[Megathread] Mass Effect Andromeda

[Ergunk]

They should bring it back to the Milky Way... i enjoyed Andromeda, i just didn't have the same connection to it as i had with the original.

I am curious to why BioWare meant for ME3 to be the last of Commander of Shepard. I know wanting to put an end to a main character's story only if they were gonna do it like Dragon Age, where it is a new protagonist each game. However with ME they had something truely extraordinary going. They were just beginning to dig deeper into the lore of the Mass Effect universe. Although Shepard's story is over, with his purpose of destroying the Reapers i just still don't understand why BioWare would throw something that good away... The atmosphere of the Milky Way, just the whole universe they had built within the Milky Way was just fantastic.

They had something great going for them, and they ended it. Did they simply not have more use for Shepard and his companions?
I'm not complaining, don't get the wrong idea. I am just curious.. And sad that we might never see a Mass Effect game with the fun playstyle and beautiful graphics of MEA in the universe we know, which is the Milky Way which still had a lot more to explore.

[Notshauna]

Other than the Cyberpunk game, what single player RPGs are coming out?

We still have a 4th Dragon age, but outside of those we have Divinity Original Sin 2, Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire, South Park: Fractured but Whole and Wasteland 3. As for big budget RPGs ala Dragon Age and Mass Effect, depending on how Dragon Age 4 goes we might see them cease to exist outside of CD Projekt Red and maybe Bethesda (though there is a fairly considerable chance that they aren't even working on RPGs anymore).

[Edge-]

games sales, critical response and so on are meaningless to AAA. "Did we make back what we spent on marketing it?" is now the norm. Has been since Call of dutys profitability became 100% reliant on season passes. EA in particular has taken this to heart since last gen.

That's been the case since like...forever, dude. That's how business works, you spend on the product and marketing based on sales forecasts and expected earnings, and if you meet those metrics you're successful, if you don't your product didn't succeed.

That's basic business.

Look up the nightmare development of Dead Space 3. Visceral started working on a dark, lonely horror game that focussed on the fact that the main characters mind was breaking down and could not be repaired. It was meant to be a less action focussed and more thoughtful finale to the series.

Thee EA suits went "yeah, nah" and demand it have multiplayer, an action focus with faster more frenetic shooting mechanics and microtransactions to make more money on it. Sound familiar?

In Dead Spaces 3's case it was a critical mess, sales were below expectations and while a few enjoyed it EA decided that it would try and milk the microtransactions then mothball the ip.

Again, sound familiar?

Yup, they killed the Dead Space franchise by trying to turn it into something it was never intended to be, a co-op bro shooter. That's not really the case with ME:A, the multiplayer had already successfully been bolted onto it in ME 3, and was well received and pretty popular. Beyond that, not much really changed in terms of how they handled ME:A compared to prior titles - it was just shit-poor execution from BioWare.

There's really no comparison between the two, I don't think ME:A even had the same "5 million copies to break even" nonsense that Dead Space 3 had.

I'm not a big bioware fan but this is just this gens Dead Space 3. Designed by committee governed by suits in marketing. The big question of course is with things like Dead Space, Mass Effect and Mirrors Edge now killed by EA whats left? or better yet: Whats next?

Again, not at all. This was just BioWare fucking up, EA didn't force this error. They gave them plenty of additional time to get their shit together, and they weren't lacking budget.

[Valeron]

I think the only BioWare game that EA really had a detrimental affect on was DA2. ME:A was all on BioWare (even though I had fun with the game).

[Lahis]

Absolute nonsense. Some of the biggest sellers of the past 2-3 years were singleplayer games.

Now imagine if they could sell you lootboxes and boosters too.

MP games with microtransactions just have much greater ROI and Bioware and especially EA have noticed this.

[Edge-]

I think the only BioWare game that EA really had a detrimental affect on was DA2. ME:A was all on BioWare (even though I had fun with the game).

Yup, they've largely given BW quite a bit of leeway to fuck everything up all on their own. DA2 was on EA, but ME3's issues were BW, SWTOR's issues were BW, and ME:A's issues were BW.

[DreamSlaveOne]

Idk, ME:A has many flaws, but I really enjoyed it. It's a sad end for the Mass Effect saga.

[rhorle]

I think they knew full well, 100% that they were NEVER going to add anything. I don't think it's a case of incompetence.

