Although it has recently been revealed that a team at BioWare's new Montreal outfit have been dispatched to develop the next game in the successful Mass Effect franchise, it seems their plans for the game itself are much less committed so far.

Confirming that they're yet to even lock in a narrative, Mass Effect producer Casey Hudson recently took to Twitter to ask fans whether they'd prefer the new game take place as a sequel to the original trilogy, or a prequel (via Eurogamer):

"Parsing through your thoughts on the next #ME game. Would you be more interested in a game that takes place before the trilogy, or after?", he wrote.

A game set earlier in the series' history may come into conflict with already-established canon. We already know how the human race got to the start of the Mass Effect series (they found a mass relay inside Pluto's moon, fought the turians and got given a nice swanky office on the Citadel).

A game set later in the series' history would have to tackle Mass Effect 3's various ending choices, which leave the galaxy in varying states of repair.

It's not the first time BioWare has asked fans their thoughts on the next Mass Effect game, but word that the developer has yet to choose a time-setting is another sign that development is still in its infancy.

Previous comments out of BioWare Montreal have confirmed that Mass Effect 4 is being built on the Frostbite 2.0 engine technology, and will involve gameplay changes, with some mechanics being adopted and shared with BioWare's Dragon Age development team.