Mass Effect: Andromeda Articles and Combat Gameplay Video Series, Part Two
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Mass Effect: Andromeda has about a month till its release on March 21-23, 2017, but we're already getting some previews from a number of outlets, both PC and console-centric. The general impressions seem to be cautiously optimistic with a mention of performance issues, attributed to the pre-release build.
IGN:
Based on what I played of Mass Effect: Andromeda, I don’t think people who haven’t played the original Mass Effect trilogy will have any issue understanding what’s going on. Meanwhile, there’s clearly plenty to chew on for returning Mass Effect fans. Expect plenty more Mass Effect: Andromeda coverage soon on IGN.
I went into the Andromeda preview feeling trepidatious. I came out excited and anxious to play more. Most important is that it feels like Mass Effect, and it looks like it’s building on the best aspects of the previous games. Speaking with Condominas, it’s clear this is their aim. “The trilogy had a narrative constraint, but when we start from scratch, when we don’t have that story anymore, our first reflex was to say ‘what are the best elements of all three games that we can bring and put together’. So obviously the exploration, the Nomad, all those notions are from Mass Effect 1; the loyalty missions from Mass Effect 2 and the character bonding; and the more action based gameplay of Mass Effect 3. We tried to bring all that together. But they were three different games, suddenly having to balance that into a single game… It takes five years.”
After more than four hours of playtime I left Andromeda feeling like I had barely brushed an omni-tool over its surface. Crucially, though, it felt convincingly like a Mass Effect game. I enjoyed Dragon Age Inquisition, but after five years of waiting for a new Mass Effect chapter and a fresh start for the series overall, BioWare needed to do more than just transpose its Frostbite template for fantasy gameplay into the sci-fi genre. Andromeda's combat, characters and stories thankfully hold up.
And, excitingly, much of Andromeda remains a mystery. I got a glimpse at a couple of spoilery moments in the game's early plot but its overall storyline is still shrouded in secrecy. (And you can click here to read more than a dozen other, more nerdy bits of Mass Effect Andromeda information I couldn't squeeze into this preview). I'm curious what happened to the Andromeda Initiative's other arcs, to find out about all the new factions I met. I still have no idea about the Remnant race or its creators and I'm intrigued by Ryder's own family story. I'm also itching to experiment properly with the game's combat - and even to try out the game's co-operative multiplayer mode, which we were not able to sample. But, most of all, I want to spend more time with its characters - and simply see where this new adventure takes us. And that, to me, sounds a lot like Mass Effect.
After two hours with Andromeda, I feel like I have about as many questions as I went in with—and it’s a surprising number of questions, considering we’re just a month from launch. I still don’t feel like I have a good grasp of what Andromeda is, as a whole.
Yeah, it’s Mass Effect. Space opera, lots of dialogue, lots of shooting. But is it going to be good? Hard to say. I definitely have some worries, especially in a post-Inquisition world, and all I can hope is that Andromeda’s got a better idea of what matters and what’s in the way.
The graphics were, no doubt, impressive. But just to be clear, we were playing on some high-end PC hardware, so we can’t really judge how the game looks and plays on the PS4 or the PS4 Pro. If it matches these PCs, we are all in for a visual treat. Character detail and animations were lifelike enough that I was able to read the lips of the characters, and as someone who is very hard of hearing and an avid lip reader, having the mouth movements match the spoken word in a video game is a rare feat.
Mass Effect Andromeda is set to release on March 21 in North America, followed by its European release on the 23. Developer BioWare has taken a risk by taking a well-known franchise and creating new characters and a new story arch, all the while sticking to what fans of the series have come to love. It seems like the risk may have paid off and this is one space adventure that should be on your radar.
This is its own game. Instead of the Renegade and Paragon options during dialogue, players choose the type of tone they want to give. It’s more nuanced and befits a game where players need more than two options. The same can be said for Sara and Scott Ryder’s looks. Players have more freedom to give them wilder appearances (yellow hair with purple lips anyone?) because they aren’t exactly soldiers.
Despite these differences, “Andromeda” still has some core elements from the trilogy. Players will still have allies and they can power them up and unlock special abilities by completing loyalty missions. The Tempest resembles the Normandy in some ways, and it serves the same function ferrying the crew around and housing them. Players will face difficult choices and that will impact the overall narrative.
But Gamble said that players shouldn’t expect this to be another trilogy. He said the team wants to see the player response to this and go from there. Unlike the previous game, there’s no overarching plan. It sounds like the future of “Mass Effect: Andromeda” is still unknown. It’s unexplored territory and players will be able to venture forth into it March 21 on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
We came away very impressed by the action elements of Andromeda and are hopeful for the role-playing. And although we still have relatively little to go on in terms of the characters and story the less binary dialogue choices seem to be an improvement. It’s been a long time since the last Mass Effect but Andromeda looks like it’s going to be worth all the waiting… and the secrecy.
On top of the preview, Metro has a lengthy interview with, supposedly, BioWare developers. And while the insistence on only using cryptic initials to mark both the questions and the answers give a vibe of a cheesy diary where one doesn't dare to use the full name of their secret crush, you can read a rather lengthy talk about Mass Effect: Andromeda's story, characters, and The Witcher 3, of all things. Some detective work led me to conclude that GC stands for DJGameCentral, the handle of Metro's writer, and FC is Fabrice Condominas, the game's producer. JC is still a mystery, however. Might as well be John Cleese or JC Denton, for all I know. An excerpt:
GC: You had Dragon Age: Inquisition after Mass Effect 3, but what games have you been looking at from other companies? I imagine probably The Witcher 3?
JC: Yes, totally. Even the original The Witcher. We definitely keep an eye on other games, and we’re not shy of mentioning it because we’re gamers. It’s no secret that the BioWare team are hardcore gamers. We are RPG fans and all that. We never see them as competition. Someone asked whether the regain of interest in space games, with Destiny and all of those games, was a problem for us. And I said absolutely not. We’re actually terribly happy with that.
Another thing that we love, is that even if we look at a game like Uncharted or FIFA 17 what we love about the industry right now is that the quality of the writing is going up. Which pushes us. Because for years and years maybe we were known for the quality of our dialogue and writing, and we were kind of setting the bar. And the fact that the industry is now pressuring us to get better is absolutely great.
So what we look at depends. So, for example, for combat we’ll look at Destiny and Overwatch. Obviously we’ll play that. Narratively we’ll look at the latest Uncharted and Tomb Raider, for example. And then we’ll go more indie to understand how you can pass on an emotional message. That Dragon, Cancer and Inside – that kind of indie game. So it’s quite a broad range.
Finally, the official Mass Effect YouTube channel has a new character trailer, showing off a 4-minute chunk of gameplay.
