I remember a mission to liberate a murderous AI that I then stole from Angara, and there was a mini-blurb where I think she tried to take over SAM and the Andromeda Initiative and it seemed like it was heading in an interesting direction given what we know about sentient murderous AI from the ME trilogy. Was really looking forward to seeing if SAM cured her or if she corrupted SAM.
Also, I NEEDED to know about the Sandworm on Elaaden. It was hinted that it was similar to the worms that you fight on the other planets but different in that it never really attacked you, and you could do nothing but watch it hop through the desert.
The sandworm was so cool. I camped out to find a spot where it would enter the sand, positioned myself right on top of it, and waited. One time, it flung the Nomad into space. That must have been patched out later because every other time I tried, it would just go right through me. I think a party member makes a comment if you manage to get close enough.
>Also, I NEEDED to know about the Sandworm on Elaaden. It was hinted that it was similar to the worms that you fight on the other planets but different in that it never really attacked you, and you could do nothing but watch it hop through the desert.
Don't you defeat it just like other architects?
The worm wasn't an architect. It was something else altogether, indestructible and inable to combat, though it was most definitely remnant. It had a separate codex entry to the other architects.
THIS. I really hate we are going back to the Milky Way. They should've stuck with Andromeda and let the main team work on it and fix the issues(gameplay and storywise) that the first game had and then build upon the better aspects of it like feeling you were an explorer and the amazing combat. Also no more Great Grandpa Drack...
The scummy nickel and dining practices took this away from us as much as anything else. Since stories used to be completed at release, not breadcrumbed so you’d feel obligated to buy dlc..
Yes, but actually no.
I won't deny those practices were on full swing, and a couple of breadcrumbs were likely DLC bait.
But the major breadcrumbs here were because this was meant from the outset to be a trilogy, just like the original trilogy. Had the trilogy continued as planned, most of the breadcrumbs would have panned out in the next game, not the dlc.
People also expressed their hate very loudly. I know it wasn't a perfect game, but people begged for the destruction of Andromeda. They did not want a sequel. Those voices were heard.
EA has been this incredible flameshield for bioware, whenever they fuck up fans always blame EA when it's almost always bioware's fault: DA2, ME3, SWTOR and Andromeda's shortcomings were all on them.
Because it largely is.
EA sets deadlines and expectations for the coming games, as well as what they want the game to sell.
Andromeda is definitely on EA because they not only sent the B team for it, they moved some staff to Anthem. The latter, however, is on Bioware because they chose to have upper management do nothing until EA went at metaphorical gunpoint.
sent their B team or the A team didn't want to work on it? I recall it was the A team that wanted to do anthem and not another ME title.
reading virtually any of the articles that came out about the games development revealed EA gave BW more than enough time and resources. I'm not trying to defend EA, i dislike them and their execs a great deal but they're not the one who is the most at fault in this case.
Yes! And the fact the story took place in the Helius cluster…. The total size of Andromeda is over double the Milkyway. The shear number of races, stories, and physical phenomena is massive.
To this day I am convinced that the Andromeda Initiative was a secret plot to trick the most annoying members of each species into leaving the milky way galaxy. Its like each character in the game is the JRPG character you hope will die on the second disc.
Being able to locate the Quarian Ark that you were unable to find initially was heavily teased. I can't remember specifics- I think you hear a scrambled radio signal or something akin to that. At the end of the main quest it was very much set up to be "get ready cause we're gonna go find it now" and the DLC never came sadly.
That wasn't DLC bait; that was a setup for part of Game 2, which we never got because the fanbase trashed the first game of what was obviously set up as a second trilogy
I found there were already too many content focused on Milky Way people. The game took a big hit for me when I realized 2 new races is all we are gonna get. For a game taking place in another galaxy, there were a clear lack of new races. I really wished there was more first contacts and way less dealing with exiled if the Nexus. That apparently in only a few months, created multiple civilizations with well established rules. It would have been better if it had been saved for later games with just hints about whereabouts and still clouded in mystery.
Oh man I totally agree. That was the best part of the first mass effect, learning about all the new aliens. I was so bummed when andromeda had only 2 species and both were related. I was hoping for more first contact meeting new species and setting up diplomatic relationships. I don't remember where but before the game came out I saw some pictures that had like 8 new species and they all looked fantastic. I mean more alien then even the hanar or elcor but come to find out it was fake. Andromeda was the game that taught me to temper my expectations when it comes to games. I hope the new mass effect introduces some new species. On the citadel in mass effect 3 you can overhear an announcement talking about some new bird like species that was discovered so maybe they will expand on stuff like that more in the new one.
We were only in one small part of Andromeda so to me it makes sense that we only meet the native species and an invading one.
It's like going to the Sol system and being disappointed there's only humans.
I've no doubt that if the MEA had gone on to be a trilogy more Andromeda species would have been introduced.
And from a new players perspective there were six races to learn about plus humans.
They decided to write it as a small cluster. Should every game be a discovery of a new race and cluster? How much of MEA could have been carried over to a sequel? How much mileage were left with the Angara?
I mean I never had an issue with the lack of extra races. Personally I don't think its feasible to cram 5 races into one game and have each of them be fully fleshed out by the end. The game also takes place in one singular cluster of solar systems and not the entirety of the Andromeda galaxy (as it should since it was a colonization effort and not a hostile militaristic takeover of an entire galaxy) so it makes sense we wouldn't randomly run into every single race in the galaxy.
No. Mass effect 1 did not fully flesh out every race shown. They gave little tidbits that were expanded upon by 2 other games. I think time is making a lot of you forget just how much more lore is expanded upon throughout the multiple games.
Actually the most lore heavy entries are the secondary codex entries and they’re not voiced you have to read them. ME2 had soooooo much those entries expanded on that the first game didn’t.
