Based on whatever little has been shown in both the E3 and the San Diego Comic-Con events this year, we can very well see that Mass Effect 4 will no longer continue the past stories of Commander Shepard of ME3, and none of his companions will return again in the new installment, except the Krogans and the Humans.
This, explains Bioware, is because fans appear to expect the next installment to "go forward" instead of acting as the prequel of ME3. And it still remains unclear to many at what time "after" ME3 is the story set to start, and everyone is hoping that it will not be too far into the future.
It has also been hinted at the San Diego Comic-Con that in the new installment, cooperative multiplayer would still be an option, and that the Mako buggy would be faster and sleeker.
The E3 trailer seems also to suggest that the new gen will be set in a different region of space, which should be good news to all who complained about ME3's universe.
But what little we know about the developments is due to the fact that studio director Yannick Roy has tweeted that they are still "in the middle" of the development, which has led everyone to count the days: if the design has started in the late part of 2012, then they should finish the development sometime October 2015.
But nothing seems to be final yet until now because even BioWare Community Manager Chris Priestly himself seems to still not have the clearest idea on when the next game is coming out.
But interestingly an Amazon release date was detected (which has since been removed), and the website gives a surprisingly way earlier date than October of next year. If the deleted Amazon posting is to be believed, the release date for PS4 and Xbox One will all be on December 31, not of 2015, but this year.