I don't think they did. The multiplayer content heavily hinted at supporting story content. It hinted at the Quarian ark and had a batarian show up in the story/lore parts of the multiplayer content. I want to say they were given a chance but failed and/or a new team tried to make sense of their mess and they decided it wasn't worth it.

- - - Updated - - -

I am curious to why BioWare meant for ME3 to be the last of Commander of Shepard.

Two major reasons. The problem with any multiple choice ending and choices that impact ending. You eventually have to factor in exponential paths. You can make one ending cannon but that is a bad way for a game that offers choices. Or you can distance yourself timeline wise so it won't matter to much. There is a reason why DA1, 2, and 3 all follow different protagonists. So they don't have to worry about certain things because you are seeing a different part of the world's story. Remember for dragon age they had to create the Keep to help manage and store choices and allow people to choose choices for import.

And the second reason is the Reapers. What would make a fun and interesting game when you just defeated the Reapers. Even ignoring Control, Destroy, or Synthesis it still poses a problem story wise. Sure they could have had the Kett/remnant or something invade on ark ships but that isn't very dramatic. Not to mention the forces that just united for the defeat of the Reapers would make short work of any Kett ark ships.

I am not saying any story would be impossible. I think there would be plenty of short stories to experience with Shepard or a Milky Way setting. But nothing that would make for a full game or series. Though it would have been interesting to see an episodic dlc game that never really ends and you get cheap short stories.

[corebit]

This is not going to bode well for Anthem. Lots of Mass Effect fans are already angry and set on boycotting Anthem because they feel ME:A "died" for this new game. Can't blame them though, once you throw a game under the bus that isn't even half-a-year old, you're telling everyone you give up easily. Even No Man's Sky, a game that got a lot worse reception than ME:A, is getting regular updates.

[Edge-]

This is not going to bode well for Anthem. Lots of Mass Effect fans are already angry and set on boycotting Anthem because they feel ME:A "died" for this new game. Can't blame them though, once you throw a game under the bus that isn't even half-a-year old, you're telling everyone you give up easily. Even No Man's Sky, a game that got a lot worse reception than ME:A, is getting regular updates.

It's not getting thrown "under the bus", EA/BW just aren't wasting money on DLC due to the lackluster sales of the base game. Why invest in expensive single player story DLC when your potential audience is far smaller than you'd anticipated?

No Man's Sky is all that Hello Games really has going on right now, and even despite the controversies was a huge success for them as a studio. It's not remotely comparable, though their dedication to continuing support for the game is quite admirable.

ME:A "died" because it had a deeply troubled development cycle due to management at BW Montreal being shit, which resulted in hilariously cringy memes and a pretty polarizing reception to the launch that was comparable to the ME3 ending debacle. The only difference is rather than just the ending, it was pervasive throughout the game, and far more difficult to "fix" due to how widespread the issues were.

If fans want to get mad at someone, get mad at BW Montreal heads, not Edmonton. Montreal was given a chance to join the big boys table after being a support studio for years, and while what they delivered has plenty going for it and was impressive in many ways it was also deeply flawed enough to kill the studios chances of being anything more than a support team. Which is why they've been folded into Motive, as a support team for their projects, rather than continuing to work on projects of their own.

[Valeron]

My main reasoning for not really excited for Anthem has to do that I'm not interested in another multiplayer game. If it turns out that it has a really good single player campaign then I might consider it. But if it's like a lot of the multiplayer games out there that just have a bare bones, 8 hours at most, single player campaign then I will most definitely pass.

[corebit]

It's not getting thrown "under the bus", EA/BW just aren't wasting money on DLC due to the lackluster sales of the base game. Why invest in expensive single player story DLC when your potential audience is far smaller than you'd anticipated?

I hear this "lackluster sales" thrown a lot by several people, but ME:A actually sold well enough in EA's Q1 report: http://www.tweaktown.com/news/58609/...les/index.html

If fans want to get mad at someone, get mad at BW Montreal heads, not Edmonton. Montreal was given a chance to join the big boys table after being a support studio for years, and while what they delivered has plenty going for it and was impressive in many ways it was also deeply flawed enough to kill the studios chances of being anything more than a support team. Which is why they've been folded into Motive, as a support team for their projects, rather than continuing to work on projects of their own.

Why get mad at BW Montreal when the final decision-maker is EA? EA is the one that decided to put the ME project in the Montreal studio's hands, maybe because they thought the "Mass Effect" label was an easy cash cow and therefore they had no need to waste their A team's effort to make it? I certainly don't think they awarded it solely because the Montreal studio wanted to prove they were "big boys" too.