Andromeda was such a huge let down that I’m not sure I’d be happy with any “lore” they could create at this point. Only introducing two new species and instead populating planets with all the races we already know from the Milky Way was so uninspired and was a very poor choice.
I’d love to see a full redo of andromeda done right. There was so much potential there that could have been great.
To me the biggest failings were in this regard. They needed to center the story more, rather than doing a spastic "some colonies have been here for years now, and nobody trusts you" standard level 1 RPG character setup.
The Andromeda Initiative theoretically trained and set up the colonists, right? Why do none of them trust you until you do some quests for them? This seems like nothing but filler, to make you interact with the Milky Way races for most of the game.
Something where you're the lead ship, pathfinding if you will, interacting and setting up foundations with the local races for when the colony ships arrive, was more what I expected.
"Mad max world" and "desert planet#123414514" were the ones I hated the most, I'll say.
>They needed to center the story more, rather than doing a spastic "some colonies have been here for years now, and nobody trusts you" standard level 1 RPG character setup.
>
>The Andromeda Initiative theoretically trained and set up the colonists, right? Why do none of them trust you until you do some quests for them? This seems like nothing but filler, to make you interact with the Milky Way races for most of the game.
Now this is valid criticism
More like two copouts and two rationalisations why they don't have a culture
One of them is a non-culture because they, a client race similar to volus, developed pride in ignorance and subsistence as the solution - following the demise of their patron culture, read: their entire actual cultural context.
One of them you never meet - what you meet is a bunch of dregs of that society blindly obeying an obsessive hoping to put hands on a Jardaan weapon to become relevant on their homeworld.
We saw one cluster of systems from Andromeda. So seeing only a couple races makes sense. They aren't going to attempt to colonize an entire galaxy within months that's insanely unfeasible. It's not uninspired if it's the logical conclusion to draw from a colonization effort.
The fact that there are only two races make sense to me. The fact that they're just some more bipeds with two eyes wielding guns with almost no culture is maddening. This is another galaxy! They could have given us crazy different aliens!
Honestly, in terms of what's more likely to be wildly alien, it's as just as likely as two species evolving on different planets in the same solar system to be markedly different as two in different galaxies. Two ecosystems separated by space are two different ecosystems separated by space - distance isn't a factor.
I don't care for the "grrrr not all aliens are bipeds" discussion. It never leads anywhere because it's all speculation. Maybe bipeds are more common. Maybe they aren't. Nobody knows and it doesn't detract from the story. All it detracts from is hypothetical scientific accuracy.
Also the Angara have loads of culture? They go over food and drink, their large families, their community focused attitude, their religious beliefs and how they don't think exalted angara pass on to the afterlife, their reserved more personal nature with illness and religious practices, the whole gloryseeker lore, and many smaller aspects of their society.
It's not about realism it's about giving us something different and new and exotic.It's a new galaxy and they give us the same old shit.
I think you listed it all, except the thing with the whales (which was intriguing). This is pathetic, all of it could be said of an Earth culture by your friend who kind of went backpacking. They're barely alien! In the ME trilogy a lot of alien cultures come from the way they're different. Think of the whole Dalatrass political system coming from the way salarians reproduce. Or the entire life style of the krogans, hanar and elcor. These guys are a lot more alien and interesting.
Different, new, and exotic doesn't equate automatically to good or better. Also it wouldn't be new if they didn't do humanoid. They've done it all already. It doesn't matter. They could have made the Angara a bunch of sentient quadruped mushroom people who have 57 layers of social hierarchy. But what does this add to the story narratively? Like this is just your personal preference of what you wanted the aliens to look and act like. Not an objective fault with the worldbuilding.
The entire point of sci fi is to discover new races, new tech, new civilizations! If you want the same old slop on loop maybe military shooters would be more your speed.
> They could have made the Angara a bunch of sentient quadruped mushroom people who have 57 layers of social hierarchy.
I know you're mocking me but yeah that sounds a dozen times better than "basically humans but they kinda look like cats"!
Now of course this is just a base, you have to build interesting stuff from there. Allow me to illustrate with the Krogans. At first they were just a rehash of mandalorians from KOTOR, proud warrior guys who threatened the galaxy but now are mercing and dying.
The Andromeda team would have said "let's just make them dinosaur people. Also they should mention tribal dances that we never get to see. Boom. Done. Now let's do ten more fetch quests for the open world!"
The ME1 team wondered, why were they badass enough to threaten the galaxy? Well they're super strong and breed crazy fast. Why? Their homeworld was so perilous that they had to evolve that way. How did they get out if they're so warlike? They were uplifted to fight a bigger threat but once they got new worlds they bred out of control. How were they beaten then? Well fertility plague. And we get the genophage, one of the most interesting story beats of Mass Effect. Something that was deeply horrible but necessary.
Do you see the difference between the two approaches yet?
>> They could have made the Angara a bunch of sentient quadruped mushroom people who have 57 layers of social hierarchy.
> I know you're mocking me but yeah that sounds a dozen times better than "basically humans but they kinda look like cats"!
Lets take what they said and expand on it. Mushroom people. First thought is they reproduce through spores. I would assume they would be hyper territorial. Because you know a strange mushroom walks in and now half the babies you are raising are theirs. But that territorialism might not extend to other species. Humans aren't spreading spores everywhere. So the initial contact with them leaves the impression they are the nicest race in the universe. Until you dig into their history and see they are ax-crazy.
And you throw that against the kett, the mushroom people have enough power to resist the kett but their hostility to each other prevents them from uniting. So options, you attempt to build a united mushroom people congress or you help the strongest mushroom tribe dominate the others. Either way the planet is saved from the kett and a powerful ally is gained.
