The existence of a new Mass Effect game has not been kept a secret. Bioware have openly spoken about it several times before, but have unsurprisingly been pretty vague. Now, though, the game has a name – Mass Effect: Andromeda.

The new game is going to take place a long time and a long way away from the events of the Mass Effect trilogy, so while Shepard’s tale may very well be referenced don’t expect the man or woman himself or herself to make an appearance.

“While we aren’t ready to go into too many details just yet, as you saw in the trailer and can tell by the name, this game is very much a new adventure, taking place far away from and long after the events of the original trilogy. You will play a human, male or female, though that’s actually not the character you saw in the trailer (more on that later). You’ll be exploring an all-new galaxy, Andromeda, and piloting the new and improved Mako you saw. And through it all, you will have a new team of adventurers to work with, learn from, fight alongside of, and fall in love with.”

The trailer gives us a pretty brief glimpse of the game, confirming the existence of the Mako and hinting at another alien threat to combat, but that’s about it.

“We built this trailer in Frostbite, our game engine, and it represents our visual target for the final game. We are thrilled by what we’ve already been able to achieve in bringing Mass Effect to Frostbite and by putting our entire focus on PC and current gen consoles. With the time remaining in development, we’re excited about the possibility to push things even more.”

Speaking of development time Bioware say the game will arrive sometime in holiday 2016, so there’s a bit of waiting to be done yet.

Playing devil’s advocate for a moment Bioware and EA honestly screwed the trailer up as it could be used for pretty much any other sci-fi title. It’s some guys in armor with power weapons, and as we all know while the combat in the Mass Effect series did get considerably better the games were never about the fighting.

Still, putting that aside the Mass Effect trilogy created some of my favorite moments from the last generation, and seeing the N7 logo sent a giddy wave of fanboyism down my spine. Ahem.