On a long drive through the wastelands in the Nomad, my passengers briefly discuss dissecting me for the sake of scientific curiosity. We get shot at. We collect the data file needed for a mission and return to the Tempest for analysis.
One of my companions pulls me aside to discuss a disagreement we had had on a previous mission. I leave him angrily tweaking a piece of equipment and then suddenly find myself flirting with one of my other companions on this crazy mission through uncharted space.
Yep. This is definitely a Mass Effect game.
Confession time: until this week, I’d been surprisingly reserved in my hopes for Mass Effect: Andromeda. It looked too different, too big a departure from a series that contains some of my favourite games ever. The trailers showed harsh new planets with plenty of things to shoot, but relatively few to actually talk to. Explore a new universe, the advertising beckoned, but I wasn’t sold. I was worried that this new universe would end up like No Man’s Sky — expansive and beautiful, baiting explorers but turning up empty.
Just a few hours with the game was more than enough to change my mind.
The preview included a look at the game’s prologue and first mission, and then a roam around another mission that happened a little later in the game. The second mission also came with plenty of opportunity to get lost in sidequests and conversations with all the colourful characters who fill this world.
The Ryders
When you start a new game you can choose either Scott or Sarah Ryder. There’s a quickstart option for each that will use the default appearances, or you can delve into the customisation system to make your own Ryder. I’m pretty sure you can’t change their names this time.
While we didn’t get a chance to play around with the character creator (luckily, or I would have spent my entire time there) Bioware producer Fabrice Condominas assured me that you can definitely still customise your character — and it will also affect how your family members look in game. No matter which Ryder you choose, the other will still exist in the game (a first for Bioware protagonists) and the siblings’ father Alec Ryder is also present as the leader of the Pathfinders.
Similar to Dragon Age 2’s system, your family’s appearance will depend on the preset face you choose as the base for your character. While you can customise this face further, your family’s look will be based around the preset.
The Story
Your story, like many other sci-fi narratives, begins with Ryder waking up from cryogenic sleep. I won’t go into too much detail about the story, but I will say that it feels dramatically different to the trilogy.
Ryder (whichever one you choose) is your main character, and thankfully they don’t feel at all like a Shepard clone. Where Shepard was an experienced soldier heading out on a (supposedly) routine mission, Ryder is an adventurer heading into the unknown. Where Shepard was defending an old world, the Pathfinders are fighting for their place in a new one.
While the entire Pathfinder team is clearly highly trained, they’re also heading almost blind into a galaxy they know nothing about. The younger Ryders also come across as a little less experienced than others in the team, which is an interesting role to play.
Early on, you struggle through the challenges of making first contact with an unknown and hostile alien species, on a dangerous and unforgiving planet. You quickly learn that the usual rules don’t apply here.
There is, of course, a main villain and an overarching conflict to be had in Mass Effect: Andromeda, but this time the goal for humanity is twofold: survive, and thrive. Even while you’re gunning down enemies, you’re looking out for advantageous positions for potential future settlements, or marking deposits of valuable minerals that will be vital to continued inhabitance.
It’s a constant search for the perfect home — while also making practical preparations in case these planets are the best there is.
The story is told through a number of different types of missions. You’ll mainly be led along the central storyline: the parts that have to be completed to finish the game. There are also plenty of non-essential side quests, and even smaller events that mainly serve to add ‘flavour’ to the new galaxy.
Most exciting is the return of companion loyalty missions — though apparently these will be harder to trigger than in Mass Effect 2, due to the new ‘trust’ system.
The World
The Andromeda galaxy is expansive — apparently this game is pretty big. Bioware pegs it as its biggest game ever, saying that each ‘story planet’ is as big as the entirety of Dragon Age: Inquisition. The story planets are exactly what they sound like — main hubs that both add to the main storyline and have extensive plotlines of their own. Added to these are smaller planets that have large open areas for exploration and discovery.
There’s also the Nexus — the main hub of Andromeda, similar to (and designed after) the Citadel. Joining the Nexus are the four Arks, one for each race. The Hyperion is the human Ark, and is where Ryder’s story starts. We also know of a turian Ark called the Parcero, and an unnamed salarian Ark. The last Ark is presumably the asari’s.
The Andromeda galaxy is filled with potential ‘golden worlds’ — planets that have been marked as potentially habitable for the various races on board the Initiative Arks. Each Ark has a Pathfinder who is responsible for finding and vetting these golden worlds, examining their suitability for settlement.
