BioWare Officially Drops Support for Mass Effect: Andromeda's Single-Player

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Staff member
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,003
As rumored, Mass Effect: Andromeda will not be getting any additional patches for single-player or in-game story content. Instead, the Pathfinder’s journey will be expanded upon through multiplayer missions and comics/novels.

Our last update, 1.10, was the final update for Mass Effect: Andromeda. There are no planned future patches for single-player or in-game story content. In the coming weeks, our multiplayer team will provide details of their ongoing support and upcoming content, including new multiplayer missions, character kits, and what’s in store for N7 Day. We appreciate all the millions of people who came with us to the Andromeda galaxy. We hope to see you again in the Mass Effect universe.
 
This has to be one of the biggest debacles/mishandling/botches of a AAA title/franchise that I can recall.

I think the beginning of the end really started with how that ME3 ending fiasco went. Narratively they cratered the series then they lost their way on a development cycle that saw the entire first year go down the tubes when they tried for a No Man's Sky concept and scrapped it... then Anthem...then all the rest of it.
 
The game never suffered from a lack of content in the first place. It's probably too large as-is. If they hadn't implied there would be Quarian content (Flotilla flotilla flotilla flotilla? Flotilla!) there would be no issue.
 
Domingo said:
The game never suffered from a lack of content in the first place. It's probably too large as-is. If they hadn't implied there would be Quarian content (Flotilla flotilla flotilla flotilla? Flotilla!) there would be no issue.
Click to expand...

That would have been their hook for either the next game or decent sized DLC.
 
Domingo said:
The game never suffered from a lack of content in the first place. It's probably too large as-is. If they hadn't implied there would be Quarian content (Flotilla flotilla flotilla flotilla? Flotilla!) there would be no issue.
Click to expand...

Mass Effect: Andromeda

I'll save myself retyping.

TL;DR:

https://www.masseffect.com/news/mass-effect-andromeda-update-from-the-studio

Early in development, we decided to focus Mass Effect: Andromeda’s story on the Pathfinder, the exploration of the Andromeda galaxy, and the conflict with the Archon. The game was designed to further expand on the Pathfinder’s journey through this new galaxy with story-based APEX multiplayer missions and we will continue to tell stories in the Andromeda Galaxy through our upcoming comics and novels, including the fate of the quarian ark.
Click to expand...

That's daft and good luck with that if the plan was always nothing but comics and Apex multiplayer.

At some point I'll read a paragraph or two on wikipedia summarizing the comics and that will be all it's worth.
 
They can guess when will I give any money to them again.

This is basically a big fuck you to the people who did buy and enjoy the game for what it was.

Well fuck them back 1000 times more. I hope they go out of business, and I'm not touching anthem with a 10 foot pole.
 
Q-BZ said:
Mass Effect: Andromeda

I'll save myself retyping.

TL;DR:

https://www.masseffect.com/news/mass-effect-andromeda-update-from-the-studio



That's daft and good luck with that if the plan was always nothing but comics and Apex multiplayer.

At some point I'll read a paragraph or two on wikipedia summaring the comics and that will be about all it's worth.
Click to expand...

I don't believe that to be the case, but I don't get why things like this are making such huge waves. The game is massive. Probably TOO big right now. The people complaining and going on and on about things like this being some sort of death knell for gaming typically didn't buy or play the game. The game mentions Quarians in passing a few times but it's not like there's some giant chunk of the game that feels unfinished because they don't have a Quarian mission. I don't think this is a big deal, but like with everything Andromeda-related, people seem to be flipping out over nothing. The game is massive, polished (thanks to a couple patches), and complete at this point. If I hadn't played the game myself I'd think the game was Dragon Age 2 filled with nothing but social commentary and broken animation. It isn't like that at all.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Q-BZ
like this
NeoNemesis said:
The game suffered from a poor story and boring quests.

It was pretty much the opposite of every ME game that came before it......
Click to expand...
The loyalty missions are pretty good. They're a welcome break from the ho-hum side quests.
 
dark_reign said:
The loyalty missions are pretty good. They're a welcome break from the ho-hum side quests.
Click to expand...

