4:20 That's exacty what EA did. Bioware actually wanted to use the Ureal 4 engine for Mass Effect Andromeda, after all the issues they'd had with the Frostbite 3 during the development og Dragon Age Inquisition. The reason for this was most likely because EA didn't want to pay for Ureal 4, when they have an inhouse engine, that can be used for free. So as usual it's a matter of money.
UE4 in right hands of developers can be modified to suit their needs and is very stable and fast if done right. I am sure for some special deal Bioware would had priority support from EPIC to ensure overall stability and well working animation system. EA is cancer of game industry, i even miss Command & Conquer series.
It now weirdly sounds like the story of Andromeda is an allegory for its development: a highly skilled team braves unknown territory in pursuit of a new beginning, only to be derailed by unknown technology, lose their leader, face a split opinion as to how they should proceed, and be left scattered and scrambling to put together something that resembles the original vision. The Kett are a pretty clear representation of EA, on a conquest to make everyone the same, crushing their individuality with the misguided belief that it will make them stronger. By the end the Initiative *is* in a pretty good position and they've established a good foundation, but it's clearly not what was intended: just as Andromeda *is* a pretty good game, and sets up well for any future games, it's just nowhere near the game we (and the devs) wanted. The fact that story work began so late into development (after a lot of the shit had already happened) makes me think these parallels aren't necessarily a coincidence.
Shameful project management, but holy crap - if the foot soldiers at Bioware Montreal created this game in eighteen months, they deserve a bloody medal. It must be truly heartbreaking for them after all the long hours, stress and personal sacrifices, to be destroyed by gamers and critics. And let's not start about the vicious personal attacks against some animators.... they were set up to fail. I think the Mass Effect lore is so deep and interesting, and fans so loyal that they would have waited another year (or more!) for Bioware to get it right. But I guess those in charge weren't prepared to bankroll it anymore. It's just a real shame.
Let's not avoid the fact that too many key people left. Casey Hudson in other words the father of ME left early. Looking back now the original trilogy was his baby and Andromeda was something else entirely. A lot of og bioware writers who also worked on KOTOR left as well. I can't help but think that this 'new' bioware just couldn't deliver. There was Paesano's soundtrack as well that was really mediocre. Soundtracks are so so so important and we went from the trilogy's which was better than most movie soundtracks to this. Just overall a drop in talent for sure.
Parniij you're right about that almost every single article about Mass Effect Andromeda was different people leaving Casey Hudson on one article then I saw a lead designer guy leave then I saw the Maine development guy leave heck I saw one guy on an article that read he went to go work at Bungie to go develop Destiny 2 that's why I'm hoping Destiny 2 ends up being really good it's just upsetting because this was going on for five years this reminds me of the messed up situation that LucasArts went through
Sean McClelland I thought with mac walters at the helm the game could be saved seeing as he was a key trilogy writer. Obviously not. People had different opinions about Casey Hudson. It could be pointed out that he was responsible for the ME3 ending blunder but so what. That was one mistake. He was so important. You can tell he was passionate about the franchise and the whole genre just by looking at his twitter. Kinda sad how things turned out.
Rasha M the thing is I don't think bioware are good at story telling anymore. A lot of key people left long ago. Obviously there's the big one; Casey Hudson in other words the father of ME leaving. But also several writers who were also responsible for games like KOTOR. The og bioware have moved on and it left a writing/production vacuum and that imo is why the game fell short.
Rasha M Don't really rate Mac at all but I didn't hate Andromedas story. ME has never been the same without Drew Karpyshyn though and Patrick Weekes (now lead writer on DA) is a big loss to ME as well.
After hearing/reading this info I am really happy that we got the game first off, secondly I want to give a huge shout out to the devs that put in taxing hours and a lot of pressure from higher up to bring us another Mass Effect game. It may not be what it was meant to be but it is something to continue work on if they get the backing, and I hope they do! Again, big praise and shout out to the devs that worked on this.
Well, knowing what we know now, in the post-No-Man's-Sky world, I'd say BioWare was _stupid_ for floating the "We'll have hundreds of explorable procedurally generated planets!"-idea. That's a grade schooler's futurist fantasy of what games could be - I would know, I _was_ that grade schooler! So it's surprising to hear that an actual game designer came up with that. Even if the technology would allow us lots of convincing looking procedural planets (and it doesn't, they'll look samey) and you figure out how to dot them with interesting bits of content (which nobody has yet done without _boring everyone to death_ ), you still have NO GAME. At best, you have the environment for a sim; the skeleton for something like Elite Dangerous. And no one has ever managed to cram a tight singleplayer story with choices, consequences and party interactions in such a game. What demented lunatic went about making a new ME game by choosing a framework that's utterly inimical to what BW is known for (worldbuilding, storytelling and characters)?! And then they wonder why Andromeda ended up having half a fresh idea for every 50 hours of gameplay - because the devs spent 3 years making Star Citizen.
I enjoyed Andromeda. 99% completion and enjoyed my time spent. I beat it before a lot of the bug fixes, but i look forward to seeing the improvements once they have a DLC or expansion.
@Max Bardus, personally I LOVED the vaults! I really felt like I was exploring an incomprehensible alien catacomb and all the visuals were stunning! I just felt like they could have made these HUGE vaults so much more explorable!
Will there even be a DLC when the team was spread over others Studio ?I mean bugs and fixes sure but a whole DLC? I dont think it will come since it is on halt.
ugh but the thing is even bioware knows it wasn't that good. they could do soooooo much better with out ea but with support behind ea' s vision for bioware games we will never get the master peices we used to have.
With the Mass Effect IP going on -ice- _hiatus_ , the studio responsible for it being downgraded to a support role and most of the devs being shuffled around, I don't think there will ever be any DLC; I think we'll be lucky enough if the multiplayer portion of the game hangs on until next year. I'd love to be proven wrong. I'd really do.
I feel awful for the average Bioware employee, putting in crunch time with a game engine that clearly didn't work for them and then getting no respect for their efforts. Having said that I am upset at EA and the higher ups at Bioware for looking at the early reviewer and saying " we know the games not finished but we'll still get an 8 out of ten so screw it, lets make people pay seventy dollars and fix it up later". Releasing an unfinished product is never okay. For the record I really enjoy Andromeda after the latest patch came out I started playing again, it's just depressing to see all that untapped potential.
People seem to state their opinions about Mass effect: Andromeda in terms of “it’s a good game” or “it’s a bad game”. I thing a more accurate way of putting my feelings at least, would be that it is a game with good combat and vehicle segments of game play. However it’s not a game that feels like a mass effect game, or a bioware game for that matter. It’s a game with shallow story and one-dimensional characters. The Kett are a lot like ME2’s Collectors in how they serve the plot, but they fail to have the same impact. There is no sense of threat, no feeling of narrative dread. When characters talk about the Kett it feels more like they’re the villains in a teen movie, where they are the rival team or douche-bag kids who thinks they own the ski mountain. The despair, terror and exhaustion that should be everywhere, leading up to the reveal, and the horror that should come after, are barely given lip service. That is to say, the threat and horror of the Kett are referred to often, but without the narrative weight of emotion to make me believe characters mean the dialog they say. When the reveal happens it’s supposed to be earth shaking and horrible, but in the mission it happens the reveal isn’t built up to, it’s telegraphed, so it lands with no narrative weight or emotional effect. When it happened and my feeling on the matter wasn’t “Oh My God!” but “well no shit, can this cut-scene end so I can get back to shooting stuff?” I realized how disappointing the main narrative was. The Remnant work both as the machine “race” and mysterious plot mcguffin to the story, and generally fail at both. They are terrible as a race as they appear non-sentient with anything resembling a sentient factor in their existence long gone. As the plot mcguffin, characters say they’re mysterious, that they are intriguing and important, but the narrative conveys no mystique or intrigue. The place of the Remnant and “Remtech” in game is essentially: “These plants are lethal now that we’ve got here. Oh no! But wait, random alien tech to save the day. Yay back to shooting!” If you’ve read this far I think my point is clear that, in my opinion, this game’s primary failing is a preoccupation with combat that left the narrative to die on the vine. While I believe the poor management behind the scenes is no doubt the cause of the overall poor quality, buggy, unfinished, state of the game at release, it’s not the true problem. Mass Effect: Andromeda is not, and probably will never be, a good mass effect game no matter how many game-balancing patches come out because the narrative is, quite frankly, laughably bad. There are more lines of dialog than in previous game, but they are mostly shallow and poorly written. The development focus was on combat and multiplayer, so even if the game wasn’t released buggy and unfinished, it probably would have still had an unsatisfying, unimmersive story. EA is a company that has a well-earned bad reputation. It consistently chooses short-term profits over long-term goodwill and brand loyalty. They treat companies and IP they purchase like the aliens in Independence Day treat planets and people: things to be strip-mined for quick gains with no care for the damage or casualties caused. I’ve heard they put the ME3 multiplayer team in charge of the whole game, which fits the clear focus of EA for Mass Effect: Andromeda as a game: make the multiplayer good so people will buy packs first, make the singleplayer decent so we can say it has a campaign second. The fact that strong, compelling story is, or was, a cornerstone of mass effect and bioware games is lost on them. As long as people buy Andromeda points to get multiplayer packs; as long as they get paid, they don’t care about ruining the good will and good name of bioware or their series’, they’ll just buy more. EA can, and will, just keep running franchises and companies into the ground because they don’t care about the product, the consumer, or even their employees’, all they care about are maxing profits. Tldr: Mass Effect: Andromeda’s main problem as a game is a focus on gun and wheel play over roleplay unbecoming of a bioware or mass effect game, and EA’s commitment to crushing quality under heel to squeeze out every last cent.
Oh look, corporate influence has damaged something else! And exactly nobody should be surprised. Too many chiefs, not enough braves. And as always, the only ones who pay for this mistake are the creators and the consumers.
Iqbalx1 It's easier to blame EA then Bioware for its own problematic issues. hopefully Dylan will fail and Bioware can finally be done as a dev studio.
This falls on Bioware. They had 5 years to develop the game. They literally wasted 3 and half years of that time. The game we received was literally built in 18 months.
I'm glad this article came out. I've loved MEA and knew that they experienced worker losses due to them being moved around the company. Working in the gaming industry reminds me of working in the health care field. If you are short on you're floor you're short and you have to do the same amount of work that two people would normally do, but with one person. You can't give anything the right amount of attention being short staff and company heads no matter where you work don't realize this.
I'd gladly would've wait 6 more months for release of the game. It's done now, and I really hope they had at least a couple of DLC's ready or almost ready. I feel there is A LOT of story arcs to explore. Despite all the negative, I still love the game, and I still feel they shouldn't drop the franchise.
For a game with 18 months to build, Bioware did an amazing job. Sure ME:A needed another 6-12 months finishing, and now we know why, but EA is really the problem here. Forcing the Frostbite FPS engine on Bioware, not allowing more time for development after all the project leads, writers, etc. leaving, moving, etc. With all this going on and only allocating a 40 million budget (compared to CDPROJECT's 100 million for W3, Bethesda's 80 million for F4) and 18 months? Nothing short of nigh on miraculous IMHO ... I can only imagine the hell that 18 month crunch time must have been and heartbreak felt by those that had releasecME:A knowing it was unfinished because EA refused to delay the launch ...