Last but not least of your in-game destinations, there’s the Tempest — the home base for Ryder and their team. The ship’s design is reminiscent of the Normandy, though it’s different enough that you’ll probably get lost trying to find the galaxy map (hint: it’s in the cockpit).
Your squad can be found around the ship, along with the Salarian pilot, Kallo Jath, and a human woman with an Irish accent who may be the ship’s navigator. I forgot her name, but it appears to be her voice that ‘narrates’ the galaxy map.
You can also access multiplayer right from the Tempest — while we didn’t get a chance to try multiplayer at the demo, I did spot a ‘Strike Team’ interactable on a ship’s console, which coincides with what we’ve already heard about multiplayer.
For a new galaxy, Andromeda feels remarkably lived-in. It’s retained the seedy night spots and near-lawless slums that lent so much flavour to the original, some of which can be seen in the video below. You’re also not alone in the new galaxy — not by a long shot. Andromeda is home to two new sentient alien species that we know of thus far — the cat-like angara and the antagonistic kett. You’ll get to make friends or enemies with these ancestral Andromedans.
The Squad
Ryder has six squadmates that we know of at this point — though early sources pointed to there being seven. Bioware intentionally cut down on the number of squadmates in this game, but used that as an opportunity to flesh each one out more. Condominas claimed that each squad member has as much dialogue as Shepard did in previous games.
You meet and recruit Cora Harper and Liam Costa, both on the Pathfinder team, in your very first mission. They’re like your Ashley and Kaidan but… better. In true Mass Effect style you then go on to recruit a very diverse team of aliens — the asari Peebee, turian Vetra Nyx, old man krogan Nakmor Drack and mysterious angara Jaal.
Ryder is also accompanied by an AI named SAM, who rides with her/him via a neural implant. SAM’s voice cuts into the gameplay often to relay mission-relevant data. I haven’t decided yet whether I found him handy or irritating, though his existence in the Mass Effect world as a true AI is certainly interesting…
The relationship system — both romantic and platonic — has been reworked for Andromeda, along with the dialogue wheel. Unfortunately for those of you like myself who enjoy going full renegade, the renegade/paragon binary system has been scrapped in favour of a more nuanced system.
When it comes to the dialogue wheel, you will usually have a couple of options — most conversations will give you the choice between an ’emotional’ or ‘logical’ response, while others will let you choose either ‘casual’ or ‘professional’. I’m not sure how I feel about this system, honestly — there’s a big difference between, say, a sad ’emotional’ response and an angry ’emotional’ response, and it can still be difficult to correctly anticipate the tone Ryder will respond with.
This time Ryder’s personality will be taken from more than just your dialogue, however — the game also pays attention to who you talk to and who you don’t talk to, what optional side-quests you do and how you do them (one of the first scenes, for instance, tests whether you’ll shoot first and ask questions later).
Your relationships with your team will be based on a new ‘trust’ system. Condominas warned that this new system makes it a lot harder to get all of the characters to like you at once, though apparently it’s not impossible. Due to the relationships between the different characters, one of your squad mates might distrust you simply because you have the trust of a character they don’t like. While I didn’t really get to see this in action, it sounds tricky. And fun.
And as for romance options? “Well, we have a lot.” Condominas said when I asked about love interests. “Though I won’t go into the details. But we have a lot of options, not only with who you can romance, but also the type of romance. Now it’s not only about love stories — you can have one night stands if you want to, and both characters can just flirt. With who it is possible and in what combination? I don’t want to spoil it.”
From the sounds of it, you can also expect the romance scenes to be quite saucy. “We knew we wanted to be a mature game,” Condominas revealed, “so that opens a number of doors. But even then, when some of the romance scenes came back we were like ‘oh… yeah, definitely mature. But there’s no going back.’”
All I know from my time with the game is that I was able to flirt with Vetra, Andromeda’s lady turian. She seemed pretty into it.
The Gameplay
The biggest way Andromeda’s gameplay differs from the trilogy’s is Ryder’s ability to jump, with the help of a handy-dandy jet pack. This adds a more platformer-like quality to the game, with chasms to leap across and small cliffs to scale. At times it almost feels Metroid-esque, especially given some of the hostile-yet-beautiful alien environments you will have to traverse.
The jump is also a game-changer when it comes to combat. The jet pack gives you the ability to jump and hover in mid-air for a short time, giving yourself the perfect vantage point to finish off that one pesky enemy who won’t come out from under cover. It feels kind of badass, although you don’t want to hover for too long as Mass Effect: Andromeda is still very much a cover-based shooter.