Ya, some of the story missions were actually okay. The problem was that the bulk of the side quests were just fetch quests or scanning quests. Felt oddly MMORPGish.
 
NeoNemesis said:
Ya, some of the story missions were actually okay. The problem was that the bulk of the side quests were just fetch quests or scanning quests. Felt oddly MMORPGish.
Click to expand...
If there was a single MMO rpg that even came close to matching the level of ME:A I'd be playing my ass off with them. If anything DA:I was much more MMO like than ME:A, yet it got tons of DLCs. And was generally well received.
This was for all intents and purposes a PR debacle, it wasn't about the quality of the quests, or the game in general. The whole "1 week free trial before release" was a poor decision. Because this way many people who were never even interested in the game, who didn't know what to expect, got their hands on it.
That's why the entire animation thing got blown out of proportion, and Bioware was ill equipped to handle the bad pr. There were poor animations in all three previous games as well. It's inevitable when you're animations are not hand made, but procedural.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Q-BZ
like this
I'm suddenly even more glad ("Gladder?" "GLaDOS?") that I haven't purchased this.
 
Yeah I feel sad for hopping on the bandwagon that gave the finger to this game. After watching walk-throughs, it's really good. Not the best ME game but pretty good after the 2nd one. This is how I felt after I gave Firefly the cold shoulder and then became a fan.
 
Thank all that I hold dear for CD Projekt Red for filling the void that BioWare's purchase by EA has filled. It is truly disgraceful what has happened to BioWare.
 
fadedlogic said:
Thank all that I hold dear for CD Projekt Red for filling the void that BioWare's purchase by EA has filled. It is truly disgraceful what has happened to BioWare.
Click to expand...
Well, let's just wait for Cyberpunk 2077 before saying that, ok?
 
GDI Lord said:
Well, let's just wait for Cyberpunk 2077 before saying that, ok?
Click to expand...

I agree with this sentiment. While the Witcher may take the place of Dragon Age for many, they don't have anything in the same vein as Mass Effect. I'm not big on the fantasy genre stuff so the Witcher does nothing for me. I'm not generally big on Cyberpunk but I have to say that Cyberpunk 2077 does look good.
 
I'll say I did enjoy the game when it worked, however with the sheer amount of game breaking "not the cosmetic issues" bugs that shipped in release and are still active in 1.10 is bound to leave a bad taste in anybody's mouth. -- Honestly enough for me to raise a stink saying I want a free copy of the novels/manga/whatever after having had pre-ordered the Deluxe Edition.

However I'm one that'll agree with what some others have said, EA probably did a cost analysis on potential gains vs costs for patches & DLC for ME:A and determined they probably would cut even at very best and take a substantial loss at worst... I know one of the bug report threads I was reporting on along with individual bug reports got HUGE...
http://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Report...ME-A-feel-free-to-add-anything-I/td-p/6010303

Another thing I saw posted somewhere, people were basically stating any other field if a product was delivered in this condition it would have been subject to massive recalls... I don't want to see Bioware crash & burn by any means, but it'd be nice if we'd get the product we were promised we'd get.
 
So now I'll never know how the story arcs from all those unattractive people with incredibly uninteresting personalities pan out.

Vetra was the only character worth a damn. She gets things done, looks after her sister, and never whines.

Everyone else could be shot out an airlock and I wouldn't give two craps. Except maybe the Krogan, because Krogan threaten irritating people and I like that.
 
I don't know how EA let Sega wrestle out NBA Live with the 2k series, but they tend to hate non-Madden type of games that they can't make minor updates to and release every year. This was in the making.
 
PhaseNoise said:
So now I'll never know how the story arcs from all those unattractive people with incredibly uninteresting personalities pan out.

Vetra was the only character worth a damn. She gets things done, looks after her sister, and never whines.

Everyone else could be shot out an airlock and I wouldn't give two craps. Except maybe the Krogan, because Krogan threaten irritating people and I like that.
Click to expand...

Drak and Vetra were definitely stand out characters. There is no question that they were the most interesting squad mates in the new game.
 
