Look. I’m all for a new world.

But there’s nothing wrong with building on a good, existing constructed world, too. They can do both. You mentioned publishers that did that quite successfully, at the top of this thread: Owlcat, Paradox, and especially Larian.

It’s also quite practical from a development perspective. It’s easier to pitch to get funding, they already have lore experts on the team, mechanics they don’t have to invent from scratch.

I’m just not buying that Mass Effect is a “dead end.” It’s a great setting, there’s tons to explore, and they’ve already broken away from the main trap of being stuck with Sheperd. Halo is a bit different not because they wrote themselves into a corner (which ME aid also guilty of), but that they utterly refused to leave it, amongst other things.

I will say that I think BioWare just deteriorated.

…There’s no getting around that, whether they start from scratch or not.

I have the same opinion of Halo. I vividly remember forming it upon playing Halo 4, with how cheesy it felt.