Upcoming AAA/AA CRPGs or story-based RPGs

[payn]

Mass Effect 5 - In production

BioWare - Sci-fi, continuing in the ME universe. We've had trailers and teasers suggesting this is a post-Destroy-ending take on Mass Effect, and featuring an older Liara, as well as images of fancy Spectre in a long coat (the job/role Shepard had).

IDK, if I should want this after Andromeda. Sounds like its 2029 at earliest anyways

 

[gban007]

I like the Trails series, JRPGs but I think pretty good the ones I've played, and always seems to be one coming up, though gets confusing with lag between Japanese release and English release, and at least one remake coming up, which makes it tricky to specify a title that may fit.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

IDK, if I should want this after Andromeda. Sounds like its 2029 at earliest anyways

Andromeda was screwed by three factors that this project isn't being.

1) It wasn't made by BioWare Edmonton, but a then-new and inexperienced (and since-deceased) sub-studio, BioWare Montreal.

2) They spent 3.5 of the 5 years it was in development basically making Mass Effect-themed No Man's Sky (before NMS), before BioWare (Aaryn Flynn would have made the ultimate call, he left in like 2018), decided they just needed to make a more "normal" Mass Effect game, and they had to do it real fast. So they repurposed the assets and gameplay they already had, very quickly wrote a script (which clearly didn't get many passes, it's full of the artefacts and oddities which suggest it was a fairly unpolished draft), and slapped a game together in 18 months.

3) During the 1.5 years they were trying to work on the "final" game, BioWare Edmonton, who were working on Anthem, kept poaching their writers to come and write stuff for Anthem. Clearly there was also a recognition that this had caused a problem, because some Edmonton people were sent down to help on Andromeda later on, but probably too late to have much impact.

This was all reported on a fair bit by Jason Schreier.

It's honestly shocking they did as well as they did given the timeframe (and small-for-AAA budget of $40m - which covered all 5 years). The combat gameplay was particularly good, but the story/setting were just not where they needed to be, and the open-world-ish bits weren't great.

Whereas Mass Effect 5, which has been in official pre-production since 2023, and has had concept art and even video teasers since like 2019, and is being developed by the full BioWare Edmonton team, with no distractions. Apparently pretty much everyone has moved on from DAV, which was always planned as a one-and-done, no DLC game.

Re: release date, I do think 2029 is probably realistic, because BioWare are moving from Frostbite (which DAI, MEA, Anthem and DAV all used) to Unreal Engine 5 (this is kind of a return, because ME1-3 used Unreal Engines of that era), which usually adds some time. 2028 isn't out of the question, but it wouldn't be early 2028.

The only things we "know" about it so far (i.e. can be deduced from trailers/concept art/comments - bolded the only outright stated ones) are:

1) It features a Spectre protagonist.

2) It won't have stylized visuals like DAV.

3) Liara is in it.

4) It seems to be set probably hundreds of years after ME3, quite likely after MEA, even.

5) It's set primarily in the Milky Way galaxy (not Andromeda)

6) It's set after the "Destroy" ending of ME3 specifically, which was the most popular one by some margin, and particularly tended to be people's choice on first play-through.

7) The protagonist does not appear to be Shepard (but we of course cannot rule out "sci-fi shenanigans" where by we might be a clone, semi-clone, android/cyborg replica, have Shepard's memories implanted, be possessed by Shepard's space ghost or something similar).

8) Early concept art had MWG and Andromeda species together.

9) Slightly later concept art appears to show Relays being rebuilt, possibly by Cerberus or a successor-organisation to them (given how they/the ships are painted).

10) Later concept art still shows Geth immobile/disabled but perhaps not permanently destroyed.

There are some pretty consistent fan theories but I won't detail them unless there's interest.

 

[payn]

Andromeda was screwed by three factors that this project isn't being.

1) It wasn't made by BioWare Edmonton, but a then-new and inexperienced (and since-deceased) sub-studio, BioWare Montreal.