I want the developers to take years and finish the next mass effect not to release another unfinished game even though it was fun . The quarian's not being in the main game was a thing that annoyed me because they were interesting and tali was my favorite Squadmate.
It's strange, after replaying through the original trilogy very recently and coming back to Andromeda I really did feel the dip in quality. (When I first played Andromeda it had been a while since I played the previous titles). But after hearing about this and reading the article, I can't help but have a strange new appreciation for Andromeda, from all these issues it seems a miracle the game was released at all.
The article was ... cathartic. It brought closure to me, because I pre-ordered Andromeda and was hoping for one hell of a story, specially since ME2. The game was so bugged on launch date, and the story was just so _awful_ that I don't care about the multiplayer aspect -- BIOWARE games were *never* about multiplayer, they were about the amazing stories that these guys could write. Having been a part of the game dev community (just a short while, but enough to get into their mindset), I can resonate with most of what was investigated by the Kotaku article. It all seems plausible and very likely to be what indeed happened, and it's sad that EA decided to go ahead and launch this sorry mess as it was, without any sane person in a conference room saying, "NO! It's best we just ax this thing instead of risking the credibility of the studio and our IP. Development Hell it goes!". I do credit them one thing: Mass Effect: Andromeda is one *hell* of a post-mortem of things NOT TO DO during a game development cycle. Not locking down your pre-production for three years? This is as bad as the whole Final Fantasy XIII fiasco (not to mention the -Versus- -XIII- "We took so long to make it we had to change numbers" FF15)
Story wasn't really bad, infact, I found some parts even better than in trilogy, but what I can concur is that writing was bad. Sometimes I even asked myself, what the heck that was supposed to mean. I must say I liked the ending. Not the epilogue but ending which I've found really nice because it opened whole bunch of possibilities. Facial animations sucked reaaaaly badly but I did not really mind, because after several hours I don't even look at the faces but man, those EYES were soooo terrible that I even had nightmares about them. What I've found that people were complaining about Andromeda Initiative because it's mind bogling why would they try to go to other galaxy when Milky Way is mostly unexplored and I was like name Arch does not ring a bell? It was running away from the Reapers for god sake, to preserve the culture in the case of worse. I gave it 7/10 and I liked the game. Story was nice, gameplay was nice, just the game wasn't finished, which I noticed pretty much immediatly. The one prove that threw it in your face were ship models which did not have any skin at all, just 3D model that wasn't even rendered. Well, wanted to runt because game should be played while most people say things like don't play this sh*t just because of dissapointment which just isn't right. It does not sit well with me. Just play it and you shall see.
For real, Ryutak, I thought the ending was on par with ME1 and 2. The story just took so long to build up, but it was understandable given the context of fixing the initiative and trying to build a home from the ground up
Ryutak I gotta disagree with the story being "good". It just felt too familiar and uninspired. I don't think it was bad, just not good. My opinion though.
I haven't read article yet (will soon, don't know how I'd missed it), but this tale of woe that is ME:A is reminiscent of the Homefront 'curse'. Both Homefront games suffered from publishers interfering with development. As a result both games suffered at release. After everything EA has been criticised for, one would have thought (hoped) they would have been mindful of such errors of arrogance. Cheers for making this video!
I for one am glad this article came out because even though I really like Andromeda and am starting my second playthrough I was very confused with how those cinematics looked, especially the eyes...those eyes will haunt me forever. I just didn't understand how they could ship a game that looks like that, someone working on the game at some point before "completion" must have said: "Those eyes look weird man, maybe we should work on it a little bit more." I wanted answers and obviously everybody at Bioware and EA must have signed a whole bunch of shit to not disclose anything so that made it even more annoying. I think that all of us that really love this series deserved an explanation, and this article is probably the closest that we are going to get to one. I do think that the "hate" went too far with ME:A because despite the animation issues and some wonky writing I enjoyed it very much, I liked the new galaxy story, the characters and the gameplay was very well done. It sucks that if EA and Bioware had gotten their shit together we might have gotten a truly brilliant game that would have received great reviews across the board and made them a lot of money. Sadly it feels like a slap in the face for people that have enjoyed these games for 10 years.
I'm a huge fan of the series but I had some issues with this game. Overall I liked the game but there were frustrating technical and storyline issues. It is disappointing that EA couldn't get it right the first time before launch. Instead we have to make due with what we got and wait on downloads and patches to fix some of the problems. I hope that any future products will be ready to go when released to the public.
ME:A isn't the only AAA game to have an infamous development. Another recent AAA game, Watch_Dogs, had very similar problems long before the public "downgrade" that it's primarily known for. Some of the reports coming from alleged devs who worked on WD, claimed they were forced to work with incompetent, third-party contractors (level designers, artists, animators, etc.) which is a big reason why the game was not even remotely close to what the E3 2012, promo promised. Sources cited such basic things as level designers not realizing train tracks (the simulated Chicago "L") can't have 90 degree corners for obvious reasons. They also claimed, similar to ME:A, the story for WD was much, much darker and mature, but UBISoft was scared it would be "too dark" for its target console audience... Which is why they reworked the story into the typical inner-city, gangland warfare with some hacking vs. the story being about the real DarkNet where NPCs and players would commit hate crimes like outing Gay students on fictional school websites, resulting in the student(s) committing suicide. So, it doesn't surprise me that ME:A is the latest victim of corporate greed and mismanagement -- not enough resources and tools to get the job done; knowing it's a sub-par product, but releasing it anyway -- But the broader implications is these kinds of releases are going to keep happening until gamers say enough is enough with their wallets. This is why Single Player RPG games like ME:A are now being put on hold for always online, MP-Centered games (PVP, CO-OP) where publishers can sell microtransactions. It's far cheaper to produce "half" games like this and let players create their own "stories" because then there isn't as much at risk if the project does end up not even finished on release.
if you all me their saving Grace is how open they left the story, it had yet to be locked down like they did in ME2. these huge story gaps if utilized properly means they can add more planets to be explored, also the kett seem to have the ability to travel and communicate between galaxies which can open up so many possibilities. and If they do gotta out source again then that should reach out to Bethesda cause I'd love to see what they would do with the series
I'd actually like to see them return to the Milky Way, a couple hundred years after ME3. Humans figure out how to restore the mass relays and start turning them on 1 by 1. I think it would be cool to revisit some areas to see how the galaxy developed in the intervening centuries of isolation, as well as discovering heretofore unknown star systems, find new allies/friends/enemies. Never understood the need to go to Andromeda. Regardless of direction, I hope Bioware pulls it together and continues the franchise.
sounds like EA being typical EA. still, I really enjoyed the title. Sometimes I think people forget that Shepard wasn't exactly voiced by a Shakespearean actor, and is mostly lifeless in his delivery: the originals weren't perfect. generic bases during mako exploration, anyone? Anyway, the gameplay and driving was great, but would UE4 been a better overall choice? Still, shame that this was a mess from the top down. Hats off to the team that got out a playable game in spite of all the corporate bullshit. I beat it a free weeks ago and have moved onto other games ( dragon age origins, actually), but I still think about the crew of the tempest.
To anyone that cares, this is how I would've done the ME:A story. This is LONG. 600 years later the Arks, ALL of them , stop outside of Andromeda Galaxy to take stock. Here they can tell their habitats have all gone belly up for unknown reasons. The 'Scourge' is nearly undetectable to scans at this time so a group from each Ark would be sent to investigate the reasons on the closest habitat world, #7. They'll be gone for a year or more as the Arks do not blindly invade another galaxy with the potential for sapient life. Cryo-pods are then loaded into the exploration ships, like the Tempest, for a short hop to habitat 7. (light character building here as well as char-gen) Cut to around a year later. Pathfinder teams appear in the Eriksson system to broadcast a message of peace and understanding to any inhabitants of the area. This is where our heroes emerge from FTL to discover that all of Eriksson is shrouded in a strange, seemingly malevolent, cloud of 'dark' energy permeating it. All Pathfinder teams chat about what to do with the Salarians wishing to study the phenomena, the Turians wanting to punch through the cloud to reach their objective, the Asari desiring to wait/watch, and the Terrans doing what the character decides. All options will eventually force the character to Hab7 where many of the same events happen. Alec, whom you can to spend more time with so they actually feel like more a part of your former life, sacrifices himself so that character can survive. Sibling will be critically injured from combat, maybe even outright killed if dialogue options take you there. Khett scour immediate area, take several prisoners for study, and are generally bad guys from human POV. Two of the other Pathfinder teams would be killed/captured determined from player choice. Escape via the Tempest goes poorly and a blind jump drops character on Eos where the two surviving Pathfinder teams must join together to repair at least one of the scout vessels, while keeping it clear of Khett forces. Both ships would be parked in a large cave to protect from random radiation storms as Eos isn't 100% pure radiation and only the storms are truly as dangerous as Eos was before the vault was found. The cave is found to be the entrance to Remnant tech. Player choice is determined how to interact with the tech, but social bonus to other Pathfinder if their option is taken. More of my story synopsis will be available if there happens to be any interest.
I fell sorry for them but still this is no excuse they should have simply delay the game until it was ready, you know like normal studios do that actually give a crap about the content they put out and about there reputation as a company.
The people that "reviewed" this game give it that big of a score are ether blind or mentally retarded and i dare not imagine how a game of 50 or so score would look like.
Lupu Adrian o agree that it should've been delayed for months. until it was ready but Bioware doesn't decide the release date EA does and they werent willing to risk losing pre orders over people getting mad that the game they pre ordered would take even longer to release. This of course was a huge mistake in my opinion because all it did was essentially kill one of my favorite game franchises
Lupu Adrain, Or people have different opinions then others and can look past the flaws and enjoy the game because they are entitled to they own opinions as much as you and everyone else does? You know that people can have different opinions because they human right?
Yes. Well, it depends on what we get to do with 100 planets. Working in a fun settlement system a-la Fallout 4 in nature, would have been an option. That and obviously a full planet would be very difficult to fill with quests, we'd probably want just a restricted "mission area" like ME1 had, only not garbo.
The article really does make a lot of sense, it's clear why we never really saw the game until a few months before it released. I was in a bit of denial when the game first released, but looking back and contemplating everything, the game is just bad, definitely not what we deserved or waited 5 years for, especially after the whole ME3 ending.
2 take-aways from this: 1. The people who helmed this project have to shoulder the majority of the blame here. Yes, I've heard that design scope tends to change rather ridiculously over the course of large projects, but a procedurally generated game with 100 explorable planets and a game with 7 hand-crafted planets aren't even in the same realm. You'd expect very few parts of the core gameplay systems and game engine to be transferable between the two. I'll say this much, a procedurally generated ME game sounds terrible. While having the time and resources to try different design directions is (I'd assume) one advantage of working with a larger budget, I think spending any time at all on such an unlikely idea speaks to a lack of design discipline. This means that nearly from inception, years worth of development time were destined to be sunk into work that would never see the light of day. What a waste. 2. The whole idea of predictive meta-scores is mind boggling, especially if: a) you expect accuracy with +/- 10%, and b) you're basing major design decisions on this quackery. You want a predictive meta-score? Here you go: Do things the way they are typically done in the industry and your game will probably score between 55% and 85%... because that's where average scores tend to settle. Beyond that reviewing tends to be highly subjective. The idea that there might be early (and here I mean pre-beta, at the stage where major design decisions can still be implemented) indicators of a game's ultimate public reception is just... I mean, what are these predictive scores even based on? Can you present-value a storyline? Are you doing quantitative analysis on characters? Can you graph the feel of gameplay?
