As development on Mass Effect 5 apparently continues amid EA's current buyout, one question floating around is whether or not Commander Shepard would make a return. Should they do so, the voices that brought the character to life would be more than happy to reprise the role.
Both Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer, Shepard's female and male voices, respectively, did an interview responding to fan enquiries on Fall Damage, and it didn't take long before the possibility of coming back popped up. "I like to think Shepard is alive in all of our hearts," Meer comments, with Hale responding: "Shepard is alive if you make it so."
She then encourages people to contact the "powers that be" - EA and BioWare - to request some more of the Normandy's finest captain. "We will be there, because we should not go," she adds. "I would be there with bells on if they offered for me to play Shepard again."
Meer wouldn’t be far behind. "I agree, but only under any circumstances," he says in typically tongue-in-cheek manner.
Bringing back Shepard presents some narrative quandaries for the developers. Depending on what you chose over the course of the original Mass Effect trilogy, they may or may not be around any more, and if they return, the devs would be making at least one of the endings more canonical than the others.
In theory, anyway. There's always the conceit of cloning or using tech like cryogenics, or placing events somewhere on the timeline where Commander Shepard is just around normally. The possibilities are there, is what I'm saying. Given the tumultuous state of the industry, I'm happy more Mass Effect remains feasible, and if the trilogy's fateful protagonist remains involved, all the better.
