Almost buried in the enthusiasm for the remastered version of the "Mass Effect" trilogy was the announcement that "a veteran team is envisioning the next chapter in the Mass Effect universe." Almost.

That announcement came with the above teaser image titled "Mudskipper," and Bioware's Casey Hudson tempered expectations by adding, "We are in the early stages of the project and cannot say more yet," but of course, this juicy fruit The race to extract the tiniest bit of meaning from this juicy fruit had, of course, begun.

RPS thought this was nothing short of confirmation of Andromeda 2. But it is worth pausing to consider what "early stage" might mean. As the sharp-eyed ggo65 noticed, two of the four silhouettes are inverted versions of the "Mass Effect 2" menu characters.

Now look at the silhouette on the left. This appears to be a slightly modified version of the key art for Jaal, a character from Mass Effect Andromeda. The Jaal are Angara, a race that is interestingly unique to the Andromeda galaxy.

I'm not sure what the silhouette on the far left of the teaser is other than human, but this is another silhouette that fans of the series might recognize. The question is why release a new title with art that incorporates old assets; it's hard to imagine that Bioware doesn't already have a large amount of pre-production key art for this obscure title. In fact, Casey Hudson released new concept art on N7 day last year.

If you really want to read the tea leaves of the silhouettes in the new teaser image, you can see them as constructed code for what the team is aiming for: many "Mass Effect" fans, including myself, consider "ME2" to be the best of the trilogy, and we're not surprised that the team is working on the Andromeda" and especially the homage to Jarl, which seems to support the film's space cowboy vibe. And Jarl was bloody brilliant.

As I said, I liked "Mass Effect Andromeda" despite its flaws.

The only final note is the name "Mudskipper." This probably refers to the ship in the photo, also called the X-28. Also, the surface of this planet appears to be a bit muddy. However, it is possible that the Mudskipper is used to showcase the dual nature of the new game, which is a sequel to "Andromeda" but in the spirit of the original trilogy: the Mudskipper is an amphibious fish and can live both in the sea and on land.

Okay, I've spent too much time thinking about this image. If anyone needs me, I'll punch the journalist who did my job (i.e. myself) in the face.