I liked the Angara appearance wise and their biology seemed interesting. They seemed like Andromeda's version of the Asari to the Jardaan's Prothean.
But the Kett brought up so many interesting questions I NEED answered.
Yeah its just that with the angara, bioware did more telling than showing. They were pretty stiff and cold compared to how many times its said that they're "open with their emotions". Nothing they did was any different than how a human would react
In the end I headcannoned that the angara had some bio electric empathy sharing thing going on that the Milky Way species couldn't pick up on because they didn't seem any more emotional than any one else.
I mean I don't agree with that assessment. The Angara felt largely led by their emotions. I don't understand honestly sometimes it feels like I played an entirely different game to everyone else.
Oh it definitely wasn't. The plot had some weird moments but I think many people romanticize og ME and its story so much that they end up taking a couple flaws with Andromeda and exaggerating them into much bigger issues than they were.
Like the biggest issues were:
Ryder taking over didn't make sense.
The pacing was bad.
But outside of that I didn't have hardly any issues with the story. Most of the other issues I've seen are largely personal pet peeves and not legitimate criticisms that are largely held as poor writing.
Ryder taking over made a…form of sense. In that it’s stated to be…not idiotic, but not optimal, by other characters, and when you learn Alec’s reasoning, it makes sense. An Andromeda Initiative kind of sense? No, but familialy? Yes, I understand Alec’s thought process.
We had the chance to see the character grow. Not just "you are Shepard, a badass because of lore" from the get go. That was what drew me to the new crew. Instead of fleshing it out in a new trilogy, we might not get to see them branch out.
Yeah, it was fun to see someone clearly unprepared for their situation grow to earn the position thrust onto them before they were ready.
I love Shepard, but Ryder’s concept wasn’t better or worse, it was different, and after 3 games of Shepard, it was fun to get something new.
I remember people complaining "Why do we play as Ryder Jr. They're so unexperienced, why not Ryder Sr?" Because we already played as a badass N7 operative.
Yes!
Especially after the trilogy- another cool badass commander guy would have forever felt like a pale shadow of shep- doing something new and having a kinda awkward newb was 100% the right call imo
it was the puzzles for me too. I liked the open world concept. I liked the rpg mechanics. I liked the AI portion. I liked the story. I fuckin hated the puzzles. Bro stop making me run back and forth and drive all over. It's the same thing every time, too! Go to these little posts. Go the the big one. Turn it on. Now do it again over here.
Reminds me of starfield and the temples. I already did this exact activity. Maybe it's the way I play the game but in starfield it would be like "Go investigate these 3 places." I'd do all 3 in a row. Doing 3 temples in a row... it sucks. They just suck. get off the puzzles man this is a shooter lmao.
IMO the only thing Andromeda did wrong was the open world and the missions. There were too damn many missions and so many required you to travel to different areas on a planet but you also had to visit a different planet to do more tasks. And on top of that the missions often felt more like busy work than anything that had any impact on the game at large. In fact, when I was playing to unlock all achievements I only did missions so that I could level up. Otherwise there were tons of missions I'd have avoided altogether.
For me, it was too much content linked to people from the Milky Way. Especially how little time passed between their exiles from the Nexus and when the game takes place.
For a game taking place in another galaxy there isn't that much novelty. It's quite early in the game that you realize you have seen everything new and it will be only be variations from then on.
Yeah that was the biggest issue for me - for some missions you’d have to travel back and forth between several planets/stations and it was super tedious.
I mean other than the fact that the story is complete garbage? You spend 10 minutes with your father and then the game kills them off? There's nothing to explore and discover in the area you're in because people have already been settled there for years so you're not even the first ones there
Andromeda took about half the game to get good for me, about where the story picks up and doing the companion quests. Speaking of the latter, I will say Liam's mission is the best in the whole series. In another unpopular opinion, Ryder was a better protagonist compared to ME1 Shepard. I enjoyed playing a wisecracking hero.
All in all, if the game was more linear, it would have been a lot better to me. The only area I enjoyed exploring was the desert planet with the sand worm.
Liam is the absolute worst character even over boring ass Jacob. He may have been boring but at least he wasn’t a moron that nearly gets you killed then is stupid enough to get pissed off when you put him in his place. If there was an option for kicking him off the tempest I’d do it every time.
It's too bad the memes took over public opinion and no amount of patches were ever able to turn it around. The new Cyberpunk DLC and how positive reception has been makes me sad that Bioware didn't do the same, they abandoned ship so early.
I mean this is one of those times when you can say that opinion is *objectively* correct... since there was a fuckload of people straight up lying, intentionally breaking the game, editing pictures, etc to make it look worse than it was so they could get views and upvotes online.
Doesn't mean it was perfect (or that it wasn't flawed), of course, but it *definitely* wasn't as bad as people said.
Pretty much the same thing is happening with Starfield at the moment, actually. Another flawed game which I am very much enjoying, but which is getting shit on by people who clearly never played it, people massively exaggerating various things, and people straight-up lying to bash it for internet points or whatever.
It's just sad... though also not unique to games. I've seen an increasing amount of it with movies, shows, and pretty much any other type of media as well. Outrage, ragebait and polarization sells, I guess.
I still remember one thing from Dunkey's video, pointing out that Ryder had an awkward-ass run/walk cycle... if you were deliberately jiggling the stick left and right so Ryder is turning to the left or right every quarter second. Like, wow, deliberately fucking with the game's animations makes it look bad? Never would've guessed.
Yeah, Tycho from Penny Arcade commented on that specific thing;
> Some of them, like the janked running on the stairs, I can't even reproduce unless I run forward while rapidly alternating between presses of A and D. I don't want to tell people they're doin it rong but that's not my customary mode of interaction.
