@Joupena Defiant humans causing trouble sounds like Cerberus and as I said awhile back they aren’t gone just because there founder is, seeing as their companies are still active and there are many who still believe in their cause.

Reaper tech is still abundant so that pose a problem given the destructive potential of it.

The Jardaan is basically the Protheans of Andromeda so don’t I see them appearing.

How are the kett suppose to be a threat when they seem to only have drive core capable of system travelling and an invasion force that got bested by a expeditionary force?

Doubtful Reapers is still a thing if the Catalyst/Harbinger has been destroyed. Could be defiant humans. (Those are always a thing.) Could also be the yahg have emerged from their system, or new MW species have come to light. Given the chaos of the Reaper War, any new species might react aggressively to unexpected 'alien' encounters. Hopefully, Shepard and the mortal crew are long-retired, and this all becomes the next protagonist's problem.

If Veilgaurd is any indication. It'll be goofy and cartoonish, tons of modern politics, even more dumb down gameplay, and a heavy importance on romances simulation and sex.

It is already goofy seeing as it is a space opera. They have always put high emphasis on Romance. There are tons of politics Playing a Soldier it had dumbed down gameplay compared to some other classes.

That business with David Archer was more ghoulish than goofy. Friendships and romance had a moderate priority. Politics were relevant to the game setting, not products of modern day DIE/ESG/Virtue activism. Gameplay was not restricted by that vacuous Frostbite FPS engine that is emphatically *not* made to handle an RPG. If DA:Ve is any indication, the engine's *still* incapable despite years of evident battle to coerce cooperation, but the limitations will be no-doubt whitewashed as 'tactics'.

As we know, Dragon Age is the next Bio-Big-Thing anyway, so speculation on the next ME is a bit premature at this stage.

What do you mean it was goofy? I've played the games for over a decade. Mass Effect trilogy was far from a "goofy" series. Look at the marketing and how they treated the games like a space epic and the reapers were a lovecraft cosmic horror. Everything was taken seriously, yeah you had stuff like the Citadel dlc which was a fun little goofy story, but the base game was very serious.

Side note, I'm not complaining about romances in fact I love having romances in games, but they weren't the focus before and now when I hear quotes or interviews, Bioware is always saying "The romances were very important to us, we needed to have sex and nudity, it's a priority." Like okay, cool, im for it but like tell me armor variants were important or side content, idk, gameplay.

The dialogue was a bit goofy with everything from a toothbrush to emergency induction port and this isn’t mention some of the Romance lines. What I’m saying is that if something is goofy it can still be serious and vice versa. It can even be good thing

Both lines of dialogue are found in the aforementioned Citadel DLC. Tho I'll grant you that the toothbrush was in the base game when you meet Traynor - but ultimately leads to nothing.

There's a difference between having Commander Shepard saying a one liner like "How about goodbye" and having a vacation on the Citadel during a reaper invasion. Both things are goofy, but are completely different in tone, theme, context, etc.

The difference being the Citadel DLC was a love letter to the companions and fans of Mass Effect, the launch of Mass Effect 3 was rough and this was a way to please people with a less then serious storyline with jokes and various comedic skits that were birthed from the memes and common jokes built from the games prior. Garrus wasn't made with the intention of being obsessed with calibrations - he was a fan favorite character everyone wants to talk to in ME2 and when you run out of dialogue options he defaulted to "Can it wait, I'm in the middle of some calibrations." This become a meme in the fandom and the developers rolled with it.

Goofiness can be a great way to relieve tension, and let both characters and players throttle-down between the life-or-death moments. That's likely why the last few Bioware games have included group-Wicked-Grace and team-movie-night interludes in the late game. It can be a Good Thing when implemented appropriately, but there also has to be some high tension or other horror/terror to balance the silly.

^ Exactly!

It's one thing to have cool badass characters you've grown to love be goofy or make one liners later on in the game or in a DLC. I won't argue that. But my issue is when you force identity politics, cartoonish art styles, and too much jokey banter - it makes the world feel less real and more like a parody.

I think perfect examples of modern RPGs that got it right are Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur's Gate 3. Both games have goofy stuff, but the games are not goofy themselves. Cyberpunk is a dark and depressing social commentary on modern society in America/the world, and Baldur's Gate (while doenst have an overarching theme or message) is a dark medieval fantasy with adult themes and characters that deal with religion, slavery, etc.

The concepts and overall vibe of these games are more than deserving of their M-rating, while Bioware just hasn't given me a reason to believe they'll deliver on what came before (not yet). I'm hopeful Veilgaurd will change my mind, but the art style and character designs lead to believe otherwise.