Mass Effect 4 is on the way and seems to be taking the franchise back to its roots after the initially disappointing reception of Mass Effect: Andromeda. The upcoming title's trailer hints at a return to the Milky Way, returning companions like Liara T'Soni, and perhaps even the survival and return of Commander Shepard as the game's player character.

Earlier this year, BioWare's former Development Director, Dorian Kieken, discussed an abandoned Han Solo-inspired spin-off which would have seen players explore the Mass Effect universe from the perspective of a smuggler or thief. While it's likely that not all of this idea can be salvaged for Mass Effect 4, there are some great lessons the new game should learn from the cancelled concept.

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No matter how someone looks at it, Commander Shepard is a classic heroic archetype. If players decide to go down the Paragon path, as the vast majority of Mass Effect players did, hepard is an unwavering and virtuous do-gooder in the style of Superman, Optimus Prime, or Captain Picard. If they go down the Renegade path, they're more in-line with Dirty Harry, but their ultimate goal still remains to save the galaxy while taking any necessary steps they believe they must. Players can control Shepard's means, but ultimately not their ends. They can be a hero or an anti-hero, but never truly a villain.

Shepard is also a commander throughout the games, and is already respected at the start of Mass Effect 1. Though there are higher powers from the Alliance Navy to the Citadel Council and the Illusive Man, Shepard is unambiguously in charge of their ship and their squadmates. Even when Shepard begins working for Cerberus during Mass Effect 2, the character is never really made to do anything morally compromising in exchange for the faction's support beyond being associated with Cerberus to begin with.

The cancelled Han Solo-inspired Mass Effect game would have focused its story around a character who broke heroic archetypes in a few ways. Like Han Solo, this doesn't mean that the character would have been anything close to a villain in their story. Rather, it would have focused on someone who doesn't have the power and freedom operate on a purely "heroic" level. It's likely, for example, that this protagonist wouldn't have been a commander in any sort of power structure like the Alliance Navy that would reward them with prestige and rank for their deeds. Unlike Commander Shepard, they would have been a normal person in the Mass Effect galaxy.

This would have allowed the storytellers to explore a completely different side of the Milky Way depicted in the original trilogy. While Omega is undoubtedly a Star Wars-style wretched hive of scum and villainy, Shepard's presence there is also one of a total outsider who is in turn feared or respected by the characters they meet. The spin-off's protagonist would have been integrated into this less palatable side of the galaxy, not part of a structure like the Alliance Navy which would allow them to preside over it.

"It's a bit like exploring the Star Wars universe without being a Jedi," Kieken explained. "Think of the story freedom you have in TV series like The Mandalorian or Firefly thanks to mercenaries or smuggler character archetypes." Like the characters found in Kieken's examples, the spin-off's protagonist would have also been able to explore a different perspective on some of the organizations and characters seen as heroes in the original trilogy. Far from a force for pure good, they might have seen the Systems Alliance and the Citadel Council as a part of a bureaucratic and corrupt status quo insistent on extending its laws across the entire galaxy.

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If Shepard doesn't end up being the protagonist of Mass Effect 4, the game should explore a character who has led a very different life in the Mass Effect universe. Part of the reason Ryder, the protagonist of Andromeda, didn't work as well as Shepard is because they also fulfilled the same heroic archetype.

If Mass Effect 4 is going to have a new player character, it needs to allow players to roleplay as a completely different kind of person if that protagonist is going to flourish in their own right. The difference should be situational, not personal. This kind of situational difference also raises another possibility. In the Mass Effect 4 trailer, Liara finds a piece of N7 armor which hints at Shepard's potential to return as Mass Effect 4's protagonist. The general philosophy of Mass Effect 4 so far seems to be returning to the series' heights in terms of settings and characters, so Shepard's return would not be surprising.

However, Shepard could now find themself in a wildly different world to the one they thought they'd left behind at the end of Mass Effect 3. It seems unlikely that the Citadel Council still exists after the discovery that the Citadel itself was a ploy to summon the Reapers from Dark Space. This may have created a deep distrust in any centralized galactic governments, which in turn may see the authority of forces like the Systems Alliance significantly undermined, and perhaps even met with outright separatist opposition.

Not only that, but Shepard may be an outcast met with suspicion after the events of the last few games. Nobody knows what took place in the final moments of Mass Effect 3 except for Shepard. Some people may distrust Shepard, and the writers could even make allusions to fan theories like Indoctrination Theory when explaining the change in public opinion.

However it's done, the protagonist of Mass Effect 4 should have a very different relationship to the galaxy and its systems of power than Shepard did in the original trilogy. Even if Commander Shepard returns, they could find themself living a very different life in the wake of the Reapers' defeat. Mass Effect 4 may be returning fans to familiar settings and characters, but it needs to do so with a completely fresh perspective.

Mass Effect 4 is currently in development by BioWare.

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