Even with the limits to animation I really liked the game and finished it. Story did not suck like the article suggests but was intriguing especially decisions with no perfect choice to make. Combat and exploration were both fun. My biggest complaint was that harder levels of game play only made combat longer not harder. Combat while fun did get repetitive once all the bosses had been encountered and defeated for the first time. Having more then 7 worlds to explore would have been a waste. Took 140 hours to fully explore what was there. No epic combat ending but that is in line with previous MA games. I look forward to the next one
It's a shame that they didn't just push it back until it was finished. I understand each game's extremely expensive and production is essentially a time and money vampire until finished. Seemed like they were just glad it was "good enough" to net them an "X" amount of money just ship this thing and it didn't go that well.
the thing I had a problem with was the story this was apparently before Shepard found the pillar that gave him the images of what was to come and we all know that the krogan's in the terriens hated each other for what the terriens did to the krogan's at least I think it was the tarians I'm not too sure don't quote me on that but I just didn't find that animosity in this game and we all know what Shepherd went through in the first game humans weren't exactly accepted by the other races and I just didn't find you saw that in Andromeda just because they were frozen for 600 years doesn't mean that that animosity wouldn't have carried on when they actually came out of hibernation it just felt all wrong it's like they didn't even play the first three other games
As a big ME fan I have been swayed by the average reviews and complaints. So I finally decided to bite the bullet and I have no idea why I waited this long. The game is very good, not witcher 3 material but if you are a ME fan, this is in every way a ME game. Every aspect was improved on, game looks amazing besides the facial animations but slowly they are even getting small fixes for that. I mean its light years ahead of Fallout 4 facial-wise so I dont really get the hate. Unfortunately the early bugs and humor of bad animation, it completely gave an idea that it was a bad game. But seriously im 25 hours in and Im sucked into the world, love exploring, doing the sidequests. While not all are that interesting, it still adds to the story. It could of been a way better game, but at heart its still very much a true ME universe.
Poor management by publisher EA and developer Bioware, so disappointed how lack of control this project had. The teams had no support and had to work in stressful conditions.
I'm new to the mass effect series I've played all of dragon age though I think the game was decent if not somwhat rushed how all the aliens referred to the remnants as remnants out the gate or how everything lined up ultra nicely with minimal development story wise ( in terms of going to point a to point b)was immersion breaking. with that said I've put about 150 hours doing 7 different playthroughs of this game I do hope in the next 3ish years that there will be another mass effects or hopefully they sell the rights to the franchise and have someone else test their skills at creating a mass effect game.
I set my expectations really low when I found out that the original team wasn't going to work on MEA, and because of that I was pleasantly surprised at how good the game play was...the lack of focus and overall polish was painfully evident in the storytelling side of things though.
Even with all the problems I still think the game is good. The setting is interesting an the new characters are great. The bandwagon hate just went to far.
I'm glad u liked it. Being a huge fan, I really tried to enjoy the game but felt it was an absolute boring MMO style grind. I truly hope that bioware can get back to its RPG roots and cutback on the open world setting and focus more on the writing, character development, etc.
I agree. Sure it's got derpy faces and a few animation glitches, but for the most part, my time with the game has been fine. Other studios like Bethesda constantly release broken games and get a free pass. I don't get it.
A Morgan if they truly put this together in the last year and a half then I'm impressed. I really like Ryder and crew. They better stick to characters and story.
I don't really recall Fallout 3, NV, 4 and Skyrim being "broken". Glitches and bugs hell yea but "broken"? I get the impression your experience with those games were abysmal because my experience with those were great. Plus you also need to remember that Andromeda is part of a franchise that left a sour taste in a lot fans mouths after ME 3's ending debacle. Bethesda's games however don't really have that same amount of stigma.
I still believe there is a large dose of truth to the notion that Andromeda shipped in such a beta state to ensure it was receiving revenue before the end of the 2016 fiscal year. E.A is a public company. No public company wants to go into a A.G.M riding on the back of being voted worst business for two years running and explain that a 5 year project that had 40 million investment, let alone advertising costs, is not on target, it's in a bad way and it is stretchy if it will ever be 100% ready and is looking like it might be a bad investment due to poor decision making. E.A did what most companies would do. They placed a day one embargo on reviews, shipped it and hoped week one sales would cover developments costs and make at least a meagre profit, then canned the project before it bleed out anymore. Ultimately what happened here is bad for Mass effect as a franchise, but overall a positive for gaming. One of the largest publishers, who have had to delay a number of their current projects just took a swift kick to the financial balls. It has come at a time when they were probably hoping this failed project would have filled the coffers and added bridging finance whilst they finish their delay I.P's. If you want E.A to learn...hit them in the wallet. It seems to be the only method that gets through to them. I hope they are currently thinking about all the lost revenue and potential DLC revenue they could have had if, as a publisher they had done their job well and managed their projects with integrity and listened to what their troops on the ground were telling them.
It _is_ miraculous to think that Andromeda was cobbled together in 18 months. Not to say that it doesn't feel cobbled together (it does), it just had _a lot_ of content! Sure, a lot of it is "ubisoft content" that's probably easy to design, but at least 60 hours aren't. If I had known about the troubled production beforehand, I would have expected gross asset recycing and thinly-veiled fetch quests in the critical path, like in Dragon Age 2. Now, I think it's unfair that it got reviewed worse than DA2, seeing as that game is dangerously close to being a scam, but DA2 was saved by having an original idea and story structure, and a dearth of competitors at the time. I know people who like it better than any other WRPG for its "family soap opera"-theme. For all its competence, Andromeda really had no "big idea" to redeem it; even as I enjoyed it, I found it hard to latch onto anything in the world.
This makes me so sad. They just needed more time to work on this game, and I think everyone can see how things were rushed, seeing how frequently we're getting patch updates. I will still be a Mass Effect fan forever, and I hope that this game doesn't make EA think that the franchise is bad for business, and that the people who actually really worked hard on this game and were passionate about the project don't lose heart.
i loved the game, it could have been much better and thats sad, but game by itself wasnt bad at all. 170h spent into it and i am not regreting it, even thinking to play as fem ryder once more.
This all reminds me of the film term "Alan Smithee." Years ago, if a director could prove that their vision of a film was altered or compromised beyond reason, their name could be taken off a film and the director could disown it. "Alan Smithee" was that sign. The staff who contributed are using it as catharsis. There is a lot of damning criticism. I am sure some of the contributors may want to distance themselves from ME:A. BioWare has a history of making great story driven games. But ME:A's "development from Hell" should be used to provide good lessons. I fear that this opportunity for reflection will be missed.
This happens a lot in big projects with many stakeholders... It doesn't often happen in such a public manner. Fr lots of people this is what everyday work challenges are all about. Scope change, misallocated and limited resources, impractical deadlines and confusion. Shame to see it in my favourite game franchise
Don't forget, a lot of people were turned off by the end of Mass Effect 3 and didn't just need an alright game from the franchise, they needed a redeeming game, something to tell them that this series was back on track and as much as Andromeda is an OK game if you can overlook some of the flaws, it was definitely not redeeming in any way. At this point games from bioware have just gone further and further downhill since being bought by EA and I'm done getting excited about their games. I'm glad they put a series I love on ice because they have proven if they decide to touch it they will only mess it up more. Give me Bioware IP's with Blizzard's love and care for the gameplay and I'm hooked. CDK Project Red proved you can do good by your fans and they will do good by you. EA just proved you can turn something as massive as Mass Effect into a flop if you just throw something out there. I'm sorry Bioware, my love affair with you has come to an end.
I agree with your assessment with who was ultimately to blame, the higher ups and publisher. I really wish more people saw that and the bandwagon would boycott EA instead of ME:A or the franchise in general. I know some of the developers were put on SW Battlefront 2 from ME:A, and I think that is completely unacceptable and generally terrible.
Tragic. So much potential squandered, for want of planning and for politics. I do hope they can do a clear-eyed review of this process and repair their process.
Yes. There would be people that are pissed. They're called shareholders. And they're the only ones that matter to the leadership of companies the size of EA.
I think the fact that they (Bioware) had no issue with an employee publicly making bigoted statements and implying that the murder of a specific race of people would be good, was very telling. It told me a lot about the nature of Bioware and the environment they're fostering, which I personally found alarming. I'm not interested in games made by the kids from Evergreen College, and it sounds like those are the sort of people they're employing and okay with. I don't see anyone with that kind of mindset being able to make an objectively good story or video game.
I don't know if I'm suffering of a kind of "forced compensation" because I wanted this game so much, that I ended liking it... a LOT! After reading the full article, I became very sad because, if I liked the game as it is (I would give it an 8), imagine what an incredible product would it be if BioWare and EA didn't fucked everything up? One more thing: we must congratulate the developers and artists involved on this game. Apparently they made a miracle bringing this game to work at all. Let's just hope EA learns from their mistake. Thay sucked bad years ago. They improved greatly, but now they are stained again. Let's see how they will respond to that. It's just a shame that Mass Effect is on a hiatus, suffering from their incompetence. I already miss ME!
I can definitely see where some of the issues came from, seems like EA ruined it again, what a surprise. Though I still didn't like the game, even (or maybe especially) as a huge Mass Effect fan. I personally didn't like the planetory exploration, it seemed boring to me and I just didn't enjoy the whole exploration system, there were never any "wow" momemts for me, the planets seemed bland and uninspired to me. I also really disliked big parts of the writing/quests and VA. I can definitely see where the issues came from though and to the people that enjoyed it, that's great! If you liked it, that's fine. For me though, it was one of the biggest gaming dissapointments I experienced, I gave it a proper chance and did 100% completion but will most likely never play it again, such a shame.
Rick van Logchem it seemed interesting that you said you didn't like the planet exploration, the thing is we didn't get to go out and explore the planets since Mass Effect 1 with the Mako Mass Effect 2 or 3 didn't have that but everybody has their opinions and I understand it did get boring at times
one thing that was kind of a letdown but I guess it was replaced by The Architects was the thresher maws, would you rather have thresher maws more than architects
Sean McClelland I think the idea of the architects was ok, the implementation not so much. Maybe having them guard the vaults or some very interesting area would have been better.
