BioWare: "We're Definitely Not Done with Mass Effect"

Megalith

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Mass Effect: Andromeda may have dealt the franchise a damaging blow, but BioWare general manager Casey Hudson is confident the series is far from finished. Speaking with Polygon in a studio profile, Hudson, who directed the originals, said Mass Effect was “very much alive": “I’m thinking all the time about things that I think will be great. It’s just a matter of getting back to it as soon as we can.” He was joined by Anthem executive producer Mike Darrah, who shared similar thoughts.

“We’re definitely not done with Mass Effect," says Darrah. "There’s a lot of stories to be told. We could pull on the threads we put down with Andromeda; we could pull on threads from Mass Effect 3. There’s a lot of interesting space to be explored.” The report suggests that the Frostbite engine may have been partly responsible for BioWare's Andromeda struggles. RPG systems had to be constructed from scratch to support the kind of story-driven game BioWare is famous for. The studio has since invested in advanced performance capture technology for Anthem.
 
Good... Andromedia got shit on way more than it deserved. I'd agree it was a low point in the franchise but it was still a great game. To this day, I still can't fathom how poor facial animations killed that game, especially when there are still games coming out years later with facial animations that aren't any better. It was otherwise gorgeous, especially in 4K HDR, and made for a decent third-person shooter and an equally passable RPG. My only main complaint was that the plot seemed a little silly, especially when there was so much unexplored lore from the original trilogy. They didn't need to reboot it in a new galaxy. I would love to see a Mass Effect game surrounding the first contact war, or even something that predates human contact. Maybe set something in Prothean times? There is so much potential here. As one of my all time favorite franchises, I'm eager for more.
 
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Good... Andromedia got shit on way more than it deserved.
Eh, the lack of total leadership and questionable ethics of the team leads kinda validated the outrage after the fact. Seriously those idiots wasted enough money to fund a triple-A game before they even started laying down level design.

Pretty much Bioware requires Hudson. Biowares problem is also Hudson. If he can't produce they don't really have anyone to carry the torch atm.
 
Good... Andromedia got shit on way more than it deserved. I'd agree it was a low point in the franchise but it was still a great game. To this day, I still can't fathom how poor facial animations killed that game, especially when there are still games coming out years later with facial animations that aren't any better. It was otherwise gorgeous, especially in 4K HDR, and made for a decent third-person shooter and an equally passable RPG. My only main complaint was that the plot seemed a little silly, especially when there was so much unexplored lore from the original trilogy. They didn't need to reboot it in a new galaxy. I would love to see a Mass Effect game surrounding the first contact war, or even something that predates human contact. Maybe set something in Prothean times? There is so much potential here. As one of my all time favorite franchises, I'm eager for more.

Agreed, I know they wanted a clean slate, but there have to be a million stories which could be told in the Milky Way still - far from the events of the other games. Galaxies are big.

And maybe, MAYBE, write the personalities of your crewmates in a way that doesn't make me want to kill them all in their sleep. FemGarrus can stay, she was cool. The rest - get in the airlock.
 
The animations and triggers where horribly broken in MEA, moreso than any other triple a game I've played since. The ones that come close are all on frostbite in my experience, luckily I don't buy those games.

That being said, there was a diamond buried in MEA, some of the environments where absolutely stunning (though nothing compares to the tutorial planet) and the story did get interesting in the final act, it just took to damn long to get there.
 
Devs need to hire good writers and build the game around the plot, not the gameplay. How many ways can you shoot something? You need to pull a player in emotionally through experiences, it will have much more meaning, put the player in a movie. The best games I've played succeed at this if only partially.

Games need to get much harder, not just by making npc's bullet sponges. We need tactics, complex skills and thought out strategies to succeed.

STOP with the politics, focus on the desires of a core audience, stop trying to appeal to every group. Let them make their own games. When the whiners complain on your forums, ignore them.
 
Good... Andromedia got shit on way more than it deserved. I'd agree it was a low point in the franchise but it was still a great game. To this day, I still can't fathom how poor facial animations killed that game, especially when there are still games coming out years later with facial animations that aren't any better. It was otherwise gorgeous, especially in 4K HDR, and made for a decent third-person shooter and an equally passable RPG. My only main complaint was that the plot seemed a little silly, especially when there was so much unexplored lore from the original trilogy. They didn't need to reboot it in a new galaxy. I would love to see a Mass Effect game surrounding the first contact war, or even something that predates human contact. Maybe set something in Prothean times? There is so much potential here. As one of my all time favorite franchises, I'm eager for more.