Another big change to combat is the unlocked class system — you no longer have to choose a class at the beginning, but rather can pick and choose abilities to build to your own specifications. Using this system you unlock ‘profiles’ instead, which you can dynamically switch on the fly — for example you could swap between a vanguard profile and a sniper profile as the situation calls for. Unfortunately I didn’t have much time to play with this intimidatingly in-depth spec system in the time I had with the game.
A lot of actions — like taking cover — feel like they should have a prompt button, but don’t. It ends up feeling clumsy a lot of the time, but likely it’ll just take some getting used to. Even taking ammo and health happens without a prompt: you just run up to the marked boxes and they get refilled. In contrast to this, other boxes and enemy remains that you can loot require you to hold the button to complete the action. Hopefully this is a setting that can be toggled off.
A new feature that is part of Ryder’s kit is a scanner — another element that adds to those Metroid Prime
vibes. The scanner allows you to research new discoveries in the galaxy of Andromeda, whether it’s a new creature or a piece of alien tech. It can also be used to search for clues in certain missions, as was demoed in an earlier video. As a big fan of Metroid Prime’s scanning function, I really like this addition. It marks Ryder as more than just a soldier, making the ‘explorer’ part of their job of equal importance.
And of course, one of the earliest things we knew about Andromeda was that the Mako was coming back — although it’s now called the Nomad. Sections of driving in the Nomad are used for both plot missions and random exploration, and I’ll be elaborating on how that relic has been revived in a later story.
The Feel
The most important thing I learned from the preview was that Andromeda feels like a Mass Effect game should. It’s got the world, and the characters, and even those last-ditch moments of desperation. While part of me is disappointed that we’ll never be able to play as different races like you can in Dragon Age, Mass Effect has always been a series about the story of humankind and its place in the universe, and so far Andromeda is nailing that too.
The world of Mass Effect has always been immersive, and I felt the draw of Andromeda’s world in the same way — even when the session was up I wanted to stay and talk to its characters, raid its codexes and interrogate each one of my squad members in detail. I have a feeling this game is going to take up a lot of my time when it’s released.
Have any questions about Mass Effect: Andromeda that weren’t answered here? Let us know in the comments!
Comments
60 responses to “What I Learned From Three Hours With Mass Effect: Andromeda”
Weirdly, this is the only thing I’ve heard so far that is genuinely disappointing for me. I know it makes sense from a writing and recording standpoint, but having control over a name (even a first name) helps me believe I’m creating my own story. If I’m just playing Scott or Sarah Ryder, I feel like I might as well just leave ’em at their default looks. Maybe it’s just me.
I feel the same way. I don’t mind having a set last name but having a set first name is a bit of a drag. Obviously they want your whole name to be spoken in the game instead of just calling you “Ryder” all the time, but the least they could have done is offer a few first names to pick from.
Combine that with how heavily the default Ryders have been marketed and my OCD is telling me it would be wrong to change their faces because that’s how they’re meant to look. I felt the same way about DA2 with Hawke.
I understand the need for marketing but I really dislike games with a character creator having a default canon face for the protagonist.
@voxgecko
It seemed weird to me at first as well, but when you think about it it makes sense. There are three Ryders in the game, so it would be kind of weird for characters to be calling you Ryder “No, not you, Ryder, the other Ryder.” Also it would feel totally jarring for your own dad to call you by your last name. It’s kind of a necessary evil.
Looking back on it, I don’t actually remember the first names I gave my Sheps. I just referred to them as ‘my Shepard’ for the most part. But I think for a lot of people who really get into the roleplaying/character creation part it’s going to take some getting used to.
My Shepherd names ended up largely being used so I could identify save files when I switched to another one… Considering how long I worked on some of those names it’s kind of disappointing =P
I’m glad you said “creating my own story” instead of “creating a character that is like me / with my name”. One is completely understandable, the other is childish narcissism. I weirdly get what you mean though, a mandatory last name makes it easy to change the character, but a mandatory first name makes the defaults feel more set in stone.
Honestly if not changing the first name results in better characterisation and writing, i’m all for it. Bioware’s always received more credit than they deserve for those things.
Uh what? Self insertion isn’t the same in video games as it is in literature, it’s just an immersive device. Making sure the player feels like they’re part of the story is very common, from Elder Scrolls to Fallout to Mass Effect. I don’t think it’s fair to call it narcissistic.
All of those games you listed are exactly what I am talking about. They suffer from weak storytelling and characterisation and they offset that to the best of their ability (but never fully) with a compelling sense of freedom and setting.
