'Mass Effect 4' Release Date Set For 2016: Massive Gameplay Improvements By BioWare

Ever since "Mass Effect 3" was launched over two years ago, gamers have been eagerly awaiting the next instalment, but its BioWare makers seem inclined to launch it only sometime in 2016.

The latest news about the release of "Mass Effect 4" was based on a tweet made by gaming industry guru Shinobi602 who said the game will definitely land in 2016.

Shinobi602 said BioWare made large-scale improvements to its action RPG and this will help in speeding up the game's development, according to a Play Station Universe report.

BioWare reportedly started working on the game with 50 people on its development team. That number had now been doubled, which points towards the game being ready by next year.

The last official news about "Mass Effect 4" came out last year when studio director of BioWare Yanick Roy mentioned that the game was in development and that it was "somewhere in the middle."

According to Roy, designing of "Mass Effect 4" started about 18 months ago. This could place the start date of the game somewhere in the latter half of 2012. Given that Roy mentioned "middle," that meant adding another 18 months which puts the completion date for the game somewhere in October 2015.

However, most industry sources believe that completion of a game does not mean it will be ready for release. It could take several more months before it would be ready, which meant that gamers could expect it to land sometime in the second quarter of 2016.

Last year during Comic Con, Mike Gamble, a game producer, described some details about the game's characters. He said the main hero would be human. He added that the six-wheeled vehicle named "Mako" would make a reappearance. However, Gamble made it clear that the game was still in development and that he is not sure if new characters and vehicles will finally find a place in it.