I had some great moments with this game, no doubt about it but i can honestly say that the whole handeling of all the issues prior to launch left a bittersweet taste. I won't be jumping in to future EA and Bioware games blindly, never again. I can respect that the game development isn't easy but to make the decision to release a game in the state Andromeda was is just plain disgusting! #sickofcashgrabbingpublishers2017
I read the Kotaku article, and I have to say, I have serious doubts about the leadership at BioWare. The game they originally wanted to make sounds TERRIBLE, and just shows that they had no idea why people liked Mass Effect in the first place. And the game that we got shows that even the people who ultimately ended up cobbling together this version of the game don't know why people liked Mass Effect in the first place. Everybody wanted to make a game with groundbreaking new gameplay elements and blah blah blah, but Mass Effect fans never cared about any of that. It was always about the story, the lore, and most especially the characters. And all of those things were given short shrift in every iteration of Andromeda. So yeah, I don't see how this IP can be saved at this point, unless it is sold to Naughty Dog or something. Heck, I'd give the makers of Horizon Zero Dawn a crack at it before I'd want BioWare to touch it again. I will say that Andromeda had some good aspects to it, but they were too few and far between. I feel bad for all the talented people who poured their heart and soul and nights and weekends into this project, only to have it turn out to be this disappointing result.
Can't say I'm at all surprised that the suits got involved and then everything went to hell. You see the same kind of thing in manufacturing. Probably every other industry now that I think about it.
Well, at least we have Obsidian (Alpha Protocol T_T dammit), InExile (Wasteland), Larian Studios, Spiders (loved The Technomancer), Harebrained Schemes, CD project Red, some japanese developers plus plenty more.
exactly what you said about the new project Dylan or whatever bioware's new IP game will be, all I've heard was the game is going to be a mix between the division and Destiny and it should be released Maybe late 2018 early 2019 but with all this stuff going on with Andromeda with different people leaving with EA forcing developers to produce this engine instead of a one that fits, you do kind of worried about what future BioWare games will be
I'm more disappointed than angry. To this day I still think what could have been. Mass Effect Andromeda was a fresh new start and so open to the possibility of anything. I can't help but be frustrated because as a writer myself there was so much they could have done to really go all out with the story. I would have loved to have written for them. If given more time I still think MEA could have been something amazing. I'm hoping DA4 is a little more promising.
It's as I said before and will continue to say. EA has a HISTORY of releasing games that are unfinished or extremely buggy because they only worry about the Monetary value of the game. Because of EA forcing things down Bioware, and Bioware being forced to suck it up and deal with it ended up with Andromeda having a less than ideal release. BUT, I still loved the game despite it's short-comings. It hurts hearing the game is on ice in terms of development because Andromeda has so much potential for future story development. EA will continue on releasing games that are unfinished, buggy, or copy-paste of previous games ( I.E Any 2k sports game out there) And unless they change something about that, it will continue to do that and slowly kill game franchises.
Thank you for this, I still enjoyed the hell out of this game and I'm really glad they are still updated and patching this game. God I wished they had the support the Inquisition team had, but DAI had DA2 to point to and to prove that they needed to get it right. I wish EA would see that and make sure the next MA title gets the time they need like Inquisition did. With patch 1.08 I'm finally going to new game + and get the romance achievement with Scott romancing Jaal. I'm excited to finally be able to romance one of my squad mates, I'm not even salty anymore. I just hope the team left can continue to improve the single player experience, because honestly fuck multi player and the micro transactions. Here's holding out for the Quarian arch dlc.
Has EA or BioWare responded to this yet? This makes me want to go to BioWare forums and ask the community, and BioWare its self, what they think about all of this.....
I have only faced some minor cosmetic issues playing this through a couple of days after release. The only ossue for me was rather with the gameplay with the high amount of repetative tasks, and the feeling that it feels a sort of a recyed story, but I was guessing it lonks together with the original trilogy. Saying the above I really liked the game, and have dusted off ME2 right after. Did any of you play that recently? Andromeda is a polised masterpiece compared to that. I was surprised as well. I think this has fallen victim of expectations set so high anything would be just less than adequate.
Great article I could listen to you all day. EA games pushed yet another game out to fast. When players point out that the original series was better that really says something. I got bored early in the game and have to put it down for a long time. I liked some of the characters like PeeBee, Dracs, and the outlaw leader but some of the others lacked chemistry. All the Asairi looked the same with the exception of PeeBee. I really enjoyed the chatter in the nomad while they were driving around, funny stuff. The Keth were cool looking aliens along with the Angara. Lots of female presence in the game and with all species. I got so bored driving back and forth shooting the same guys and gals having to kill animals and looking for dead bodies. There were good parts, bad parts and some dumb parts so I kind of enjoyed the game. Cora is not bad looking but the rest sheesh. The story could of been great if they took a little time. Anyway EA screwed us yet again...
I enjoyed MEA, but the amount of potential missed frustrates me to no end. Like Alec Ryder couldn't live past the first hour? They couldn't find anything for the other other twin to be doing or focused on the sibling relationship more than the 4 conversations they have? I never understood the obsession with exploration. Exploration has never been a part of Mass Effect, aside from the pointless re-skinned planets in ME1.
So they took a beloved and critically / financially successful franchise. Handed it to a rookie team. Decimated that team. Fractured the leadership of that team. Forced an engine on the team. Provided inadequate support to them. Ran them ragged. And finally decided to push the game out because of the projected metacritic score was "okay". Electronic Arts indeed. The art of taking an art and shitting all over it, that is.
So just now i've understood that i wont (maybe never) play another ME game and its more than sad.. Its tragedy... But game was horribly bad compared to what we wanted to get, what they said it will be and what were previous games..
Im one of the few who loved this game, still do. Granted I fully agree on that the way this game was on release was unacceptable. So, in regards to the article I think it shines more light on the idea of, all this internal struggles between Bioware internally and between EA potentially, may be the final push to get bioware to put out a Mass Effect or Dragon Age without EA cramming what they desire into the game. ive said it before but i think you look at few companies now that started with EA, and they leave and i dont blame them. I dislike EA for many a reasons and this article while not providing specifics but definitely guving perspective on, maybe in order to save the franchise, I.E Mass Effect, Bioware needs to leave EA for good.
This sucks. BioWare had a legacy full of quality titles that had allowed people to put trust in them and their work. And in one, fell swoop - there goes all the trust. And I don't think that they can ever rebuild it back to where it was again. I don't even know if they should. If their games keep pushing towards the generic AAA third person fighting game, maybe they should be allowed to die, sooner than later, to keep as much of their dignity in tact as possible. I'd say that BioWare as they were are gone. And this is just a shell company at this point. If Project Dylan is a 3rd person fighting game built in Frostbite, I think I can say with fair certainty that this is what's going on.
That's what EA tends to do with studios; it gets them, lets 'em do their thing for a while, then starts crushing them with mandates until they are too bruise and battered to be useful and ends up killing them off. Origins and Maxim went this way, Visceral is already on it's way, Mythic got fucked up hard when they got mandated to make Dungeon Keeper Mobile, looking online shows that EA killed a TON of devs. Now in this particular case I can't but put some blame on Bioware, as that looked like quite the mismanagement, but God knows how much of it was their fault.
I still liked Andromeda, but hearing about how it could have been so much better, and how it was basically ruined by a bunch of higher-ups in suits and EA, pisses me off, let's hope Edmonton make Andromeda 2 after Anthem and Dragon Age 4, and that there'll be no development issues
Bioware releases a slightly undercooked open world game with poor writing and animation bugs Public: "WITCH HUNT" Bethesda releases a slightly undercooked open world game with poor writing and animation bugs Public:"Game of the Year, release it 12 times on 8 different consoles, some of which still aren't out yet"
It's a little over a year later and I'm assuming by Project Dillon we're talking about Anthem? If so I'm mildly interested in that game. Oddly enough Bethesda is stealing away my enthusiasm with the hinting at Starfield. I just feel overly burned by EA and Bioware lately. I like Andromeda and I would have supported it a lot more if they'd just release some DLC and back the product they put out. Don't get me wrong I haven't been completely burned but they're on notice with me, I'll likely buy their games months after launch (with the exception of more Mass Effect stuff... it's my favorite gaming franchise these days, sadly so now that EA is letting it chill).
Well, the Frostbite does work. It's a tremendous engine. But unlike say Unreal, Unity or CryEngine, it originally wasn't meant to be used by someone other than DICE. They wrote it for their Battlefield games, to be used by them. The tools are not there, it's not..intuitive. EA saw the praise it got and figured why waste money on new and different engines when we own this monster...and so now they're forcing it down every devs throat. And suddenly all EA studios (remember, Fifa for example uses it, too) have to work with an unfamiliar engine and have to make it do stuff it originally was not meant to do. That takes time and ressources, neither of which EA is particularly known for granting to it's developers. If you gave these guys a team that wasn't internally cannibalised and let them use the full development time instead of changing the whole game 3 times, this game would have been amazing.
I was finished with Bioware after ME3, and both DA: I and Andromeda have proven to me that ceasing my support of the company and their dumbed down games was the right decision..same thing is happening with Bethesda.
4:20 That's exacty what EA did. Bioware actually wanted to use the Ureal 4 engine for Mass Effect Andromeda, after all the issues they'd had with the Frostbite 3 during the development og Dragon Age Inquisition. The reason for this was most likely because EA didn't want to pay for Ureal 4, when they have an inhouse engine, that can be used for free. So as usual it's a matter of money.
Simon Andersen its more expensive to use frostbite then it is to use unreal, unreal is a cheap engine mainly use by smaller developers
UE4 in right hands of developers can be modified to suit their needs and is very stable and fast if done right. I am sure for some special deal Bioware would had priority support from EPIC to ensure overall stability and well working animation system.
EA is cancer of game industry, i even miss Command & Conquer series.
westwood.....RIP ♥ We will see if bioware survives this or not....
#RIPWestwood
Cor Tauri Bioware's been dead for years now.
It now weirdly sounds like the story of Andromeda is an allegory for its development: a highly skilled team braves unknown territory in pursuit of a new beginning, only to be derailed by unknown technology, lose their leader, face a split opinion as to how they should proceed, and be left scattered and scrambling to put together something that resembles the original vision. The Kett are a pretty clear representation of EA, on a conquest to make everyone the same, crushing their individuality with the misguided belief that it will make them stronger.
By the end the Initiative *is* in a pretty good position and they've established a good foundation, but it's clearly not what was intended: just as Andromeda *is* a pretty good game, and sets up well for any future games, it's just nowhere near the game we (and the devs) wanted. The fact that story work began so late into development (after a lot of the shit had already happened) makes me think these parallels aren't necessarily a coincidence.
jak This...... makes a lot of sense
jak wow that's actually an amazing analogy. I would be pretty cool if that is what they did.
Shameful project management, but holy crap - if the foot soldiers at Bioware Montreal created this game in eighteen months, they deserve a bloody medal. It must be truly heartbreaking for them after all the long hours, stress and personal sacrifices, to be destroyed by gamers and critics. And let's not start about the vicious personal attacks against some animators.... they were set up to fail. I think the Mass Effect lore is so deep and interesting, and fans so loyal that they would have waited another year (or more!) for Bioware to get it right. But I guess those in charge weren't prepared to bankroll it anymore. It's just a real shame.
