Bioware's Mac Walter has already hinted at what lies next for the Mass Effect series in the wake of the trilogy's conclusion.
But in a new interview with comic book site Newsarama about his year-long story arc on tie-in comic Mass Effect: Foundation, he was asked about returning to the universe in videogame form.
"I think 'challenging' is the biggest word. We've been saying for four or five years that the trilogy would be Shepard's story and it would end with Shepard, there'd be a definitive end to it.
"It's kind of like in Mass Effect 2 when we said, we'll let you kill off all these people and yeah, it'll cause problems for us later, but let's not worry about it! Then we got to Mass Effect 3 and said, "oh no, what have we done?'"
While the team haven't said exactly when this new story is to take place, Walter at least acknowledges that it could well be set within the same time frame as Shepard's arc... or they could do a Star Wars and skip the timeframe back or forward.
"Obviously, it's a huge universe," he explained. "There are so many different places you can tell stories. Even within the timeframe of when Shepard was alive, if you want to stay in that era there are tons of stories to tell. Then there are times before Shepard, there are times after Shepard, there are other places in the universe."