2) They spent 3.5 of the 5 years it was in development basically making Mass Effect-themed No Man's Sky (before NMS), before BioWare (Aaryn Flynn would have made the ultimate call, he left in like 2018), decided they just needed to make a more "normal" Mass Effect game, and they had to do it real fast. So they repurposed the assets and gameplay they already had, very quickly wrote a script (which clearly didn't get many passes, it's full of the artefacts and oddities which suggest it was a fairly unpolished draft), and slapped a game together in 18 months.

3) During the 1.5 years they were trying to work on the "final" game, BioWare Edmonton, who were working on Anthem, kept poaching their writers to come and write stuff for Anthem. Clearly there was also a recognition that this had caused a problem, because some Edmonton people were sent down to help on Andromeda later on, but probably too late to have much impact.

This was all reported on a fair bit by Jason Schreier.

It's honestly shocking they did as well as they did given the timeframe (and small-for-AAA budget of $40m - which covered all 5 years). The combat gameplay was particularly good, but the story/setting were just not where they needed to be, and the open-world-ish bits weren't great.

Whereas Mass Effect 5, which has been in official pre-production since 2023, and has had concept art and even video teasers since like 2019, and is being developed by the full BioWare Edmonton team, with no distractions. Apparently pretty much everyone has moved on from DAV, which was always planned as a one-and-done, no DLC game.

Re: release date, I do think 2029 is probably realistic, because BioWare are moving from Frostbite (which DAI, MEA, Anthem and DAV all used) to Unreal Engine 5 (this is kind of a return, because ME1-3 used Unreal Engines of that era), which usually adds some time. 2028 isn't out of the question, but it wouldn't be early 2028.

The only things we "know" about it so far (i.e. can be deduced from trailers/concept art/comments - bolded the only outright stated ones) are:

1) It features a Spectre protagonist.

2) It won't have stylized visuals like DAV.

3) Liara is in it.

4) It seems to be set probably hundreds of years after ME3, quite likely after MEA, even.

5) It's set primarily in the Milky Way galaxy (not Andromeda)

6) It's set after the "Destroy" ending of ME3 specifically, which was the most popular one by some margin, and particularly tended to be people's choice on first play-through.

7) The protagonist does not appear to be Shepard (but we of course cannot rule out "sci-fi shenanigans" where by we might be a clone, semi-clone, android/cyborg replica, have Shepard's memories implanted, be possessed by Shepard's space ghost or something similar).

8) Early concept art had MWG and Andromeda species together.

9) Slightly later concept art appears to show Relays being rebuilt, possibly by Cerberus or a successor-organisation to them (given how they/the ships are painted).

10) Later concept art still shows Geth immobile/disabled but perhaps not permanently destroyed.

There are some pretty consistent fan theories but I won't detail them unless there's interest.

Thanks for the update. Im still not feeling confident about it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Thanks for the update. Im still not feeling confident about it.

I don't think anyone will be until it's less than a year from release and we're seeing actual footage (and of talking, not just shooting), honestly.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

The third game in the Horizon Series (Horizon I: Zero Dawn and Horizon II: Forbidden West) has been in development for as much as almost two years now and could come out some time in 2026.

Also, don't forget that any game companies that did not get an exemption from the Union will have their games delayed because of the Voice Actors Strike, if they did not already have the dialogue recorded before the strike started at the end of July.

 

[Reynard]

The third game in the Horizon Series (Horizon I: Zero Dawn and Horizon II: Forbidden West) has been in development for as much as almost two years now and could come out some time in 2026.

Also, don't forget that any game companies that did not get an exemption from the Union will have their games delayed because of the Voice Actors Strike, if they did not already have the dialogue recorded before the strike started at the end of July.

Horizon games are amazing, but they are definitely not CRPGs.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Horizon games are amazing, but they are definitely not CRPGs.

They are both on PC. And the title says "or story-based RPGs" and I consider them action-RPGs with strong stories.

 

[Reynard]

They are both on PC. And the title says "or story-based RPGs" and I consider them action-RPGs with strong stories.

I don't think they are RPGs, but I admit that the definition is fuzzier than it has ever been.

 

[MarkB]

I don't think they are RPGs, but I admit that the definition is fuzzier than it has ever been.

They're not significantly less so than Mass Effect or The Witcher, both of which are listed in the OP. And they're definitely story-focused games.