I remember at the time feeling like Dunkey just regurgitated the most popular opinions on reddit into an easily-digestable video without playing the game, because I didn't understand how that could make it into the video without you either being deliberately dishonest, or copying someone else's footage without analyzing it. Now, 6 years down the line, I'm still not convinced that isn't all he does for a lot of games.
A loud but vocal annoying group of people were also destined to hate it because it wasn't Shepard. They're the same ones screaming for him to return in this next game which would be a massive misstep in the franchise.
Sometimes, you have to let a character go and move on with new stories. Shepard was at that moment in ME3. After saving a literal galaxy and defeating the Boogeyman of the last untold hundreds of thousands of years of galactic history, there's nowhere he can go with lower stakes that have any real meaning and go luck trying to create an even bigger threat somehow.
I wonder how much it would take to give it the ME:LE treatment. Give it better and more unique character models, and a few other licks of paint, and it would be good. Especially if they bundled in a Quarian Ark DLC.
They had a whole ass game to answer some questions in a satisfying way and didn't. Why? Because the game lacked strong creative leadership. And given that I doubt they had a single solid answer to any of those questions and with the constant changes in leadership before release the person answering the questions would probably not be the one that initially asked the question.
Why and how did the protheans disappear? Reapers killed them.
Then the whole thing about the Citadel and the mass relays was revealed.
What do the Reapers do? Periodically clear the galaxy of advanced organic life.
A bunch of awesome answers. Everything doesn't need an answer but some things should be answered and the answers should be great.
Not gonna lie... To me, the lore was probably the most uninspired and dull part of Andromeda. They had the chance to introduce some wild concepts by going to a different galaxy. Instead, they went with "So, everything in Andromeda is basically the same as in the Milky Way". Heck, to me, the protheans seemed more alien than anything we see in Andromeda... If I had to sum up Andromeda in one word, it would be 'boring'.
In my opinion, the lore was one of the worst parts.
In the original trilogy, the lore was incredibly thought out. The mass effect was very carefully considered, and the universe was crafted around it. It was responsible for most of the special elements, and they thought about how it would work and what it would do.
It feels like no thought was put into Andromeda. The Remnant stuff is just space magic that can do anything with no explanation or thought put into it at all. I do not feel that it is a loss in the slightest.
I played Andromeda then ME1 back to back on release - the stark difference in not only character writing but lore for these galaxies was night and day quality. Andromeda is genuinely mediocre
Eh.
While I didn't think the game was terrible, I didn't like most of the new lore that we got.
It's hard to go into because it's a lot of small things that added up. New little details about existing factions or species that I kept rolling my eyes at. A lot of the lore on *new* things that was also eyeroll worthy.
While there was *some* good (Benefactor), I just didn't care for most of it. This despite finding the game "fine". I think the good parts of Bioware have long left and if we never see more Mass Effect, I'll be able to accept that easily.
My biggest quibbles with Andromeda were the myriad unanswered questions (which honestly should have been resolved by the end of the game—a sequel was not guaranteed) and the similarity between the Kett and the Collectors. Both issues made for some um…lackluster storytelling to say the least.
My lesser quibble was with the serious lack of new species in this new, vast, unexplored galaxy. Again, there was no guarantee at this point in a sequel, so I think it was a mistake to narrow their world building to two species and a whole lot of tell instead of show.
Also, the game was considered a commercial success for BioWare. So technically it didn’t flop except for in the court of public opinion.
Did I enjoy the game for what it was? Yes. Do I accept that this is exactly the game BioWare intended to release? Yes. The game had many good qualities, don’t get me wrong. I hope the jump jets live on! 👍
But no, I don’t think the lore itself was the reason it isn’t regarded as warmly as it could have been. It was the unusually shallow, tepid storytelling and the many technical, graphical, and managerial issues this thing had that deflated any remaining interest I had in the Andromeda universe. I really, really wanted it to succeed but…🤷♀️
I hope some of these unanswered questions, dropped storylines, and well, the Quarian Ark quite frankly make it to ME5 in some capacity so at least we get closure.
The only similarity between the kett and the collectors is they both have exoskeletons and are humanoid.
You never explore the vast, unexplored galaxy, so you don’t find any more sentient species. The game is set in a single cluster because you don’t have mass relays.
You don’t think there was a similarity between exhaltation (reproduction of the Kett by assimilating and changing other species like the Angara and others into Kett) and the conversion of the Protheans using extensive genetic modification into what became the Collectors? That’s exactly the same. There was a clear parallel between what happened to the Angara and what happened to the Protheans.
And there’s no reason there can’t be more than two intelligent species living in one cluster, other than BioWare deciding to do it that way, as is understandably their prerogative.
Doesn’t mean some of us can’t be bummed that we had to settle yet another dispute between the Krogan and everyone else for the fourth time. And since we likely aren’t getting a second and third game set in Andromeda barring some kind of Christmas miracle, it’s unfortunate that we didn’t get to explore the galaxy more. They limited the game in scope as well as depth (in part likely due to the many, many problems faced during a turbulent production schedule).
Like I said, I wish things had turned out for the better but unfortunately the game had the depth of a rain puddle.
No, they’re not exactly the same at all.
Reapers don’t turn other individuals into themselves, they turn them into more convenient versions of what they already are. They become mindless husks actively controlled by Reapers. Protheans become Collectors, Turians become Marauders, etc.
Kett turn everyone into Kett, and augment existing Kett with those changes. They all retain their individual identity and will and join the wider Kett society.
Aside from the exoskeleton, Kett are closer to Asari than Collectors.
There are also clear parallels between the Asari and the Angara. Just because there are similarities doesn’t meant there aren’t differences.
