The director of Mass Effect says that the next game will not feature Veilguard-style aesthetic changes: 'Mass Effect has always been photorealistic, and it will continue to be so as long as I am running it.'

Two days before the release of Dragon Age The Veilguard, BioWare's leading developer tells us what to expect from the next long-awaited revival of its series. Michael Gamble, the project director for the next Mass Effect, spoke to X yesterday about what we can expect when we return Citadel space.

In a series tweets, Gamble revealed that as The Veilguard launch approached, he had been answering questions about the direction BioWare is taking with Mass Effect. Gamble did not give any specifics but said that players shouldn't expect Mass Effect will reinvent itself the same way as Dragon Age.

"Both come from the same studio, but Mass Effect remains Mass Effect. Gamble said that the way you bring a scifi RPG to live is different from other genres or IPs, and requires a different kind of love.

The timing of Gamble's statement is a little odd. While he avoided mentioning Veilguard’s aesthetics in his first tweet (at least), I have a difficult time reading the post other than as an attempt to say "hey, our long awaited sequel won't overhaul its visual style, like our studio’s other long awaited sequel which made people on the Internet very upset."

In our Dragon Age The Veilguard Review, we found that the game's lavish high fantasy visuals were one of its strongest points. The stylized reworkings of the Dragon Age look have been a hot topic of discussion since the first official Veilguard Trailer, which made some of us think the sequel looked like a hero shooter rather than a BioWare RPG.

Gamble's first tweet didn't include any comparisons with Veilguard's visual overhaul, but it took him only 20 minutes to respond to replies that did. Gamble responded to another X user who asked him not "Pixar me like you guys did with DA" by tweeting "Mass Effect is photorealistic, and will remain so as long as I run it."

Gamble returned to the stage a few hours after his initial appearance to elaborate on Mass Effect's tone. Gamble said that Mass Effect would maintain the mature tone from the original trilogy. "This is what I'm going to say for now."

Me, I am at a neutral position on Veilguard; honestly, I think that many disgruntled Inquisition fans remember it as being closer to Dragon Age Origins than it was. As for Mass Effect, I don't care what it looks like as long as the execution is good. I mostly hope Wrex is still around somewhere.