[Edge-]

I hear this "lackluster sales" thrown a lot by several people, but ME:A actually sold well enough in EA's Q1 report: http://www.tweaktown.com/news/58609/...les/index.html

No, that's them trying to save face on an investors call. Yeah, it drove revenue growth compared to the same quarter last year, because all they had for Q1 last year was Plants vs. Zombies 2, so no fucking duh.

But notice how they didn't say shit about revenue numbers? Sales numbers? Actual metrics that would give us the faintest hint of how the game performed? Notice how there wasn't a single announcement about strong sales numbers at all, at how the only time it was even vaguely hinted at was the vaguest comment you can get on an earnings call?

That's a bullshit comment meant to try to avoid making it look like a total shitshow to investors. You can bet your ass that it didn't meet, or even surpass their sales expectations though.

It's largely for laughs rather than being a super meaningful data point, but remember when folks came across this at Goodwill?



This is not normal for a game that was a few months old at the time.

Why get mad at BW Montreal when the final decision-maker is EA? EA is the one that decided to put the ME project in the Montreal studio's hands, maybe because they thought the "Mass Effect" label was an easy cash cow and therefore they had no need to waste their A team's effort to make it? I certainly don't think they awarded it solely because the Montreal studio wanted to prove they were "big boys" too.

Did you follow any of the fallout afterwards? Literally all the information coming from staff before launch, and especially after launch, pointed to BW Montreal being a complete and total shitshow of incompetent management. That's what caused the majority of the problems. EA hasn't had a "heavy" hand in the day to day operations or more granular decisions for years, they don't do that. They maintain an eye and help shape the overall direction, but they're not making decisions about animations, for example.

EA put the trust in Montreal that they'd deliver, it was clearly misplaced because Montreal flat out couldn't cut making a AAA game on their own. They cemented their status as nothing more than a support studio, which is a damn shame.

Sometimes, publishers give their support studios a shot at playing ball with the big boys and not just being relegated to "that studio that gets listed in the credits well after folks have exited out of credits if they can.", and that's a great fucking thing. It gives a lot of talented teams the chance to really show off what they can do when given the reigns. And with BW already working on another Dragon Age after Inquisition 3 years back, Edmonton working on Anthem, and Austin still working on SWTOR (and whatever else), they weren't going to do shit with Mass Effect for years unless they gave Montreal a shot.

This is purely, 100% on Montreal for fucking this up. EA didn't even seem to have insane expectations a la Dead Space 3, even.

[callipygoustp]

I look forward to buying it on SteamOrigin when it hits $4.99 or lower.

Edit:
Changed from "Steam" to "Origin". I look forward to buying it when it is dirt cheap, regardless of where I get it.

[Edge-]

I look forward to buying it on steam when it hits $4.99 or lower.

Never coming to Steam. EA is very much locking their games down to Origin, they have been for years. But it will likely get that cheap on Origin within a year or so, it's already been on sale for $20 multiple times and got a price cut to $40 base price.

[callipygoustp]

Never coming to Steam. EA is very much locking their games down to Origin, they have been for years. But it will likely get that cheap on Origin within a year or so, it's already been on sale for $20 multiple times and got a price cut to $40 base price.

Never say never.

[RuneDK]

im not surprised...this game was a massive turd and if you enjoyed it then im happy for you....but the planets felt too large and empty. mind you there's only five explorable planets i believe. It does suck though that one of my favorite franchises is basically dead though.

[corebit]

https://twitter.com/CaseyDHudson/sta...94294589341696

It doesn't tell you anything. He would like to work on ME sometime in the future whoop dee doo. It's not up to him to make that call either way.

A Mass Effect mobile card game wouldn't be out of the question with EA.

[Eleccybubb]

Not surprised about them pulling the plug on the game. Andromeda was an insult to the franchise and ARPG games in general.

[Edge-]

Never say never.

The last proper EA published game released on Steam was Warp, in March of 2012. The last product of any form was Sims 3 DLC in October of 2013. The last "major" game they published on Steam was Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning in February of 2012. The last EA developed game released looks like it was either Crysis 2 in March of 2011. They have Origin now and it's got a solid install base. They have no reason to return to Steam and lose the 30% cut of sales Valve takes.

They're not returning, and "never say never" is a dumb saying. Though it's one word short ("again") of being a great Bond flick.