Let's not avoid the fact that too many key people left. Casey Hudson in other words the father of ME left early. Looking back now the original trilogy was his baby and Andromeda was something else entirely. A lot of og bioware writers who also worked on KOTOR left as well. I can't help but think that this 'new' bioware just couldn't deliver. There was Paesano's soundtrack as well that was really mediocre. Soundtracks are so so so important and we went from the trilogy's which was better than most movie soundtracks to this. Just overall a drop in talent for sure.
Parniij you're right about that almost every single article about Mass Effect Andromeda was different people leaving Casey Hudson on one article then I saw a lead designer guy leave then I saw the Maine development guy leave heck I saw one guy on an article that read he went to go work at Bungie to go develop Destiny 2 that's why I'm hoping Destiny 2 ends up being really good it's just upsetting because this was going on for five years this reminds me of the messed up situation that LucasArts went through
and look what happened to LucasArts LucasArts is no longer a company in Star Wars is owned by Disney
Sean McClelland I thought with mac walters at the helm the game could be saved seeing as he was a key trilogy writer. Obviously not. People had different opinions about Casey Hudson. It could be pointed out that he was responsible for the ME3 ending blunder but so what. That was one mistake. He was so important. You can tell he was passionate about the franchise and the whole genre just by looking at his twitter. Kinda sad how things turned out.
BioWare should stick to what they do best: storytelling. I love Mac Water's vision and given more than 18 months it could have been a lot better.
Rasha M the thing is I don't think bioware are good at story telling anymore. A lot of key people left long ago. Obviously there's the big one; Casey Hudson in other words the father of ME leaving. But also several writers who were also responsible for games like KOTOR. The og bioware have moved on and it left a writing/production vacuum and that imo is why the game fell short.
Rasha M Don't really rate Mac at all but I didn't hate Andromedas story. ME has never been the same without Drew Karpyshyn though and Patrick Weekes (now lead writer on DA) is a big loss to ME as well.
eh screw mac walters! Drew Karpshyn should have been the one to write the story.
Xerg12 this was the guy I meant couldn't remember his name he was key
SilkMilkJilk Karpyshyn. Drew Karpyshyn
So basically the game became Ark Natanus
ayyy someone who actually played the game
After hearing/reading this info I am really happy that we got the game first off, secondly I want to give a huge shout out to the devs that put in taxing hours and a lot of pressure from higher up to bring us another Mass Effect game. It may not be what it was meant to be but it is something to continue work on if they get the backing, and I hope they do! Again, big praise and shout out to the devs that worked on this.
Bioware: "we want hundreds of planets." EA: "You get 7." Bioware: "but..." EA: "YOU GET 7!!"
Dan D. nice meme
You honestly think people can make hundreds of with such much detail in just 5 years?
Well, knowing what we know now, in the post-No-Man's-Sky world, I'd say BioWare was _stupid_ for floating the "We'll have hundreds of explorable procedurally generated planets!"-idea. That's a grade schooler's futurist fantasy of what games could be - I would know, I _was_ that grade schooler! So it's surprising to hear that an actual game designer came up with that. Even if the technology would allow us lots of convincing looking procedural planets (and it doesn't, they'll look samey) and you figure out how to dot them with interesting bits of content (which nobody has yet done without _boring everyone to death_ ), you still have NO GAME. At best, you have the environment for a sim; the skeleton for something like Elite Dangerous. And no one has ever managed to cram a tight singleplayer story with choices, consequences and party interactions in such a game.
What demented lunatic went about making a new ME game by choosing a framework that's utterly inimical to what BW is known for (worldbuilding, storytelling and characters)?! And then they wonder why Andromeda ended up having half a fresh idea for every 50 hours of gameplay - because the devs spent 3 years making Star Citizen.
I'd rather have 7 hand crafted, detailed planets, that revolve around the story then hundreds of randomized shit.
seven planets... 2 are desert planets... fuck off lol
I enjoyed Andromeda. 99% completion and enjoyed my time spent. I beat it before a lot of the bug fixes, but i look forward to seeing the improvements once they have a DLC or expansion.
@Max Bardus, personally I LOVED the vaults! I really felt like I was exploring an incomprehensible alien catacomb and all the visuals were stunning! I just felt like they could have made these HUGE vaults so much more explorable!
Will there even be a DLC when the team was spread over others Studio ?I mean bugs and fixes sure but a whole DLC? I dont think it will come since it is on halt.
ugh but the thing is even bioware knows it wasn't that good. they could do soooooo much better with out ea but with support behind ea' s vision for bioware games we will never get the master peices we used to have.
With the Mass Effect IP going on -ice- _hiatus_ , the studio responsible for it being downgraded to a support role and most of the devs being shuffled around, I don't think there will ever be any DLC; I think we'll be lucky enough if the multiplayer portion of the game hangs on until next year.
I'd love to be proven wrong. I'd really do.
+Like a Leaf in the Wind, if there's enough outcry for it they will regardless. Time to twitter at bioware and Aaron Flynn everyone!!
I feel awful for the average Bioware employee, putting in crunch time with a game engine that clearly didn't work for them and then getting no respect for their efforts. Having said that I am upset at EA and the higher ups at Bioware for looking at the early reviewer and saying " we know the games not finished but we'll still get an 8 out of ten so screw it, lets make people pay seventy dollars and fix it up later". Releasing an unfinished product is never okay.
For the record I really enjoy Andromeda after the latest patch came out I started playing again, it's just depressing to see all that untapped potential.
People seem to state their opinions about Mass effect: Andromeda in terms of “it’s a good game” or “it’s a bad game”. I thing a more accurate way of putting my feelings at least, would be that it is a game with good combat and vehicle segments of game play. However it’s not a game that feels like a mass effect game, or a bioware game for that matter.
It’s a game with shallow story and one-dimensional characters.
The Kett are a lot like ME2’s Collectors in how they serve the plot, but they fail to have the same impact. There is no sense of threat, no feeling of narrative dread. When characters talk about the Kett it feels more like they’re the villains in a teen movie, where they are the rival team or douche-bag kids who thinks they own the ski mountain. The despair, terror and exhaustion that should be everywhere, leading up to the reveal, and the horror that should come after, are barely given lip service. That is to say, the threat and horror of the Kett are referred to often, but without the narrative weight of emotion to make me believe characters mean the dialog they say. When the reveal happens it’s supposed to be earth shaking and horrible, but in the mission it happens the reveal isn’t built up to, it’s telegraphed, so it lands with no narrative weight or emotional effect. When it happened and my feeling on the matter wasn’t “Oh My God!” but “well no shit, can this cut-scene end so I can get back to shooting stuff?” I realized how disappointing the main narrative was.
The Remnant work both as the machine “race” and mysterious plot mcguffin to the story, and generally fail at both. They are terrible as a race as they appear non-sentient with anything resembling a sentient factor in their existence long gone. As the plot mcguffin, characters say they’re mysterious, that they are intriguing and important, but the narrative conveys no mystique or intrigue. The place of the Remnant and “Remtech” in game is essentially: “These plants are lethal now that we’ve got here. Oh no! But wait, random alien tech to save the day. Yay back to shooting!”
If you’ve read this far I think my point is clear that, in my opinion, this game’s primary failing is a preoccupation with combat that left the narrative to die on the vine. While I believe the poor management behind the scenes is no doubt the cause of the overall poor quality, buggy, unfinished, state of the game at release, it’s not the true problem. Mass Effect: Andromeda is not, and probably will never be, a good mass effect game no matter how many game-balancing patches come out because the narrative is, quite frankly, laughably bad. There are more lines of dialog than in previous game, but they are mostly shallow and poorly written. The development focus was on combat and multiplayer, so even if the game wasn’t released buggy and unfinished, it probably would have still had an unsatisfying, unimmersive story.
EA is a company that has a well-earned bad reputation. It consistently chooses short-term profits over long-term goodwill and brand loyalty. They treat companies and IP they purchase like the aliens in Independence Day treat planets and people: things to be strip-mined for quick gains with no care for the damage or casualties caused. I’ve heard they put the ME3 multiplayer team in charge of the whole game, which fits the clear focus of EA for Mass Effect: Andromeda as a game: make the multiplayer good so people will buy packs first, make the singleplayer decent so we can say it has a campaign second. The fact that strong, compelling story is, or was, a cornerstone of mass effect and bioware games is lost on them. As long as people buy Andromeda points to get multiplayer packs; as long as they get paid, they don’t care about ruining the good will and good name of bioware or their series’, they’ll just buy more. EA can, and will, just keep running franchises and companies into the ground because they don’t care about the product, the consumer, or even their employees’, all they care about are maxing profits.
Tldr: Mass Effect: Andromeda’s main problem as a game is a focus on gun and wheel play over roleplay unbecoming of a bioware or mass effect game, and EA’s commitment to crushing quality under heel to squeeze out every last cent.
Oh look, corporate influence has damaged something else! And exactly nobody should be surprised.
Too many chiefs, not enough braves. And as always, the only ones who pay for this mistake are the creators and the consumers.
I blame EA for this.
absolutely
John Smith the article said ea hardly caused the problem it bioware themselves
Iqbalx1 It's easier to blame EA then Bioware for its own problematic issues. hopefully Dylan will fail and Bioware can finally be done as a dev studio.
Blame the complainers.. instead of asking for fixes.. we sit here day in and day out finding flaws and not being nice about it..
This falls on Bioware. They had 5 years to develop the game. They literally wasted 3 and half years of that time. The game we received was literally built in 18 months.
Finally! Hope people understand, now!
I'm glad this article came out. I've loved MEA and knew that they experienced worker losses due to them being moved around the company. Working in the gaming industry reminds me of working in the health care field. If you are short on you're floor you're short and you have to do the same amount of work that two people would normally do, but with one person. You can't give anything the right amount of attention being short staff and company heads no matter where you work don't realize this.
I'd gladly would've wait 6 more months for release of the game. It's done now, and I really hope they had at least a couple of DLC's ready or almost ready. I feel there is A LOT of story arcs to explore. Despite all the negative, I still love the game, and I still feel they shouldn't drop the franchise.
100% agree on that, want to see more thing in Andromeda because I love MEA, but yeah the game should have been delayed from at least a good 6 months
For a game with 18 months to build, Bioware did an amazing job. Sure ME:A needed another 6-12 months finishing, and now we know why, but EA is really the problem here. Forcing the Frostbite FPS engine on Bioware, not allowing more time for development after all the project leads, writers, etc. leaving, moving, etc. With all this going on and only allocating a 40 million budget (compared to CDPROJECT's 100 million for W3, Bethesda's 80 million for F4) and 18 months? Nothing short of nigh on miraculous IMHO ...
I can only imagine the hell that 18 month crunch time must have been and heartbreak felt by those that had releasecME:A knowing it was unfinished because EA refused to delay the launch ...
I want the developers to take years and finish the next mass effect not to release another unfinished game even though it was fun . The quarian's not being in the main game was a thing that annoyed me because they were interesting and tali was my favorite Squadmate.
It's strange, after replaying through the original trilogy very recently and coming back to Andromeda I really did feel the dip in quality. (When I first played Andromeda it had been a while since I played the previous titles). But after hearing about this and reading the article, I can't help but have a strange new appreciation for Andromeda, from all these issues it seems a miracle the game was released at all.