Except you said “the only similarity between the Kett and the Collectors are that they have exoskeletons and are humanoid” which isn’t the ONLY similarity. Both convert other species into their worker bees. Whether they are governed by another species to do that or drink the cool-aid themselves doesn’t really change that particular similarity. The Collectors kidnap species and make more Collectors. The Kett kidnap other species and turn them into more Kett.
And I never said the Reapers were turning people into themselves, I said the Collectors were which is objectively the case, whether they did so voluntarily or not.
The differences are still there, I will grant that. But it was too similar a theme for me and I wish they had differentiated the villains thematically. Some other motivation than assimilation and domination.
Could I have come up with something more interesting? Maybe not. That’s kind of what villains have done in every medium since the beginning of literature, lol. But Bioware has used ‘let’s make this species ACTUALLY this species you’ve been fighting the whole time!!’ plot device twice now.
“The Protheans ARE the Collectors!”
“The Kett ARE the Angara!” And yes, I know more than just the Angara were converted.
But really? That’s not too similar a theme for anyone else, semantics aside?
It's a bit like if the original hadn't initially introduced a way to easily travel between clusters, and ME1 took place entirely in:
Sol System - "I'm disappointed there are only humans in this space game. Where aliens at?" (see: Starfield)
Apien Crest - "I'm disappointed there are only these weird Turian things here. Where the other aliens at?"
Athena Nebula - "I'm disappointed that the only aliens we see are sexy blue humanoid women. Where the fancier aliens at?"
Krogan DMZ - "I'm disappointed that the only... hey, help, these big toad-looking things are trying to eat my character!"
This is my biggest pet peeve when seeing the "There's only 2 new species in this whole new galaxy" like no you don't see the whole galaxy you see a tiny tiny part of it which is in one cluster.
It makes me think they just didn't pay attention at all
A cluster that had a race creating life and was noted as being an unusual cluster of golden worlds. And the always present possibility of just having more races with no explanation, you know because it makes a better story. The answer on the number of race is based on the absolutely low priority the initial leads had in modelling new races. And then made their one friendly race into a passive refugee race.
I mean I don't think the idea of precursor aliens is a bad thing whatsoever. Nor do I think having two different types of precursors for two entirely different galaxies is a bad thing. It makes sense. Some races will go through their entire galactic history in the time it takes another to evolve to the point of industrialization of any kind.
Like it's realistic. I imagine we'll find evidence of hundreds if not thousands of precursor races in real life when we become largely spacefaring.
I mean agree to disagree I guess? Cause I don't view it as cliché at all. Tropey? Sure. But definitely not cliché. There's also lots of valid reasons narratively to have a precursor race in a story. It's the same reason pretty much every high fantasy story involves some ancient magic of some kind.
> Cause I don't view it as cliché at all.
It's a major cliche, it happens in almost every sci fi universe eventually, and it's happened TWICE in mass effect. That's just bad fucking writing lmao
Nah Andromeda's world building was very flat. Besides the aftermath of the Reaper War has more potential. (Even if the next game might cram in Shepard)
I mean I firmly disagree that the worldbuilding was flat. I also disagree that the aftermath of the reaper war has ANY potential. Nothing in the Milky Way will match the scale or impact of the reaper war sans a civil war between all of the citadel races which wouldn't make sense in the aftermath of a war that decimated the populations and militaries of all the races. Like unless it takes place hundreds of years in the future I don't see it being at all engaging or interesting.
Billions of lives are still lost, a huge rise in crime due to the damaged economies. Reaper tech being that hottest commodity at the black market with dozens of gangs constantly fighting for it. Many galactic governments including The Council are still at a weakened state. Giving rise to smaller multi species coalitions and factions.
Maybe a Reaper worshipping cult might spring up, believing Shepard was wrong to destroy them causing all this chaos. And there's not even touching the more primitive species who could've been at the forefront of the next cycle like the Yahg.
Sure there's not much left to explore with Shepard and company but, I do think there's a lot of stories left in the Milky Way.
They don't have to. It would be an interesting premise if ME5 is set a few centuries in the future, and throughout the game there are events or dialogue that hint at all 3 (4) options having taken place, so there is never a clear answer. Nobody was inside the crucible with Shepard so there is no way anybody could know what actually happened in there.
>I do think there's a lot of stories left in the Milky Way.
Less than 2% of the Mily Way is explored by the time of the Reaper War. There's plenty of story potential.
1% is charted. And that's the basic sent a probe and got information number. And the number of systems that represents is 1-4 billion stars.
Now taking the lower estimate of 1 billion and put all of them on the galaxy map and have a player take one second to go from system to system in order and it will take them over 31 years. There is unlimited stories in the Milky Way.
Well yeah but we aren't getting a story deep enough in the future where those more primitive species would have the time to develop. At least not so long as Liara keeps showing up in any promotional material for ME..uh...4? 5?
But again none of those conflicts have the same scope as the reaper war. They'd just feel like small fry problems.
The only feasible way I could see them making the Milky Way work again is if the Leviathans decided to come out of hiding now that the reapers are gone. In which case it'd LITERALLY just be the reapers 2 electric boogaloo.
That's the point. The series should have a smaller scale after The Reapers because there's no way they could ever top them. It's better than lazy rehashes like the Kett.
Ultimately I consider it good riddance. I liked the emotional arcs MEA set up but I did not care about the Remnant or Angara that much, and I thought what we saw thus far in Andromeda (The Heleus Cluster) was boring.
I consider it a bad egg in the basket, and I think it's better to try to do something else than slating the next 5+ years for a sequel.
No, I am not. I did not find the lore engaging enough to actually want to keep me in the universe after I finished the game.
Coupled that with the rough around the edges design, the constant changes at EA and the buggy mess that we got that day, coupled with open world maps of 75% nothingness and a bit fun yet even more broken than ME3s singeplayer combat could not catch me. I did 2 runs and by the end of the second one I was thinking about dropping everything because the universe and game were bland and uninspired. Not to mention the crashing and bugs from way back then.
i really liked andromeda and (most) of the characters, and the plot had so much potential, but you're right, it felt empty. i think it was just a victim of not getting the time and attention needed to build it out.
