The Mass Effect series has delivered so many incredible moments and worlds to gamers ever since it began back in 2007. Three iterations later, Mass Effect has easily become one of the most popular series in the gaming industry today.

Next up in the universe of Mass Effect is the highly, highly anticipated game Mass Effect Andromeda. The series hasn’t seen a new iteration since 2012, and by the time Andromeda releases it’ll easily be sometime during 2017.

Needless to say, gamers are extremely excited for what has yet to come in the Mass Effect franchise and the possibilities seem endless for what developer BioWare could be cooking up next. BioWare Creative Director Mac Walters talked about how our own planet is one of the great sources of inspiration for life on planets we have yet to travel to in Mass Effect Andromeda.

“There are so many amazing things on earth. We’ll look at some images of a glowing cave somewhere in the world and be like, ‘That exists? That’s here on Earth?’ and then we tweak it a little bit, and now it’s alien, right?

Earth is the solar system in Mass Effect Andromeda (Courtesy of EA).

“Sometimes it’s just a colour-shift, or we might look at some of the plants hidden in the Amazon that were discovered in the last year, or something like that. We use all that inspiration, because you need to balance the relatable with the original. I think that’s usually the process that we go through - we start with something grounded, then push it a bit further until we get something unique,” Walters told OXM via DailyStar.

Inspiration comes from all sort of places for creators and artists, and it’s quite interesting to learn that Earth is a source for the developers at BioWare. You might think the high-hanging fruit for inspiration sits outside of our planet, but it turns out that Earth has more to offer than you might think.

Mass Effect Andromeda is scheduled to launch during the first half of 2017, though the game was delayed from the Holiday 2016 time period we heard about during 2015. If I were a betting man, I would say Mass Effect Andromeda is going to be released during the Fall 2017 time period, but then again, the last two Mass Effect games were released during the early part of their respective years.

Hopefully Mass Effect Andromeda will be released during the early part of next year because if folks have to wait much longer, there may be an “Occupy BioWare” that takes place in Montreal, Edmonton, and Austin. Lastly, can I get a Mass Effect: The Collection released on PS4 and Xbox One?