Mass Effect 4 Launching In 2014 Or 2015

Don't expect the next Mass Effect game to arrive in 2013. ME3 producer Mike Gamble says that they're planning to release Mass Effect 4 (or whatever it's called) in late 2014 at the earliest.

Gamble cautioned GamerSyndrome that the game might not arrive until mid-2015, though. It's still too early to say. BioWare only started full development about a month ago.

In November, BioWare revealed that BioWare Montreal would be taking over lead development duties. The previous three games were created primarily at BioWare Edmonton. The Montreal studio, created in 2009, contributed to ME2 and ME3. They were responsible for the recent Omega DLC for the latter game.

The only other information we know for sure about the game is that it uses the Frostbite 2 engine that appears in Battlefield 3. Previous Mass Effect games were powered by Unreal Engine 3. This technology, developed by DICE, will also be appearing in BioWare's other upcoming project Dragon Age 3.

The plot of ME4 isn't known yet. BioWare has indicated in the past that they might do a prequel. Last month, executive producer Casey Hudson asked fans whether they'd prefer a sequel or prequel, which suggests that BioWare hasn't decided yet.

Gamble said in the GamerSyndrome interview that additional details on the next Mass Effect will be released next year. There's less than three weeks to go until 2013 so we could be hearing more about ME4 very soon.

Update: A spokesperson for EA has informed us that no one at BioWare or EA spoke with GamerSyndrome. They added that the interview was "completely fabricated." The original interview, meanwhile, was removed. GamerSyndrome, for their part, says that the article came from an "inaccurate source" and they're currently investigating.