The article was ... cathartic. It brought closure to me, because I pre-ordered Andromeda and was hoping for one hell of a story, specially since ME2. The game was so bugged on launch date, and the story was just so _awful_ that I don't care about the multiplayer aspect -- BIOWARE games were *never* about multiplayer, they were about the amazing stories that these guys could write.
Having been a part of the game dev community (just a short while, but enough to get into their mindset), I can resonate with most of what was investigated by the Kotaku article. It all seems plausible and very likely to be what indeed happened, and it's sad that EA decided to go ahead and launch this sorry mess as it was, without any sane person in a conference room saying, "NO! It's best we just ax this thing instead of risking the credibility of the studio and our IP. Development Hell it goes!".
I do credit them one thing: Mass Effect: Andromeda is one *hell* of a post-mortem of things NOT TO DO during a game development cycle. Not locking down your pre-production for three years? This is as bad as the whole Final Fantasy XIII fiasco (not to mention the -Versus- -XIII- "We took so long to make it we had to change numbers" FF15)
Story wasn't really bad, infact, I found some parts even better than in trilogy, but what I can concur is that writing was bad. Sometimes I even asked myself, what the heck that was supposed to mean. I must say I liked the ending. Not the epilogue but ending which I've found really nice because it opened whole bunch of possibilities. Facial animations sucked reaaaaly badly but I did not really mind, because after several hours I don't even look at the faces but man, those EYES were soooo terrible that I even had nightmares about them. What I've found that people were complaining about Andromeda Initiative because it's mind bogling why would they try to go to other galaxy when Milky Way is mostly unexplored and I was like name Arch does not ring a bell? It was running away from the Reapers for god sake, to preserve the culture in the case of worse. I gave it 7/10 and I liked the game. Story was nice, gameplay was nice, just the game wasn't finished, which I noticed pretty much immediatly. The one prove that threw it in your face were ship models which did not have any skin at all, just 3D model that wasn't even rendered. Well, wanted to runt because game should be played while most people say things like don't play this sh*t just because of dissapointment which just isn't right. It does not sit well with me. Just play it and you shall see.
For real, Ryutak, I thought the ending was on par with ME1 and 2. The story just took so long to build up, but it was understandable given the context of fixing the initiative and trying to build a home from the ground up
Ryutak I gotta disagree with the story being "good". It just felt too familiar and uninspired. I don't think it was bad, just not good. My opinion though.
I haven't read article yet (will soon, don't know how I'd missed it), but this tale of woe that is ME:A is reminiscent of the Homefront 'curse'. Both Homefront games suffered from publishers interfering with development. As a result both games suffered at release. After everything EA has been criticised for, one would have thought (hoped) they would have been mindful of such errors of arrogance.
Cheers for making this video!
I for one am glad this article came out because even though I really like Andromeda and am starting my second playthrough I was very confused with how those cinematics looked, especially the eyes...those eyes will haunt me forever. I just didn't understand how they could ship a game that looks like that, someone working on the game at some point before "completion" must have said: "Those eyes look weird man, maybe we should work on it a little bit more." I wanted answers and obviously everybody at Bioware and EA must have signed a whole bunch of shit to not disclose anything so that made it even more annoying. I think that all of us that really love this series deserved an explanation, and this article is probably the closest that we are going to get to one. I do think that the "hate" went too far with ME:A because despite the animation issues and some wonky writing I enjoyed it very much, I liked the new galaxy story, the characters and the gameplay was very well done. It sucks that if EA and Bioware had gotten their shit together we might have gotten a truly brilliant game that would have received great reviews across the board and made them a lot of money. Sadly it feels like a slap in the face for people that have enjoyed these games for 10 years.
I'm a huge fan of the series but I had some issues with this game. Overall I liked the game but there were frustrating technical and storyline issues. It is disappointing that EA couldn't get it right the first time before launch. Instead we have to make due with what we got and wait on downloads and patches to fix some of the problems. I hope that any future products will be ready to go when released to the public.
ME:A isn't the only AAA game to have an infamous development. Another recent AAA game, Watch_Dogs, had very similar problems long before the public "downgrade" that it's primarily known for.
Some of the reports coming from alleged devs who worked on WD, claimed they were forced to work with incompetent, third-party contractors (level designers, artists, animators, etc.) which is a big reason why the game was not even remotely close to what the E3 2012, promo promised.
Sources cited such basic things as level designers not realizing train tracks (the simulated Chicago "L") can't have 90 degree corners for obvious reasons. They also claimed, similar to ME:A, the story for WD was much, much darker and mature, but UBISoft was scared it would be "too dark" for its target console audience... Which is why they reworked the story into the typical inner-city, gangland warfare with some hacking vs. the story being about the real DarkNet where NPCs and players would commit hate crimes like outing Gay students on fictional school websites, resulting in the student(s) committing suicide.
So, it doesn't surprise me that ME:A is the latest victim of corporate greed and mismanagement -- not enough resources and tools to get the job done; knowing it's a sub-par product, but releasing it anyway -- But the broader implications is these kinds of releases are going to keep happening until gamers say enough is enough with their wallets.
This is why Single Player RPG games like ME:A are now being put on hold for always online, MP-Centered games (PVP, CO-OP) where publishers can sell microtransactions. It's far cheaper to produce "half" games like this and let players create their own "stories" because then there isn't as much at risk if the project does end up not even finished on release.
if you all me their saving Grace is how open they left the story, it had yet to be locked down like they did in ME2. these huge story gaps if utilized properly means they can add more planets to be explored, also the kett seem to have the ability to travel and communicate between galaxies which can open up so many possibilities. and If they do gotta out source again then that should reach out to Bethesda cause I'd love to see what they would do with the series
I'd actually like to see them return to the Milky Way, a couple hundred years after ME3. Humans figure out how to restore the mass relays and start turning them on 1 by 1. I think it would be cool to revisit some areas to see how the galaxy developed in the intervening centuries of isolation, as well as discovering heretofore unknown star systems, find new allies/friends/enemies. Never understood the need to go to Andromeda. Regardless of direction, I hope Bioware pulls it together and continues the franchise.
sounds like EA being typical EA. still, I really enjoyed the title. Sometimes I think people forget that Shepard wasn't exactly voiced by a Shakespearean actor, and is mostly lifeless in his delivery: the originals weren't perfect. generic bases during mako exploration, anyone? Anyway, the gameplay and driving was great, but would UE4 been a better overall choice? Still, shame that this was a mess from the top down. Hats off to the team that got out a playable game in spite of all the corporate bullshit. I beat it a free weeks ago and have moved onto other games ( dragon age origins, actually), but I still think about the crew of the tempest.
To anyone that cares, this is how I would've done the ME:A story. This is LONG.
600 years later the Arks, ALL of them , stop outside of Andromeda Galaxy to take stock. Here they can tell their habitats have all gone belly up for unknown reasons. The 'Scourge' is nearly undetectable to scans at this time so a group from each Ark would be sent to investigate the reasons on the closest habitat world, #7. They'll be gone for a year or more as the Arks do not blindly invade another galaxy with the potential for sapient life. Cryo-pods are then loaded into the exploration ships, like the Tempest, for a short hop to habitat 7. (light character building here as well as char-gen)
Cut to around a year later. Pathfinder teams appear in the Eriksson system to broadcast a message of peace and understanding to any inhabitants of the area. This is where our heroes emerge from FTL to discover that all of Eriksson is shrouded in a strange, seemingly malevolent, cloud of 'dark' energy permeating it. All Pathfinder teams chat about what to do with the Salarians wishing to study the phenomena, the Turians wanting to punch through the cloud to reach their objective, the Asari desiring to wait/watch, and the Terrans doing what the character decides.
All options will eventually force the character to Hab7 where many of the same events happen. Alec, whom you can to spend more time with so they actually feel like more a part of your former life, sacrifices himself so that character can survive. Sibling will be critically injured from combat, maybe even outright killed if dialogue options take you there. Khett scour immediate area, take several prisoners for study, and are generally bad guys from human POV. Two of the other Pathfinder teams would be killed/captured determined from player choice.
Escape via the Tempest goes poorly and a blind jump drops character on Eos where the two surviving Pathfinder teams must join together to repair at least one of the scout vessels, while keeping it clear of Khett forces. Both ships would be parked in a large cave to protect from random radiation storms as Eos isn't 100% pure radiation and only the storms are truly as dangerous as Eos was before the vault was found. The cave is found to be the entrance to Remnant tech. Player choice is determined how to interact with the tech, but social bonus to other Pathfinder if their option is taken.
More of my story synopsis will be available if there happens to be any interest.
I fell sorry for them but still this is no excuse they should have simply delay the game until it was ready, you know like normal studios do that actually give a crap about the content they put out and about there reputation as a company.
Lupu Adrian if u get early rewievs that suggest 80-85/100 u dont just go to ea and tell we want to delay the game. :D
The people that "reviewed" this game give it that big of a score are ether blind or mentally retarded and i dare not imagine how a game of 50 or so score would look like.
Lupu Adrian o agree that it should've been delayed for months. until it was ready but Bioware doesn't decide the release date EA does and they werent willing to risk losing pre orders over people getting mad that the game they pre ordered would take even longer to release. This of course was a huge mistake in my opinion because all it did was essentially kill one of my favorite game franchises
Actually, I heard EA offered to give Bioware more time to work on the project, but they declined.
Lupu Adrain, Or people have different opinions then others and can look past the flaws and enjoy the game because they are entitled to they own opinions as much as you and everyone else does? You know that people can have different opinions because they human right?
Do we really want hundreds of explorable planets? i mean after a few time it would become really boring and monotonous
We saw how well that worked in One Man's Lie. BioWare obviously agreed in this assessment and reduced it.
"One Man 's Lie"...Worst pun ever.
Yes. Well, it depends on what we get to do with 100 planets. Working in a fun settlement system a-la Fallout 4 in nature, would have been an option. That and obviously a full planet would be very difficult to fill with quests, we'd probably want just a restricted "mission area" like ME1 had, only not garbo.
not if they make it by hand like Star Citizen does it they have over 300 Planets
Yes Black-Reaper. It also will never be done.
The article really does make a lot of sense, it's clear why we never really saw the game until a few months before it released. I was in a bit of denial when the game first released, but looking back and contemplating everything, the game is just bad, definitely not what we deserved or waited 5 years for, especially after the whole ME3 ending.
2 take-aways from this:
1. The people who helmed this project have to shoulder the majority of the blame here. Yes, I've heard that design scope tends to change rather ridiculously over the course of large projects, but a procedurally generated game with 100 explorable planets and a game with 7 hand-crafted planets aren't even in the same realm. You'd expect very few parts of the core gameplay systems and game engine to be transferable between the two. I'll say this much, a procedurally generated ME game sounds terrible. While having the time and resources to try different design directions is (I'd assume) one advantage of working with a larger budget, I think spending any time at all on such an unlikely idea speaks to a lack of design discipline. This means that nearly from inception, years worth of development time were destined to be sunk into work that would never see the light of day. What a waste.