I think the ability for players to make themselves is a nice courtesy from the developers, but a lot of players operate with a expectation that their desire to see themselves in the game must be entertained. Whenever you give players too much control over a character’s identity in a story / character relationship based game like Bioware’s ones, it at least harms, and at most, completely destroys, any opportunity for mature storytelling.
When you don’t know what your protagonist is going to be called, whether or not they will be male or female, what they will and won’t do or their race (in a fantasy / sci-fi context expecially), you have to resort to really really basic plots and dialogue so it can cover all your bases. This is why we’re still being fed the same infantile “YOU’RE THE SAVIOUR / THE ONE THE PROPHECY SPEAKS OF” centre of the universe nonsense from Bioware. This is a step towards the far more engaging storytelling of The Witcher 3, for example, because it’s taking options away from the player in service of telling them a better story.
Don’t get me wrong, certain games, such as MMOs, The Sims, Saints Row, GTA online, etc. It makes perfect sense to entertain that power fantasy narcissism of seeing yourself as the avatar. But in storytelling games, it’s like tying one arm behind your back before you start. Player choice should not be applied to every game, it needs to be handed out sparingly depending on the type of game, and the type of story, you are trying to create.
Every game with a story worth praising is defined by its commitment to the narrative and not the player’s self-fascination. Think of games like The Last Of Us. Think of the characters and the choices you made, and more importantly, the big choice you didn’t get to make, and how those decisions made the story undeniably objectively compelling, not just “good for a video game story”.
Your response essentially boils down to “I prefer predefined protagonists and anyone who prefers otherwise is a narcissist and every story that does otherwise is inferior”. I disagree with most of the judgements you made and I don’t think your personal preferences in any way justify your conclusion.
Not true at all. I loved making my own character in Destiny, loved doing it in For Honor. It depends on the game that’s trying to be made.
And it’s pretty clear that you didn’t even read what I wrote because I specifically said in the second half that character customisation has its place in numerous genres and titles. It’s not “every story that does otherwise is inferior” it’s “Don’t say you’re masters of storytelling like Bioware does and then make massive storytelling concessions for the benefit of the player.”
Childish narcissism is a bit harsh don’t you think? It’s gaming, there’s room for all styles of play.
I agree, it’s harsh and doesn’t explain my point clearly enough. Basically, there’s room for all styles of play, but Bioware repeatedly state their commitment to storytelling, and are often praised for it (which I don’t believe is deserved), but they can’t have it both ways.
If you’re trying to write a compelling story you need to know your characters. If you’re letting the player define your protagonist, how can you possibly write a good story around such a huge question mark right in the middle of it? People fall in love with the supporting characters of Mass Effect and Dragon Age, but without a defined protagonist to play off of, all they really are are monologue dispensers. You approach them, they talk about themselves. They ask the undefined protagonist about themselves, and then use that answer to further deliver monologue option A, B or C.
Look at the nuance of characterisation in film and literature, where the writer knows everything about the characters and can use that to play them off each other. Look at The Last Of Us. No player choice outside of gameplay, and a much better story because of it.
But yeah, definitely makes sense for genres of game like MMOs. I just think if visual fidelity, voice acting, animation, production values, etc. are all going to keep growing as they are, there needs to be some sacrifices in player input over the story and characters for actual narrative to keep up with that growth. If Bioware was truly commited to storytelling, they’d embrace this.
Im with you in a lot of ways man.
Self insertion definitely plays on aspects of our vanity for sure, certainly not in a negative way.
I know what you mean by narcissism, it’s all the same wheel house.
I love self insertion and realise what I said as I wrote, but I continue.
Liking those types of games I agree that too much freedom can conflict with story, or the other way around.
The urgency of a son in Fallout 4 seemed at odds with the way the game tends to be played.
Saints row as you mentioned earlier is a fine example of having a good balance between insertion and story.
I thought The Old Republic did a good job of having a narrative, but perhaps Star Wars is bad example, it’s already well established and takes players along.
Still, it would be nice to see some good character driven games like TLOU, but perhaps Naughty Dog is a bad example too lol.
Their ability to take several OK pieces and arrange them in to a solid work of art is amazing.
Or they just need better technology so the characters can say the user’s chosen name properly with the correct emotion for the moment.
It could happen.
I see where you’re coming from. I would personally disagree with your opinion on Bioware’s writing, but hey, different strokes.