Jaal is actually funny as hell when you're just driving around. Yet whenever anything plot-related happens he gets super solemn and uptight. It's almost like they had 2 different personalities in mind for him.
I didn't love any of the characters in Andromeda, but then again I don't think I cared for many characters in the previous games either. Garrus is probably the only one who wasn't consistently annoying.
I didn't mind the Krogan until I realized that they're literally all the exact same character. Quarians can all die in a fire.
 
Domingo said:
Jaal is actually funny as hell when you're just driving around. Yet whenever anything plot-related happens he gets super solemn and uptight. It's almost like they had 2 different personalities in mind for him.
I didn't love any of the characters in Andromeda, but then again I don't think I cared for many characters in the previous games either. Garrus is probably the only one who wasn't consistently annoying.
I didn't mind the Krogan until I realized that they're literally all the exact same character. Quarians can all die in a fire.
Click to expand...

You weren't paying attention if you think Drak is the same as Wrex or Grunt.
 
Dan_D said:
You weren't paying attention if you think Drak is the same as Wrex or Grunt.
Click to expand...

Other than the "I'm too old for this shit" schtick, Kesh is the only thing differentiating them and it's not like she's that big of a part of his storyline. Krogans have all been flat characters and are borderline interchangeable with Dwarves in most fantasy games. Half the time I expect one of them to bust out "I need a sling and some strong dwarven ale!"
 
I'm just picking up ME:A after a few months after getting ramroded with work. It really got a bad wrap it doesn't deserve. The content is immense, graphics are excellent, and it does have that "ME feel". On the other hand, the character design and animations (even after the fixes) are uite simply off-putting. Some of the dialogue is laughably bad, like the writers were intentially trying to be bad.

At the end of the day, it's an enjoyable game. Not the levels of awesome of the original, but still worth a romp. That's just me though... but I enjoyed Dragon Age 2 (mostly due to the excellent writing and VA).

A shame there won't be more content. Really hope ME:A hadn't killed the IP.
 
  • Like
Reactions: M76
like this
Flexion said:
I feel ya man, but in all likelihood we'll probably end up buying/playing that as well. XD
Click to expand...
Then you don't know me very well. I'm not into MMOs. (And that's the understatement of the century)
 
I find this amazing. Outside of Mad Max (which I strangely enjoyed while most panned it) I cannot think of a single AAA single player based game not having some story DLC in the past few years. If maybe this flopped as hard as MoH Warfighter I'd understand. I know ME:A was not received very well and that is well deserved, but the game was far from horrible and I can't imagine it sold that poorly. You think there would be some room for DLC profits.

M76 said:
They can guess when will I give any money to them again.

This is basically a big fuck you to the people who did buy and enjoy the game for what it was.

Well fuck them back 1000 times more. I hope they go out of business, and I'm not touching anthem with a 10 foot pole.
Click to expand...

As long as there is a good sequel I wouldn't mind too much. I'm becoming annoyed with DLC for story based games. By the time it comes out I forget the controls, finer details of the story, or have to load an older save and continue. By the time I relearned how to be efficient in Dishonored's DLC the it was already over.

But yes, the Quarian ark would have made a nice DLC campaign. Suppose a sequel can cover it.

M76 said:
Then you don't know me very well. I'm not into MMOs. (And that's the understatement of the century)
Click to expand...

Agreed. I hate half-assed story games that force you to play co-op. The stories end up sucking and it becomes a grind fest. Either make a proper MP game (like Battlefield) or a proper SP campaign. Or a simple co-op experience such as L4D. Just don't make one of those half-assed middle of the road things they are peddling these days.
 
Ok EA, you better be working on a 4K upgrade of the original ME trilogy at least. With ALL the DLC. For $30. I'll be waiting right here. #FemShep4Kawaits!
 
Domingo said:
The game never suffered from a lack of content in the first place. It's probably too large as-is. If they hadn't implied there would be Quarian content (Flotilla flotilla flotilla flotilla? Flotilla!) there would be no issue.
Click to expand...

If you compare it to their other games, it does lack story content. It's definitely smaller than Inquisition in that regard. I played that right before I played this game. There's the other content, like crafting, skills, etc, that's been tossed in. So more content, but for the most part. Completely useless.

You'll unlock and upgrade skills. The rest of it, you probably won't touch. You get your armor and probably never bother changing it. Maybe upgrade weapons, not that I could tell any difference between a II or IV of the same weapon anyways. I don't remember what the other thing was called. Like different class changes or whatever. I swapped once and just swapped back.

