Andromeda takes place in 2819 so anytime before then.

there is nothing saying that they couldn’t take plot threads from either Andromeda or Mass Effect 3 and incorporate them in future games except that it would require a huge timeskip if they were to Link em together.

According to the game, less than 1% of the Milky Way has been explored. It's possible that the entire relay network could have been mapped when the Big Shot was fired. Plenty of excuse to go scouting new places. Leave the Kett and Angara in Andromeda/Helius and lets start with a clean slate of brand new aliens.

@Shenachie We know of two newcomers them being the Yahg and Raloi which respective first contact didn’t end well. I think there wont be anymore species to encounter atleast of sapient variety.

@Lethal blade00

No, the yahg were not amenable to peaceful cohabitation of the galaxy, but the raloi seemed open to future contact and were only frightened off by the Reaper threat. The point was that with so much of the Milky Way left unknown, as well as the possibility of the entire relay network being mapped, there are *plenty* of places to see, (new) people to meet, and things to do 'at home' - without time-distorting galaxy-hopping required.

@Shenachie The salarians planned to secretly uplift the yahg and use them to further their initiatives with full deniability in a similar manner as the Krogan. Their pack mentality is What makes them unfit to be integrated in galatic society since concepts such equality is offensive to them but at the same time that mentality can be used against them to keep them in line.

@Thehumaneldar

The reasons I say that ME Andromeda should be non canon stretch beyond just the fact that "it was a failure".

It makes absolutely no sense.

In order to travel between nebula clusters in Mass Effect, you require a Mass Relay to warp you between relay points, turning what would be a trip of a few decades (or millennia in the case of a trip across the galaxy to the opposite end) into a few hours.

Humanity had just entered the galactic community within less then three decades. We discovered that the galaxy was not lonely but home to literally dozens of alien lifeforms and many habitable planets to make colonies on.

Even though we had jumped forward heavily thanks to the knowledge gleaned from the Prothean Archive on Mars, we were barely on par with the other species in the galaxy in terms of technology.

The Andromeda Initiative makes absolutely no sense given the context of the Mass Effect universe lore because ---

• A human proposed the project and the galaxy views Humanity as greedy and ignoble newcomers who have yet to gain the trust of the people.

• The project to build the Nexus and the Arks would be astronomical money dumps that investors would shy away from due to the fact that there are no returns to be made from such an endeavor.

• The Andromeda Initiative's pitch of "Too many people, not enough worlds" is ludicrous since every species has gathered a wide berth of colonies, and Humanity was still discovering new worlds to make colonies on.

• Without the use of a Mass Relay, the Nexus and Arks SOMEHOW made it to the Andromeda galaxy within a thousand years; which makes no sense seeing as Andromeda is 2.537 MILLION Light Years away from our own galaxy.

Andromeda requires us to ignore the galactic politics and the technological limits established in the main trilogy of games in order to allow MEA to be a game.

Honestly, it feels like someone at BioWare had pitched Andromeda at a meeting, and then someone said it had to be a Mass Effect game in order to boost sales off of brand recognition.

To put Andromeda on a smaller scale, imagine growing up and finally moving away from your parent's house. But instead of choosing a rental close and in your city, or just moving to a new city nearby to attend university and pay rent; you instead chose to take an overly expensive journey by car and boat across the planet to the opposite end in order to rent out an apartment.

Just for the sake of "New Frontiers".

In this scenario it is just one financially incompetent guy.

The Andromeda Initiative is literally just shy of 6,000 people making the decision to to galaxy hop rather than go to a safe colony world.

@Lethal blade00

The yahg are also allegedly *very* intelligent. There may not be enough known about them, to assume what - if any - psychological tactics "can be used against them to keep them in line". However, that bit of intel could also lead quite well into the salarians becoming a problem for the next protagonist. :)

@Shenachie The salarians may not be a problem since they would probably have worked out something to keep them in line like they have done previously.

@Dreux Phoenix, the problem here is the matter was explained. Yes, Humanity is considered the new dog and isn’t the most popular. But they are not so unpopular to not get support from the other races. Yes, the initiative was expensive. The money came in via a Shadow Broker Type figure. There is not much in the galaxy to explore. Yes, only one percent of the Galaxy is charted, but that one percent is enough to guess what the rest of the Galaxy is. But even if what is left sounds enough to you, it doesn't prove that going to Andromeda can’t happen. It wasn’t thousands it was six hundred. And they reached it by having enough fuel and power to reach that distence and keep people in Cryo till arrival.

And the idea is absurd how? Not staying in your local community and jumping the shark is more common then you think.

Tldr:No, Andromeda is part of MassEffect universe. Deal with it-)