the Role of the Geth or Quarians would have to be so small that they can be edited out of the game to answer to the Shepard's choice.

Or a huge amount of effort would have to be put into allowing that choice to actually be implemented. As seen from the reveal of Tali's face and the several millions of plot-holes that are present in Mass Effect 2 and 3 and even in 1; the chances of this happening are likely comparable to Shepard learning some actual dance moves.

The scope of consequences that result from the choices in ME 3 are simply too broad, that a sequel would take too long due to its many different endings. And time is money, time that bioware would rather spend on action-style gameplay instead of Role-Play and entertaining story experiences which was the one reason Mass Effect was so succesful and had possibilities.

I don't see a sequel coming anytime soon, and I think and hope that bioware choosed to go for a prequel. And I do hope they can redeem their correct balance between action and story-based gameplay in this prequel.