I enjoyed the game, but I treated it more like an open world game. In the same sense as GTA or Saints Row. Doesn't feel like an RPG at all and even if it's considered one. It failed at properly ending the story.
 
It's a matter of time before BioWare gets fully assimilated and everything that's not of value becomes discarded.
 
Flogger23m said:
I find this amazing. Outside of Mad Max (which I strangely enjoyed while most panned it) I cannot think of a single AAA single player based game not having some story DLC in the past few years. If maybe this flopped as hard as MoH Warfighter I'd understand. I know ME:A was not received very well and that is well deserved, but the game was far from horrible and I can't imagine it sold that poorly. You think there would be some room for DLC profits.
Click to expand...
I also liked Mad Max very much. But at least that felt as a complete experience, I never thought how good it would be to have an expansion. But for ME:A I've had a constant feeling that they're holding back on the story wherever I turn. The mysterious benefactor, the missing arks. And a ton of other things. Instead of turning it into a 80 hour grind they could put more story in it. I'm pretty sure that they planned at least 3 major DLCs for it as it became usual with ME2 / ME3.

As long as there is a good sequel I wouldn't mind too much. I'm becoming annoyed with DLC for story based games. By the time it comes out I forget the controls, finer details of the story, or have to load an older save and continue. By the time I relearned how to be efficient in Dishonored's DLC the it was already over.

But yes, the Quarian ark would have made a nice DLC campaign. Suppose a sequel can cover it.
Click to expand...
That's the thing. I don't think there will be a sequel either. If there will be another Mass Effect game, and that's a huge if. Then it will probably be another reboot. If they think DLCs had to be scrapped due to the poor reception why would they think a sequel is in order?


Agreed. I hate half-assed story games that force you to play co-op. The stories end up sucking and it becomes a grind fest. Either make a proper MP game (like Battlefield) or a proper SP campaign. Or a simple co-op experience such as L4D. Just don't make one of those half-assed middle of the road things they are peddling these days.
Click to expand...
My thinking is that make an SP game, always. Then it can have a multiplayer mode similar to BF, but a multi only game is no game to me, it's a tech demo. FU Q3A*. You ruined gaming for me for good. As the first game to completely drop multiplayer. After Q2 having one of the best SP FPS campaigns.Including expansions.

*I know UT was released a few days prior to Q3A, but the Q3 tech demo alpha thing came out way earlier than the UT demo if I remember correctly.
 
GDI Lord said:
Why did you have to remind me about my beloved Westwood Studios?

And Origin?

And Maxis?

And Lucasarts?

And Bullfrog?
Click to expand...

I miss so many of the great studios and the experiences they gave. Westwood's Kyrandia series was great, Bullfrog's Magic Carpet was awesome (Terrain deformation pre-3D acclerators!), Cavedog, Dynamix, Looking Glass, and on and on. So many great memories and now that I'm old most new games are no longer magical and generally just throw-aways.
 
I played the game through once and I gave it a very good chance, did as many sidequests as I could even though it started to be physically painful towards the end. As a Mass Effect fan I TRIED to love it, but now I kinda wish I could get that time back and just plough through the mainquest only. The only good thing in this game were graphics (especially with HDR) which look mindblowing and the space exploration atmosphere was great, it really did feel like Mass Effect in that regard. But otherwise the game faceplanted in every. single. thing that really mattered. Characters and writing were pure b-grade bullshit (Vetra and Drak not included, they were clearly above par), Ryder siblings especially I grew to hate and less I speak about the other humans + Peebee the better. The enemies (and therefore the mainquest) was bland. Sidequests, while ridiculously numerous, were nothing but fetch MMORPG stuff in DA:I style. The only somewhat memorable sidequest was the movie night thing but that is only because of the pay off (even though that glitched hilariously in my game, probably making it even more memorable). The journey to the payoff was just as boring as the other sidequests though.

*sigh* I deleted the game, savegames included, after that one playthrough. I have no hope for the future of the Mass Effect series and clearly neither does EA. Its done. Good night and time to look forward to other franchises.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top