I totally love The Last Of Us for the reasons you state, but I don’t want my Mass Effect to be The Last Of Us. The intrigue of ME has always been about shaping your world through your actions (even if you could argue they didn’t live up to those expectations in the end), and for me that has to begin with some control over who I am gonna be playing for 60 hours.
Names are super important for me in Rpgs. I actually have set names for games each with a personality attached. So if my character is called X I know I am playing a a**hole in that game, Y then they are a peacemaker goody two-shoes, Z is the get things done, needs of the many type. So naming the character means the most to me because I can just look at the name and KNOW what kind of character I am playing and what decisions I am making.
How many levels of narcissism am I operating on when I name a dwarf after myself?
Yes naming is so important.. imagine having a name like “Geralt” for the whole game (or for 3 whole games).
¿Porque no los dos?
It was confirmed by devs that you CAN change your first name, I don’t know why would the author of the article think you cannot. You cannot change the name of your sibling (that you are not currently playing) to avoid everyone being called “Ryder”. (Also if you stick to the preset names, your character will get called Sara/Scott.)
I think the devs have mentioned a couple of times that you can, in fact, give your character a custom name – but if you keep the default one (Scott or Sara), you will also be called by it in dialogue when appropriate. Otherwise you’ll most likely be referred to as just Ryder, Pathfinder or some other title depending on who you’re talking to.
The game director said you can change their name they will just call you ryder. But you don’t they’ll call you Scott or Sarah.
The game director said you can change their name they will just call you ryder. But you don’t they’ll call you Scott or Sarah.
Hey Hayley, I don’t suppose you could tell us whether you were playing as bro or sis ryder, could you?
I played as Sarah in the first mission and Scott for the second. Doesn’t seem to be too much difference aside from backstory.
Thanks for responding; and were you playing as scott or sara when you flirted with vetra and she seemed “pretty into it.” ?
Scott, but apparently she responds pretty well to Sarah as well. I wish Bioware would stop being so mysterious about whether she’s a romance option…
I feel the same, super annoying that Vetra seems to be the one squad romance that seems off limits for info. And thank you very much for the info of her responding well to sara; the only other info we had was that when someone else tried to flirt with Vetra as Sara, Vetra changed the subject. Did you have a similar interaction to that at all or was that perhaps from someone whose gameplay demo was taking place earlier in the game’s storyline?
The convo I had as Scott was just along the lines of “so are you seeing someone?” And she says no, then he makes some remark and she’s says that she didn’t expect him to be a romantic. That was about as far as I got in this section, so while it was definitely flirty it’s still quite ambivalent. I’m hoping she gets something though, that it won’t just be a tease. I do love me some turian.
Is there actual loot in the game? Stuff you can use for crafting or mods? Stuff you can sell or use for yourself? Thanks 🙂
You can loot crates and certain enemy bodies. There didn’t seem to be as much loot as you would find in say, Dragon Age, but apparently there’s a pretty meaty crafting system. We were warned to stay away from it unless we wanted to use up all our time there, haha.
You forgot to have a “The 4K” subheading.
Lack of pure renegade hurts 🙁 I’m sure there will be plenty of ways to be evil like in Dragon Age. Hopefully nothing like the new low point in dialogue ‘choices’ Fallout 4.
There are still interrupts, thankfully 😉
I just want my renegade Ryder to have facial scarring like in ME2!
YES!
i got to admit I’m more and more impressed with the combat system this time round. not only did they merge the system of infinite ammo guns and ammo required guns (ME1 / ME2), now they’ve unlocked the class system so you can mix and match abilities as you see fit.
I’m curious, did you com across many fetch quests (like literally talk to A and deliver to B)? Bioware stated they learnt from DA:I which is comforting to a degree but implementing what they say is another matter
Kind of? One part of the mission I played was literally “there’s a thing buried out in the desert”, and you drive out and pick it up. But it was also a part of a mission that also had you negotiating, then infiltrating enemy bases and etc.
None of the other optional quests I unlocked seemed to be fetch quests. One was investigating a string of murders. Others included going to check out weird reports or signals or something from an uncharted solar system.
I don’t mind one or two, DA:I just went overboard with them (imo)
thank you for the preview and answering!
Or worse travelling across an entire map where there is a data pad to read and then….. mission complete.
Ah yes, those were the days!
Yes side quests with story arcs beyond Start at A go to B *Fin*
Yeah, the combat system looks fantastic.
This is my favourite preview on the Citadel.
*Nexus
Glad to hear that there is still proper character customisation rather than just the presets. I know you’d said you didn’t get to play with the character creator but would you know if there’s only a single voice option for each Ryder?