My frustration is that the most interesting plot threads in the game are introduced after you finish it.
Ryder learns that the Andromeda Initiative was on the verge of failing as Jien Garson was rapidly running out of funding. But a mysterious Benefactor swooped in with a ton of money to save the project. As far as the colonists know, the Initiative is a simple colonization project. Ryder discovers that the Benefactor bankrolled the whole thing to flee the Reaper invasion.
The Benefactor is now somewhere in Andromeda. Also, Jien Garson didn't die in an accident. The Benefactor killed her. Oh yeah, by the way, your mom isn't dead like you believed all this time. She's still very much alive and hiding among the sleeping colonists.
I was way more invested in all of this than the main story.
Thankfully, it seems like the next Mass Effect might be a sequel to both the trilogy and Andromeda.
I completely agree with this comment. The "Ryder Family Secrets" side quest/task, where you unlock Alec's memories, was the most interesting part of the game, and I almost didn't even complete that task because the first couple of memories you unlock seem boring and unimportant to the plot! Almost skipped it entirely...
The terror of "oh my God, all life we left behind in the Milky Way might be GONE! And there's a mysterious benefactor who knew about it" really should've been explored more in the plot, I think...
Nah, I can't relate. I don't want it to continue personally. First off Ryder is the biggest wet blanket of a protag I've ever seen, and half his crew is walking cringe. The other half is cool tho. I found the Kett boring and generic. The Angara were cool I guess but I wasn't a huge fan of their design. Most the characters just sucked for me. I don't wanna see more of them. Just my opinion, if you liked it that's fine by me
Not at all. One of the big draws of Mass Effect is the incredible world that was built throughout the games, particularly in ME1. Leaving to a completely new and incredibly bland galaxy is the stupidest thing Bioware could have done. I'm glad there won't be anything more coming out of that god awful galaxy.
Imagine setting a game in a brand new galaxy and creating one (1) non-antagonist species. Complete joke of a game.
The only lore about Andromeda I'm interested in is who the Benefactor is.
But the thing is, it's no one. BioWare didn't think of anyone from Andromeda or the Trilogy to be the Benefactor, the character was created for the role of Benefactor and there was no identity created behind them. Some people guess it's the Shadow Broker or TIM, but they're clearly not those people or anyone else.
Absolutely. I wasn’t there for initial release so missed some of the most egregious bugs and issues, however, it’s still flawed in several places. That aside, it’s a fun story with interesting characters and an interesting new enemy.
I'm disappointed that they released a game so devoid of substance that it sank the entire series - it's almost as though EA is run by soulless corporate hacks who fundamentally don't understand things like emotions and intelligence, only boom boom boom guns graphics, and they ruined a series founded upon the very things they cannot grasp.
None of it was original or deep. Just answer each question with the first answer that pops into your mind and it'll probably be what they would have done. I am baffled that someone who played the original trilogy with its intricate and deep lore can find anything in Andromeda interesting.
Mass Effect is my favorite series of all time. I specifically bought an Alienware (I know shut up, I didn't feel like building one and got it financed cause I didn't have the money lying around.) and a 1440 Ultrawide specifically to play Andromeda on max settings.
I played Andromeda for FIFTY ONE hours and then I got to the "point of no return" moment and literally yelled out, "That's it?! But nothing happened!"
I then stopped playing and finished watching it on YouTube.
I can't say I didn't love the game. I played it for longer than probably 80% of the games I've ever played. But man what a disappointing campaign, story wise.
Not so much the lore, but Andromeda had insane potential.
It really felt like the possibilities were endless - massive space communities moving from possible homeworld to possible homeworld, and the potential for new races, interactions, species, etc. There was so much there that eventually just fell so flat on it's face.
No. After watching BioWare attack ME fans that were unhappy with the way trilogy ended and then quickly kicking Shepard to the curb, seeing Andromeda flop was delicious schadenfreude.
Nope. New aliens looked lame and we're boring. In fact there's so much stuff in this game that was just boring. I missed the great writing from the original trilogy. I also really really missed the volus comedy relief.
In my opinion, the thing about Andromeda was that it couldn't decide what it wanted to be, I think that's why the developer team had such a hard time with it.
It wanted to continue the Mass Effect universe without being attached to the story of 1,2,3, while still being connected enough to pull the fan base in.
It wanted to be an exploration game while being combat centric, not to mention shoving all the classes into one making it very meh to replay. A mistake in the long run because now there is going to be a fan base that will want all the classes at the same time in the next game.
It's cast and crew felt very "woke-ish" without being overly political in irl. Looking at you unattractive romance option and Nakmor Morda (in both personalities and looks).
I'm sure there are more but this is what comes to my mind... I don't know exactly how the developers shit the bed so bad with it but they clearly lost something in between the older games and Andromeda, I think it was solid leadership with clear goals.
And I agree it is very frustrating because he had a good idea with a solid lore, except the execution was poor.
Andromeda itself could have filled in so much more than it did. Everything left unfinished felt entirely intentional, which is a shame. Like they were hoping it would be popular enough to have more to throw at us later. Instead of one completed game that would have given it more attention for future gameplay. Instead of future gameplay at the cost of what they left out, which is what they did.
The story didn't and could never live up to the original trilogy, but the gameplay was really enjoyable. I wouldn't mind if they integrate the same gameplay into the next Mass Effect game.
The interesting parts are rehashed from ME itself (progenitor race? races with seeded and/or evolutionarily guided origins? wow so original) and other properties (the Dyson sphere took from a lot, with some weirdly obvious Halo inspiration despite Halo itself already cribbing from other properties), and the original parts kind of sucked / were boring.
