Well, it looks like this about settles it: Electronic Arts’ online story briefly showed a listing for Mass Effect 3, which seems to confirm BioWare’s big game reveal at tonight’s Spike TV VGAs will indeed be the third entry in the series.
Unsurprisingly, the listing wasn’t up long before EA took it down (the link now directs to an empty listing marked “TBD”), but not before screen-captures could be taken of the few details the listing revealed (via Joystiq). As the listing revealed, Mass Effect 3 will once again pit Commander Shepard against the Reapers, and this time (cliché alert!) …the fight comes home. As the plot description reads:
Earth is burning. Striking from beyond known space, a race of terrifying machines have begun their destruction of the human race. As Commander Shepard, an Alliance Marine, your only hope for saving mankind is to rally the civilizations of the galaxy and launch one final mission to take back the Earth.