Yeah. If Bioware took 1 or 2 more weeks to patch up Andromeda, it wouldn't have been crushed by all that internet hate, and we might've actually gotten DLC to flesh out the story.

I think one potential problem with a ME prequel is that the available tech and mechanics might be seen as a "regression" from the original games. Human biotics, for example, didn't even exist during the first contact war IIRC, and lots of iconic weapons wouldn't exist yet, among other things. This isn't the case in Star Wars (where technological development seems rather stagnant) or the Borderlands/Halo prequels that were basically part of the original timelines.

As for a ME set in a different cycle, I remember reading that AAA developers are afraid to make games without humans (or rubber forehead aliens).




Anyway, I'm just sad that the next ME game is so far off... Sounds like the developers don't even know what direction it will go yet, and Bioware has to get through Anthem and Dragon Age, at the very least.
 
Yeah. If Bioware took 1 or 2 more weeks to patch up Andromeda, it wouldn't have been crushed by all that internet hate, and we might've actually gotten DLC.

I think one potential problem with a ME prequel is that the available tech and mechanics might be seen as a "regression" from the original games. Human biotics, for example, didn't even exist during the first contact war IIRC, and lots of iconic weapons wouldn't exist yet, among other things. This isn't the case in Star Wars (where technological development seems rather stagnant) or the Borderlands/Halo prequels that were basically part of the original timelines.

As for a ME set in a different cycle, I remember reading that AAA developers are afraid to make games without humans (or rubber forehead aliens).




Anyway, I'm just sad that the next ME game is so far off... Sounds like the developers don't even know what direction it will go yet, and Bioware has to get through Anthem and Dragon Age, at the very least.
As a compromise, they could have set a game in the Protheans' cycle, and made the player be Jaavik.

I actually think the answer is to set the next one in the aftermath of the Reaper War, and make several of the original cast playable characters. The cataclysmic destruction of the relay network would give them an excuse to rework as much of the prevailing technology and biotics as they want, and using several playable characters would allow them to push the player to try different play styles. I just don't want them to give up on Mass Effect, though. As others have said, I didn't think Andromeda was that bad - it was better than the first Mass Effect, I thought, if not necessarily better than 2 or 3.
 
The Trilogy of this universe was great indeed. Even the ending of the last of the 3 was pretty nice to me. Let's see what they can do in the future to make up for the Andromeda flop. They will try much harder for sure now that they know that critics are harsh when the fail to connect the player with his favourite series is clear.
 
I actually think the answer is to set the next one in the aftermath of the Reaper War, and make several of the original cast playable characters. The cataclysmic destruction of the relay network would give them an excuse to rework as much of the prevailing technology and biotics as they want, and using several playable characters would allow them to push the player to try different play styles. I just don't want them to give up on Mass Effect, though. As others have said, I didn't think Andromeda was that bad - it was better than the first Mass Effect, I thought, if not necessarily better than 2 or 3.

Yeah, that would work. Bioware would have to get over their fear of "choosing an ending," but they have plenty of time to do it.

I think there's plenty of potential in the Andromeda galaxy too. They don't have all those fantastic milky way characters to fall back on, but they could go the ME2 route and just fabricate a whole new subplot with new characters if they want to escape MEA's story.
 
Good... Andromedia got shit on way more than it deserved. I'd agree it was a low point in the franchise but it was still a great game. To this day, I still can't fathom how poor facial animations killed that game, especially when there are still games coming out years later with facial animations that aren't any better. It was otherwise gorgeous, especially in 4K HDR, and made for a decent third-person shooter and an equally passable RPG. My only main complaint was that the plot seemed a little silly, especially when there was so much unexplored lore from the original trilogy. They didn't need to reboot it in a new galaxy. I would love to see a Mass Effect game surrounding the first contact war, or even something that predates human contact. Maybe set something in Prothean times? There is so much potential here. As one of my all time favorite franchises, I'm eager for more.

It could have used another six months of dev time to iron out its glitches, but you are right it was overly bashed, I enjoyed it quite a bit. It reminded me of the first Mass Effect.
 
Interesting, because if anthem flops, BioWare is done entirely as a company.

They will be disbanded.
 
Been on the sidelines for six years after kicking Reaper ass. I'm ready to get back in action anytime. (y)
 
Honestly I didnt mind Andromeda's concept. Makes sense. Need a clean slate? go somewhere totally new. And really the story had a lot of promice. In the beginning at least

the execution of that was what was terrible. I do hope they end up finishing the DLC, or continuing that story. Preferbly with a better outcome than the original.

that being said, they arent truly going to get around making a good mass effect till they decide what happens at the end of 3 and go with it.
 