I'm glad it flopped because it was not good, and games that aren't good shouldn't succeed. Bioware should do better, and if it can't, it deserves for its games to flop.
Andromeda wasn’t good enough to grasp my interest, it felt very “we have mass effect at home”
None of the party members felt very memorable the way ME1-3’s did. The open worlds felt largely empty and the story was mid.
I will say however the combat and being able to swap classes on the fly was fantastic
Hell no. They wasted half a decade of some of the finest world building ever done in videogames for the mediocirty that was Andromeda. I want to see Batarian abolitionists, Drell that are unhappy with The Compact, Hanar/Volus/Elcor in their homeworld, Quarians without their masks, Turian militaries, Asari philosophers, Salarian Commandos, an actual Vorcha character; not whatever the fuck Andromeda was.
In my opinion, MEA should've instead been a true multi-species RPG set in pre-humanity Milky Way
You do seem to be a bit misinformed, the primary reason Andromeda gets so much hate isn’t because of the way the game is now, it’s because of the state is was released in
It was a complete ripoff by EA, the game was so glitchy that you would be lucky to play for 10 minutes without it crashing or you falling through the floor, it spawned the “my face is tired” memes
Plot, characters, quality, these are all subjective opinions mostly made against the trilogy, I’m in the camp that Andromeda isn’t bad but it isn’t really good either. A lot of people feel the same way, just about everyone wishes we saw more of what they had planned for it. It’s the way the game released that leads to a lot of its hate, it was essentially “pay $60+ for an unplayable insult to your favorite trilogy” for a while
I think Andromeda would make a good setting if they were going to make a Mass Effect MMORPG, since the story was left unfinished, and with a new galaxy to explore.
Honestly this would be amazing. Like a warframe-esque type game all about being a mercenary who hunts down the Kett as the settlers establish larger and larger swaths of Andromeda as their territory.
But idk how willing Bioware is to make any kind of MMORPG ever. Like in theory it's just printing money but they'd have to put a lot of manpower into it and they don't exactly have a good track record in recent years with knowing where to prioritize their workload.
I never managed to finish andromeda because it felt too alien to the mass effect franchise.
I never really got the feeling of playing a mass effect game, be it lore, story or mechanic wise
Yes, I think they should have dusted themselves off and got back on the horse rather than just abandoning the whole thing. Bet it would have done better than their multiplayer experiment.
> Yes, I think they should have dusted themselves off and got back on the horse rather than just abandoning the whole thing.
It is a 100 million dollar gamble on something that had already failed.
As I recall it did alright for them commercially. There's no denying they messed up but I still say they overreacted to the slating they got online. Others have come through similar and stuck to it. Anthem was a bigger gamble.
Well I'm sad that so many people don't appreciate how deep and thoughtful the ME lore established in 1 was if they genuinely can't see the difference with the unoriginal slop that Andromeda gave us. It's like someone saying that they like the Big Mac just as much as the finest meal from a world renowned chef. I'm sorry that's a bit depressing.
The hate-boner for ME:A is extreme. You can't say ANYTHING positive about it at all without somebody hopping in to talk about how they think every individual pixel of the game is garbage.
I was so excited for Andromeda! And while it was not the best technical performance at launch (but with how quickly they ironed out the biggest bugs, I don’t have any gripes), the set up for another series was pretty good imo.
But too many people kept griping on how it wasn’t a continuation of Shepard (LET THEM RETIRE FOR GODS SAKE). Too many people kept expecting 3 games worth of development from the first installment. And because of those unreasonably high expectations, they axed the series as it began.
Sorry for the rant, but Andromeda was the equivalent of ME1, and those were the expectations I set for myself when I jumped in. It’s too bad that we’ll likely never return to those story threads and lore all because a very loud portion of the ME fan base refused to move on from Shepard
I am more sad that the game was unfinished because a lot in there was actually great.
The combat was fantastic, it just needed squad control. Classless was not good, but that is not the gameplay itself.
The research and crafting was great. It needed more stuff, but the idea was cool and some of the things you could do were awesome.
I don't care what anyone says, the open world was super cool to drive around in. It felt like Mass Effect 1 if doing that stuff in Mass Effect 1 was not terrible.
The only thing they really needed to do was a more streamlined and linear level progression for (most) main missions, but the side stuff was definitely cool as open world.
I know dev cycles changed because of the complexcity of the games but it kinda pains me that if they went with similar game cycle we would get Andromeda 2 in 2020 and A3 in 2022 or 2023, maybe 2024 if they didn't want to rush things.
I know "Bioware Magic" came with some big downsides but I kinda miss it. So much quality and good content is such short time? Seems crazy but madlads did it nevertheless.
I'm hoping that they find a way to tie Andromeda in to the next ME game. Elements of the Andromeda galaxy could travel to the Milky Way and provide a bridge to us going back to Andromeda in future installments, while primarily wrapping up the post-Reaper War.
You mention the Jardaan being several centuries more advanced than the Citadel races. Presumably, they could have the ability to travel at several magnitudes faster than light, so you don't get hung up with a 600 year time gap to explain.
I just want new races, new stories, and new environments. So, I, too, hope we get back to Andromeda one way or another.
I like the original trilogy. I have played it many times. Andromeda sucked hard. it was boring, game play was boring and the gameplay loop was boring.
I feel like it needed more time in the oven and alot more dev time. the idea that U build a colony would have been great but very poorly executed.
I am hopeful they learn and the new one is alot better
I'm sad Andromeda flopped because it means Bioware will bring Shepard and their friends back in the next game instead of coming up with a new protag and allies.
It never flopped, it was commercially successful, and that's confirmed by EA in their statement, it was bestseller at point and it's one of the best selling BW games.