2. The whole idea of predictive meta-scores is mind boggling, especially if: a) you expect accuracy with +/- 10%, and b) you're basing major design decisions on this quackery. You want a predictive meta-score? Here you go: Do things the way they are typically done in the industry and your game will probably score between 55% and 85%... because that's where average scores tend to settle. Beyond that reviewing tends to be highly subjective. The idea that there might be early (and here I mean pre-beta, at the stage where major design decisions can still be implemented) indicators of a game's ultimate public reception is just... I mean, what are these predictive scores even based on? Can you present-value a storyline? Are you doing quantitative analysis on characters? Can you graph the feel of gameplay?
Even with the limits to animation I really liked the game and finished it. Story did not suck like the article suggests but was intriguing especially decisions with no perfect choice to make. Combat and exploration were both fun. My biggest complaint was that harder levels of game play only made combat longer not harder. Combat while fun did get repetitive once all the bosses had been encountered and defeated for the first time. Having more then 7 worlds to explore would have been a waste. Took 140 hours to fully explore what was there. No epic combat ending but that is in line with previous MA games. I look forward to the next one
It's a shame that they didn't just push it back until it was finished. I understand each game's extremely expensive and production is essentially a time and money vampire until finished. Seemed like they were just glad it was "good enough" to net them an "X" amount of money just ship this thing and it didn't go that well.
the thing I had a problem with was the story this was apparently before Shepard found the pillar that gave him the images of what was to come and we all know that the krogan's in the terriens hated each other for what the terriens did to the krogan's at least I think it was the tarians I'm not too sure don't quote me on that but I just didn't find that animosity in this game and we all know what Shepherd went through in the first game humans weren't exactly accepted by the other races and I just didn't find you saw that in Andromeda just because they were frozen for 600 years doesn't mean that that animosity wouldn't have carried on when they actually came out of hibernation it just felt all wrong it's like they didn't even play the first three other games
As a big ME fan I have been swayed by the average reviews and complaints. So I finally decided to bite the bullet and I have no idea why I waited this long. The game is very good, not witcher 3 material but if you are a ME fan, this is in every way a ME game. Every aspect was improved on, game looks amazing besides the facial animations but slowly they are even getting small fixes for that. I mean its light years ahead of Fallout 4 facial-wise so I dont really get the hate. Unfortunately the early bugs and humor of bad animation, it completely gave an idea that it was a bad game. But seriously im 25 hours in and Im sucked into the world, love exploring, doing the sidequests. While not all are that interesting, it still adds to the story.
It could of been a way better game, but at heart its still very much a true ME universe.
Poor management by publisher EA and developer Bioware, so disappointed how lack of control this project had. The teams had no support and had to work in stressful conditions.
Breaks my heart that this amazing series is now up in the air... and according to the internet its not looking so good... how can we fix this?!
I'm new to the mass effect series I've played all of dragon age though I think the game was decent if not somwhat rushed how all the aliens referred to the remnants as remnants out the gate or how everything lined up ultra nicely with minimal development story wise ( in terms of going to point a to point b)was immersion breaking. with that said I've put about 150 hours doing 7 different playthroughs of this game I do hope in the next 3ish years that there will be another mass effects or hopefully they sell the rights to the franchise and have someone else test their skills at creating a mass effect game.
I set my expectations really low when I found out that the original team wasn't going to work on MEA, and because of that I was pleasantly surprised at how good the game play was...the lack of focus and overall polish was painfully evident in the storytelling side of things though.
When are you streaming Mass Effect:Andromeda multiplayer?
Even with all the problems I still think the game is good. The setting is interesting an the new characters are great. The bandwagon hate just went to far.
Trustinthecones91 I'm enjoying the game too.
I'm glad u liked it. Being a huge fan, I really tried to enjoy the game but felt it was an absolute boring MMO style grind. I truly hope that bioware can get back to its RPG roots and cutback on the open world setting and focus more on the writing, character development, etc.
I agree. Sure it's got derpy faces and a few animation glitches, but for the most part, my time with the game has been fine. Other studios like Bethesda constantly release broken games and get a free pass. I don't get it.
A Morgan if they truly put this together in the last year and a half then I'm impressed. I really like Ryder and crew. They better stick to characters and story.
I don't really recall Fallout 3, NV, 4 and Skyrim being "broken". Glitches and bugs hell yea but "broken"? I get the impression your experience with those games were abysmal because my experience with those were great. Plus you also need to remember that Andromeda is part of a franchise that left a sour taste in a lot fans mouths after ME 3's ending debacle. Bethesda's games however don't really have that same amount of stigma.
Great video!
I still believe there is a large dose of truth to the notion that Andromeda shipped in such a beta state to ensure it was receiving revenue before the end of the 2016 fiscal year.
E.A is a public company. No public company wants to go into a A.G.M riding on the back of being voted worst business for two years running and explain that a 5 year project that had 40 million investment, let alone advertising costs, is not on target, it's in a bad way and it is stretchy if it will ever be 100% ready and is looking like it might be a bad investment due to poor decision making. E.A did what most companies would do. They placed a day one embargo on reviews, shipped it and hoped week one sales would cover developments costs and make at least a meagre profit, then canned the project before it bleed out anymore.
Ultimately what happened here is bad for Mass effect as a franchise, but overall a positive for gaming. One of the largest publishers, who have had to delay a number of their current projects just took a swift kick to the financial balls. It has come at a time when they were probably hoping this failed project would have filled the coffers and added bridging finance whilst they finish their delay I.P's.
If you want E.A to learn...hit them in the wallet. It seems to be the only method that gets through to them. I hope they are currently thinking about all the lost revenue and potential DLC revenue they could have had if, as a publisher they had done their job well and managed their projects with integrity and listened to what their troops on the ground were telling them.
I like your videos JV I hope you get more subs in future and keep up good work.
Btw are you going to stream more games?
I just started playing Andromeda last week. obviously I missed a lot of bugs, but overall I would say I am extremely pleased with the game
It _is_ miraculous to think that Andromeda was cobbled together in 18 months. Not to say that it doesn't feel cobbled together (it does), it just had _a lot_ of content! Sure, a lot of it is "ubisoft content" that's probably easy to design, but at least 60 hours aren't. If I had known about the troubled production beforehand, I would have expected gross asset recycing and thinly-veiled fetch quests in the critical path, like in Dragon Age 2.
Now, I think it's unfair that it got reviewed worse than DA2, seeing as that game is dangerously close to being a scam, but DA2 was saved by having an original idea and story structure, and a dearth of competitors at the time. I know people who like it better than any other WRPG for its "family soap opera"-theme. For all its competence, Andromeda really had no "big idea" to redeem it; even as I enjoyed it, I found it hard to latch onto anything in the world.
This makes me so sad. They just needed more time to work on this game, and I think everyone can see how things were rushed, seeing how frequently we're getting patch updates.
I will still be a Mass Effect fan forever, and I hope that this game doesn't make EA think that the franchise is bad for business, and that the people who actually really worked hard on this game and were passionate about the project don't lose heart.
i loved the game, it could have been much better and thats sad, but game by itself wasnt bad at all. 170h spent into it and i am not regreting it, even thinking to play as fem ryder once more.
This all reminds me of the film term "Alan Smithee." Years ago, if a director could prove that their vision of a film was altered or compromised beyond reason, their name could be taken off a film and the director could disown it. "Alan Smithee" was that sign.
The staff who contributed are using it as catharsis. There is a lot of damning criticism. I am sure some of the contributors may want to distance themselves from ME:A.
BioWare has a history of making great story driven games. But ME:A's "development from Hell" should be used to provide good lessons.
I fear that this opportunity for reflection will be missed.
I do love andromeda, with all the patches, it looks good, hopefully bioware can focus on making this series great.
This happens a lot in big projects with many stakeholders... It doesn't often happen in such a public manner. Fr lots of people this is what everyday work challenges are all about. Scope change, misallocated and limited resources, impractical deadlines and confusion. Shame to see it in my favourite game franchise
Don't forget, a lot of people were turned off by the end of Mass Effect 3 and didn't just need an alright game from the franchise, they needed a redeeming game, something to tell them that this series was back on track and as much as Andromeda is an OK game if you can overlook some of the flaws, it was definitely not redeeming in any way.
At this point games from bioware have just gone further and further downhill since being bought by EA and I'm done getting excited about their games. I'm glad they put a series I love on ice because they have proven if they decide to touch it they will only mess it up more. Give me Bioware IP's with Blizzard's love and care for the gameplay and I'm hooked. CDK Project Red proved you can do good by your fans and they will do good by you. EA just proved you can turn something as massive as Mass Effect into a flop if you just throw something out there.
I'm sorry Bioware, my love affair with you has come to an end.
I agree with your assessment with who was ultimately to blame, the higher ups and publisher. I really wish more people saw that and the bandwagon would boycott EA instead of ME:A or the franchise in general. I know some of the developers were put on SW Battlefront 2 from ME:A, and I think that is completely unacceptable and generally terrible.
Tragic. So much potential squandered, for want of planning and for politics. I do hope they can do a clear-eyed review of this process and repair their process.
Still enjoyed MEA....but now looking forward to Bethesda's upcoming sci fi RPG
Mighty Penis Bethesda Sci fi Rpg???!!!!!! Where! Where!!!! I need it!
Game companies need to be more straight forward. If your game is not done don't release it. Just say "Hey, we fucked up and need more time."
MADMAN SLADE Nobody would be pissed if more companies just did this very thing.
TripleT706 Am I sad when games are delayed but that just goes to show they are trying to fix it.
Yes. There would be people that are pissed. They're called shareholders. And they're the only ones that matter to the leadership of companies the size of EA.
Pixel I'm fairly sure shareholders would be pissed even more if EA tanked because they keep producing unfinished game.
The stuff still sells like crazy..so yeah...not happening.
They should make a dlc, which allows you to fly and around planets and have space battle.
Still, one of my favorite games, even though its flawed
I think the fact that they (Bioware) had no issue with an employee publicly making bigoted statements and implying that the murder of a specific race of people would be good, was very telling. It told me a lot about the nature of Bioware and the environment they're fostering, which I personally found alarming.
I'm not interested in games made by the kids from Evergreen College, and it sounds like those are the sort of people they're employing and okay with. I don't see anyone with that kind of mindset being able to make an objectively good story or video game.
after the first week of playing i didnt go back to the game did they drop any expansions yet or is they any plans to ?
I don't know if I'm suffering of a kind of "forced compensation" because I wanted this game so much, that I ended liking it... a LOT! After reading the full article, I became very sad because, if I liked the game as it is (I would give it an 8), imagine what an incredible product would it be if BioWare and EA didn't fucked everything up?
One more thing: we must congratulate the developers and artists involved on this game. Apparently they made a miracle bringing this game to work at all.
Let's just hope EA learns from their mistake. Thay sucked bad years ago. They improved greatly, but now they are stained again. Let's see how they will respond to that. It's just a shame that Mass Effect is on a hiatus, suffering from their incompetence. I already miss ME!