Interesting, because if anthem flops, BioWare is done entirely as a company.

They will be disbanded.

I found Andromeda boring, added in with the BioWare fighting with the community over political correctness makes me regret the $20 I paid for it. Anthem so far to me feels like 3rd person Destiny 2 and I’m all Destiny’d out (played and loved the first, 2 just felt like the 1st’s late game loot grind right from the start, which is what Anthem feels like). With that in mind, I’m not going the be heartbroken if they disappear, maybe other companies might be less enthusiastic about dictating social issues to their core gamer base wrapped around a loot grind fest and calling it a game.
 
Here's hoping Bioware improve their animation skills. Andromeda appeared to have taken a few pages out of Gary's Mod.
 
I found Andromeda boring, added in with the BioWare fighting with the community over political correctness makes me regret the $20 I paid for it. Anthem so far to me feels like 3rd person Destiny 2 and I’m all Destiny’d out (played and loved the first, 2 just felt like the 1st’s late game loot grind right from the start, which is what Anthem feels like). With that in mind, I’m not going the be heartbroken if they disappear, maybe other companies might be less enthusiastic about dictating social issues to their core gamer base wrapped around a loot grind fest and calling it a game.

Hard to be that choked up, Bioware really died during ME2's development. They've been fading ever since.
 
I loved ME1 and ME2... really worried that if Anthem doesn't do as well as EA expects Bioware as a whole will be killed before anything else in the ME universe can be made. EA has a history of buying successful studios, forcing them to make dodgy money grabs that flop, then closing them (Bullfrog, Westwood, Maxis, Pandemic to name a few).
 
Game maker: "Here's some horse shit."
Gamer: "Hey, thanks ... (munch munch munch). "This may be horseshit, but it's great!"
Game maker: Glad you like it, plenty more where that came from."

they don't make games to be fun and creative anymore, they do it to satisfy the investors. It has become a matter of profits. Hence, the "wow" factor is gone and it all seems to be about eye candy graphics

Here's a few Q's worth pondering:

- what happened to having a good story line?
- why are they still putting out a game in 2018 where the characters have play dough hair?
- why did the audio content/quality royally suck?
- Playing Andomeda is like this: wash, rinse, repeat ... wash, rinse, repeat. Did your experience(s) with this game differ from this?
- Why did they permanently drop all DLC and updates just months after releasing the game?

IMO ME Andromeda had nothing to do with the ME series (aka the main character [Ryder] was anything but a Shepard type character). The game ought to have been released as a game totally disassociated from the ME series.
 
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Good... Andromedia got shit on way more than it deserved. I'd agree it was a low point in the franchise but it was still a great game. To this day, I still can't fathom how poor facial animations killed that game, especially when there are still games coming out years later with facial animations that aren't any better. It was otherwise gorgeous, especially in 4K HDR, and made for a decent third-person shooter and an equally passable RPG. My only main complaint was that the plot seemed a little silly, especially when there was so much unexplored lore from the original trilogy. They didn't need to reboot it in a new galaxy. I would love to see a Mass Effect game surrounding the first contact war, or even something that predates human contact. Maybe set something in Prothean times? There is so much potential here. As one of my all time favorite franchises, I'm eager for more.

Agree completely - I didn't finish it to be fair, because I found the story convoluted. If they had actually done better with the story, focused more on the key arc of their survival instead of letting it ramble as much as it did, it would have been a great game.

I was guilty at the time of slamming it more than it deserved if I'm being honest - but upon reflection, I have to say that I enjoyed it in many ways and I was overly harsh.
 
Agree completely - I didn't finish it to be fair, because I found the story convoluted. If they had actually done better with the story, focused more on the key arc of their survival instead of letting it ramble as much as it did, it would have been a great game.

I was guilty at the time of slamming it more than it deserved if I'm being honest - but upon reflection, I have to say that I enjoyed it in many ways and I was overly harsh.

If you didn't finish ME:A because the story sucked then the game failed at everything Mass Effect should be. It is the story and characters that made ME games tick (despite clunky gameplay at the times) and ME:A failed to deliver on both fronts. The facial animation whoopsie was embarrassing but not the reason why people hated the game, it was just an easy target to shoot to air out their dissatisfaction with the game.

Personally I played it through once but I had to force myself to do it, the last half was a pain. Except the final battle, that was pretty cool.
 
ME:A is the "The Last Jedi" of the ME universe. Leia's magic unconscious flying is an easy target for ire, but it was just an outlet for overall frustration with what seemed like creators taking a dump on the originals.
 
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