If you accessed any cities, do you know if there were alternate paths to take to get to a building? ie alleys where you might be able to find less lawful characters and such?
Pretty sure it’s a single voice option for Ryder. I didn’t really go to any cities, though I checked out the settlement on Kadara which is also featured in this video: https://youtu.be/NOIzH6UcoW4?t=46
It was a kind of Omega-esque place, we visited a bar before going to find Sloane Kelly (also in the video) and you kind of have the option of being shady or being lawful when you’re dealing with her.
Hi @haleywilliams! Question – was the musical soundtrack and general sound design suitable awesome?
This was actually something I was going to mention, but I ran out of time while I was writing.
I actually didn’t hear a part of the soundtrack that really evoked that particular Mass Effect feeling for me, except for maybe a couple of parts in the prologue. While I understand why they did it, I’m kind of disappointed that the galaxy map in particular didn’t have that distinctive music, or even something similar to it. I’m kinda hoping that’s just because of the parts I played, and not the game in general.
Great response, thanks.
You hit the nail on the head about fans deserving/wanting/needing that special dose of music which evokes that ‘Mass Effect feeling’.
Personally, it’s a major reason that I’ve always been so drawn to the games. Even the less enjoyable titles in the series. Anyway, having that said it’s a shame that you felt the ‘classic vibe’ was missing a bit.
Fingers crossed for the game in general….
I’ve actually been listening to the trilogy soundtracks while writing these up, haha, so I get it.
I probably should point out that though it was an unfinished build, so some audio/dialogue tracks were missing. So I might not have heard all the soundtrack has to offer.
In your time with the game, was there an appropriate explanation with how you understand the language of alien races 600+ light years from our galaxy? I’m assuming they don’t just naturally speak English ;). I would think the AI SAM probably has something to do with real-time interpretation (or maybe there’s a translation fish in your ear) but hopefully they do address it in some way. I know there’s a lot more technicalities they gloss over (interspecies sex and the biological compatibility therein etc) but this one just extra niggles at me for some reason.
No idea. In the first scene you can’t understand the aliens you encounter and they can’t understand you. In the second part we played, I had a perfectly normal conversation with an angara. I figure it’ll be explained somehow.
Cheers, much appreciated 🙂
“I want to sleep with at least one of these aliens.” given there is a human in the image, did you just out yourself as an alien?
The whole point of Andromeda is that humans are the aliens 😉
I mean that’s Bioware’s pitch for it at least.
Wasn’t this also the case for Dragon Age 2? Or was there something else that differentiates it?
In DA2 you have the same siblings whether you’re male Hawke or female Hawke. In Andromeda, male Ryder and female Ryder ARE the siblings, if that makes sense.
Ohh you’re right! They just kill off one of the siblings depending on what class you created. I was misremembering the start of that game pretty badly.
Thanks for the coverage by the way, I get far too excited about ME stuff.
Combat looks good. I played the original Mass Effect 6 times over – but I didn’t play it for the combat, that’s for damn sure. So I like the direction combat is taking.
I can’t comment on the quality of the writing, because they haven’t showcased much of that. I will say that the lines I’ve heard in the trailers sound a little to “American-Action-Hero-Mr/Ms-Hollywood-Save-the-universe” for my tastes – but that’s just the trailers. They always put in the most bland lines in the trailers.
All I want is the same sort of feeling that ME1 gave me – of a complex, naunced world with “weird” stuff in it. I liked ME1 because of things like the Hanar, the Elcor, the weird and cryptic planet descriptions, the lore behind how the Geth interacted and fictional technology. Sure, the squad were….. fine (they became more likeable in ME2), but what drew me in was the WORLD. I fear that BioWare have, in recent years, become too fixated on party-banter and “witty lines”. Dragon Age Inquisition was…. alright, but the main story plot was really boring and they didn’t expand much on the lore of that world.
I just hope they spend more time on making ME: Andromeda feel like a world worth exploring. I don’t want 80+ of combat. I want at least 40 of those hours to be standing on a space station learning how space jellyfish structure their society, or how a particular space engine works.
I’m still working on getting my interview with Fabrice up in full, but one of the things he said was that they wanted to take the feeling of discovery and exploration from ME1, the connection you had with your squad from ME2 and the refined combat system from ME3. If they can actually deliver on that then it’s going to be a great game!
Totally with you on the whole wanting 40 hours just learning about how space jellyfish structure their society. That was the stuff that made ME1 feel alive and why was so disappointed with ME2.
I wonder if I can make my chosen ryder look like femshep…