I can definitely see where some of the issues came from, seems like EA ruined it again, what a surprise. Though I still didn't like the game, even (or maybe especially) as a huge Mass Effect fan. I personally didn't like the planetory exploration, it seemed boring to me and I just didn't enjoy the whole exploration system, there were never any "wow" momemts for me, the planets seemed bland and uninspired to me. I also really disliked big parts of the writing/quests and VA. I can definitely see where the issues came from though and to the people that enjoyed it, that's great! If you liked it, that's fine. For me though, it was one of the biggest gaming dissapointments I experienced, I gave it a proper chance and did 100% completion but will most likely never play it again, such a shame.
Rick van Logchem it seemed interesting that you said you didn't like the planet exploration, the thing is we didn't get to go out and explore the planets since Mass Effect 1 with the Mako Mass Effect 2 or 3 didn't have that but everybody has their opinions and I understand it did get boring at times
one thing that was kind of a letdown but I guess it was replaced by The Architects was the thresher maws, would you rather have thresher maws more than architects
Max Bardus Agreed, saying that Andromeda's sidequests were inspired by TW3 is just offensive to that game. They didn't come remotely close.
Sean McClelland I think the idea of the architects was ok, the implementation not so much. Maybe having them guard the vaults or some very interesting area would have been better.
I actually enjoyed it, on my 2nd play through now
I had some great moments with this game, no doubt about it but i can honestly say that the whole handeling of all the issues prior to launch left a bittersweet taste. I won't be jumping in to future EA and Bioware games blindly, never again. I can respect that the game development isn't easy but to make the decision to release a game in the state Andromeda was is just plain disgusting! #sickofcashgrabbingpublishers2017
What a disaster and it all starts at the top; they put the folks trying to make the game in a position to only fail.
I read the Kotaku article, and I have to say, I have serious doubts about the leadership at BioWare. The game they originally wanted to make sounds TERRIBLE, and just shows that they had no idea why people liked Mass Effect in the first place. And the game that we got shows that even the people who ultimately ended up cobbling together this version of the game don't know why people liked Mass Effect in the first place. Everybody wanted to make a game with groundbreaking new gameplay elements and blah blah blah, but Mass Effect fans never cared about any of that. It was always about the story, the lore, and most especially the characters. And all of those things were given short shrift in every iteration of Andromeda. So yeah, I don't see how this IP can be saved at this point, unless it is sold to Naughty Dog or something. Heck, I'd give the makers of Horizon Zero Dawn a crack at it before I'd want BioWare to touch it again. I will say that Andromeda had some good aspects to it, but they were too few and far between. I feel bad for all the talented people who poured their heart and soul and nights and weekends into this project, only to have it turn out to be this disappointing result.
I liked the game. couldn't care less about what other ppl were complaining about.
Can't say I'm at all surprised that the suits got involved and then everything went to hell. You see the same kind of thing in manufacturing. Probably every other industry now that I think about it.
Well, at least we have Obsidian (Alpha Protocol T_T dammit), InExile (Wasteland), Larian Studios, Spiders (loved The Technomancer), Harebrained Schemes, CD project Red, some japanese developers plus plenty more.
exactly what you said about the new project Dylan or whatever bioware's new IP game will be, all I've heard was the game is going to be a mix between the division and Destiny and it should be released Maybe late 2018 early 2019 but with all this stuff going on with Andromeda with different people leaving with EA forcing developers to produce this engine instead of a one that fits, you do kind of worried about what future BioWare games will be
I'm more disappointed than angry. To this day I still think what could have been. Mass Effect Andromeda was a fresh new start and so open to the possibility of anything. I can't help but be frustrated because as a writer myself there was so much they could have done to really go all out with the story. I would have loved to have written for them. If given more time I still think MEA could have been something amazing. I'm hoping DA4 is a little more promising.
I honestly love the game. I'm about 50 hours in and still having fun playing
It's as I said before and will continue to say. EA has a HISTORY of releasing games that are unfinished or extremely buggy because they only worry about the Monetary value of the game. Because of EA forcing things down Bioware, and Bioware being forced to suck it up and deal with it ended up with Andromeda having a less than ideal release. BUT, I still loved the game despite it's short-comings. It hurts hearing the game is on ice in terms of development because Andromeda has so much potential for future story development. EA will continue on releasing games that are unfinished, buggy, or copy-paste of previous games ( I.E Any 2k sports game out there) And unless they change something about that, it will continue to do that and slowly kill game franchises.
Thank you for this, I still enjoyed the hell out of this game and I'm really glad they are still updated and patching this game. God I wished they had the support the Inquisition team had, but DAI had DA2 to point to and to prove that they needed to get it right. I wish EA would see that and make sure the next MA title gets the time they need like Inquisition did.
With patch 1.08 I'm finally going to new game + and get the romance achievement with Scott romancing Jaal. I'm excited to finally be able to romance one of my squad mates, I'm not even salty anymore. I just hope the team left can continue to improve the single player experience, because honestly fuck multi player and the micro transactions.
Here's holding out for the Quarian arch dlc.
Has EA or BioWare responded to this yet? This makes me want to go to BioWare forums and ask the community, and BioWare its self, what they think about all of this.....
sounds like it could have been an amazing game with a hundred new worlds to explore
I have only faced some minor cosmetic issues playing this through a couple of days after release. The only ossue for me was rather with the gameplay with the high amount of repetative tasks, and the feeling that it feels a sort of a recyed story, but I was guessing it lonks together with the original trilogy. Saying the above I really liked the game, and have dusted off ME2 right after. Did any of you play that recently? Andromeda is a polised masterpiece compared to that. I was surprised as well. I think this has fallen victim of expectations set so high anything would be just less than adequate.
what ever happened to the books?
My biggest fear is that all this will kill the ME franchise. I belive Bioware can save it, but EA doesn't seem to give them a change to even try.
Great article I could listen to you all day. EA games pushed yet another game out to fast. When players point out that the original series was better that really says something. I got bored early in the game and have to put it down for a long time. I liked some of the characters like PeeBee, Dracs, and the outlaw leader but some of the others lacked chemistry. All the Asairi looked the same with the exception of PeeBee. I really enjoyed the chatter in the nomad while they were driving around, funny stuff. The Keth were cool looking aliens along with the Angara. Lots of female presence in the game and with all species. I got so bored driving back and forth shooting the same guys and gals having to kill animals and looking for dead bodies. There were good parts, bad parts and some dumb parts so I kind of enjoyed the game. Cora is not bad looking but the rest sheesh. The story could of been great if they took a little time. Anyway EA screwed us yet again...
I enjoyed MEA, but the amount of potential missed frustrates me to no end. Like Alec Ryder couldn't live past the first hour? They couldn't find anything for the other other twin to be doing or focused on the sibling relationship more than the 4 conversations they have? I never understood the obsession with exploration. Exploration has never been a part of Mass Effect, aside from the pointless re-skinned planets in ME1.
So they took a beloved and critically / financially successful franchise. Handed it to a rookie team. Decimated that team. Fractured the leadership of that team. Forced an engine on the team. Provided inadequate support to them. Ran them ragged. And finally decided to push the game out because of the projected metacritic score was "okay". Electronic Arts indeed. The art of taking an art and shitting all over it, that is.
So just now i've understood that i wont (maybe never) play another ME game and its more than sad.. Its tragedy... But game was horribly bad compared to what we wanted to get, what they said it will be and what were previous games..
Im one of the few who loved this game, still do. Granted I fully agree on that the way this game was on release was unacceptable. So, in regards to the article I think it shines more light on the idea of, all this internal struggles between Bioware internally and between EA potentially, may be the final push to get bioware to put out a Mass Effect or Dragon Age without EA cramming what they desire into the game. ive said it before but i think you look at few companies now that started with EA, and they leave and i dont blame them. I dislike EA for many a reasons and this article while not providing specifics but definitely guving perspective on, maybe in order to save the franchise, I.E Mass Effect, Bioware needs to leave EA for good.
Why does Ryder have a steering wheel around his head?
This sucks. BioWare had a legacy full of quality titles that had allowed people to put trust in them and their work. And in one, fell swoop - there goes all the trust. And I don't think that they can ever rebuild it back to where it was again. I don't even know if they should. If their games keep pushing towards the generic AAA third person fighting game, maybe they should be allowed to die, sooner than later, to keep as much of their dignity in tact as possible. I'd say that BioWare as they were are gone. And this is just a shell company at this point.
If Project Dylan is a 3rd person fighting game built in Frostbite, I think I can say with fair certainty that this is what's going on.
That's what EA tends to do with studios; it gets them, lets 'em do their thing for a while, then starts crushing them with mandates until they are too bruise and battered to be useful and ends up killing them off. Origins and Maxim went this way, Visceral is already on it's way, Mythic got fucked up hard when they got mandated to make Dungeon Keeper Mobile, looking online shows that EA killed a TON of devs. Now in this particular case I can't but put some blame on Bioware, as that looked like quite the mismanagement, but God knows how much of it was their fault.
Good article, so true. Makes me sad, hopely this is not RIP for Mass Effect. I hope Bioware splits from the EA wolfs!
I still liked Andromeda, but hearing about how it could have been so much better, and how it was basically ruined by a bunch of higher-ups in suits and EA, pisses me off, let's hope Edmonton make Andromeda 2 after Anthem and Dragon Age 4, and that there'll be no development issues
Bioware releases a slightly undercooked open world game with poor writing and animation bugs
Public: "WITCH HUNT"
Bethesda releases a slightly undercooked open world game with poor writing and animation bugs
Public:"Game of the Year, release it 12 times on 8 different consoles, some of which still aren't out yet"
It's a little over a year later and I'm assuming by Project Dillon we're talking about Anthem? If so I'm mildly interested in that game. Oddly enough Bethesda is stealing away my enthusiasm with the hinting at Starfield. I just feel overly burned by EA and Bioware lately. I like Andromeda and I would have supported it a lot more if they'd just release some DLC and back the product they put out. Don't get me wrong I haven't been completely burned but they're on notice with me, I'll likely buy their games months after launch (with the exception of more Mass Effect stuff... it's my favorite gaming franchise these days, sadly so now that EA is letting it chill).
I still like the game. This info explains so much...
if they ever do give us a new Mass Effect game I hope they scrapped the frostbite engine and get one that works.
Well, the Frostbite does work. It's a tremendous engine. But unlike say Unreal, Unity or CryEngine, it originally wasn't meant to be used by someone other than DICE. They wrote it for their Battlefield games, to be used by them. The tools are not there, it's not..intuitive. EA saw the praise it got and figured why waste money on new and different engines when we own this monster...and so now they're forcing it down every devs throat.
And suddenly all EA studios (remember, Fifa for example uses it, too) have to work with an unfamiliar engine and have to make it do stuff it originally was not meant to do. That takes time and ressources, neither of which EA is particularly known for granting to it's developers.
If you gave these guys a team that wasn't internally cannibalised and let them use the full development time instead of changing the whole game 3 times, this game would have been amazing.
I would have rather waited a year or even 2 for it to be done to perfection. Hopefully MEA 2 follows in the steps of ME 2.
my face is tired.
I was finished with Bioware after ME3, and both DA: I and Andromeda have proven to me that ceasing my support of the company and their dumbed down games was the right decision..same thing is happening with Bethesda.
Thank goddess they did not went with "100 procedurally boring planets to explore".
The game had obvious issues, but it was still pretty damn good.