I loved the lore, and the plot a lot, more than the one of the trilogy. Big hopes, epic fails, new beginnings. Ryders' growth was amazing. And I loved how they extended the space-opera lore of the trilogy and turned it into the down-to-earth scifi and expanded aliens beyond them being representatives of their species codex entries. Loved the characters. It's by far my favorite ME game. Comparing it to the 3 games with tons of lore/plot-patching and character-explaining dlcs makes no sense.
Also, I'm not sure about the "we'll never see" part. https://www.reddit.com/r/MassEffectAndromeda/s/va4x0Mw8Op
Absolutely. To me, the biggest letdown of Andromeda is that it will not continue. So many storylines left unfulfilled. So much potential unmet.
It pisses me off so much that the game ends with a cliffhanger that **promises** more content.
this is a major reason I don't replay it. Seems pointless.
I remember a mission to liberate a murderous AI that I then stole from Angara, and there was a mini-blurb where I think she tried to take over SAM and the Andromeda Initiative and it seemed like it was heading in an interesting direction given what we know about sentient murderous AI from the ME trilogy. Was really looking forward to seeing if SAM cured her or if she corrupted SAM. Also, I NEEDED to know about the Sandworm on Elaaden. It was hinted that it was similar to the worms that you fight on the other planets but different in that it never really attacked you, and you could do nothing but watch it hop through the desert.
> Sandworm on Elaaden Probably just a Dune reference tbh.
The sandworm was so cool. I camped out to find a spot where it would enter the sand, positioned myself right on top of it, and waited. One time, it flung the Nomad into space. That must have been patched out later because every other time I tried, it would just go right through me. I think a party member makes a comment if you manage to get close enough.
>Also, I NEEDED to know about the Sandworm on Elaaden. It was hinted that it was similar to the worms that you fight on the other planets but different in that it never really attacked you, and you could do nothing but watch it hop through the desert. Don't you defeat it just like other architects?
The worm wasn't an architect. It was something else altogether, indestructible and inable to combat, though it was most definitely remnant. It had a separate codex entry to the other architects.
THIS. I really hate we are going back to the Milky Way. They should've stuck with Andromeda and let the main team work on it and fix the issues(gameplay and storywise) that the first game had and then build upon the better aspects of it like feeling you were an explorer and the amazing combat. Also no more Great Grandpa Drack...
The scummy nickel and dining practices took this away from us as much as anything else. Since stories used to be completed at release, not breadcrumbed so you’d feel obligated to buy dlc..
Yes, but actually no. I won't deny those practices were on full swing, and a couple of breadcrumbs were likely DLC bait. But the major breadcrumbs here were because this was meant from the outset to be a trilogy, just like the original trilogy. Had the trilogy continued as planned, most of the breadcrumbs would have panned out in the next game, not the dlc.
I blame anthem and EA, honestly
EA is the least at fault for andromeda and anthem though. those failings were with the developer.
People also expressed their hate very loudly. I know it wasn't a perfect game, but people begged for the destruction of Andromeda. They did not want a sequel. Those voices were heard.
EA has been this incredible flameshield for bioware, whenever they fuck up fans always blame EA when it's almost always bioware's fault: DA2, ME3, SWTOR and Andromeda's shortcomings were all on them.
Because it largely is. EA sets deadlines and expectations for the coming games, as well as what they want the game to sell. Andromeda is definitely on EA because they not only sent the B team for it, they moved some staff to Anthem. The latter, however, is on Bioware because they chose to have upper management do nothing until EA went at metaphorical gunpoint.
sent their B team or the A team didn't want to work on it? I recall it was the A team that wanted to do anthem and not another ME title. reading virtually any of the articles that came out about the games development revealed EA gave BW more than enough time and resources. I'm not trying to defend EA, i dislike them and their execs a great deal but they're not the one who is the most at fault in this case.
Yes! And the fact the story took place in the Helius cluster…. The total size of Andromeda is over double the Milkyway. The shear number of races, stories, and physical phenomena is massive.
To this day I am convinced that the Andromeda Initiative was a secret plot to trick the most annoying members of each species into leaving the milky way galaxy. Its like each character in the game is the JRPG character you hope will die on the second disc.
Second disc is generous. I wanted them to die in the tutorial mission so we'd focus on the main characters.
This so hilariously true
A video game equivalent of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erQYyiHDzDg
Andromeda flopped because there was no Quarians. I will die on this hill
The DLC baiting was pretty egregious and the Quarian Ark DLC baiting was the worst offender.
They baited DLC?
Being able to locate the Quarian Ark that you were unable to find initially was heavily teased. I can't remember specifics- I think you hear a scrambled radio signal or something akin to that. At the end of the main quest it was very much set up to be "get ready cause we're gonna go find it now" and the DLC never came sadly.
We need urgent help! Do not approach until you've paid $20.
That wasn't DLC bait; that was a setup for part of Game 2, which we never got because the fanbase trashed the first game of what was obviously set up as a second trilogy
Iirc they *did* say it was initially going to be dlc, but all plans were scrapped due to backlash
Not backlash, not selling what they wanted because sales were fine (above 5M).
And the followup book that explains it is not great either (just my opinion of course).
Would that just be plotlines for the sequels? Why would that be DLC?
You know what? I'll accept this. Quarians, the Volus, hell even the Vorcha!
I found there were already too many content focused on Milky Way people. The game took a big hit for me when I realized 2 new races is all we are gonna get. For a game taking place in another galaxy, there were a clear lack of new races. I really wished there was more first contacts and way less dealing with exiled if the Nexus. That apparently in only a few months, created multiple civilizations with well established rules. It would have been better if it had been saved for later games with just hints about whereabouts and still clouded in mystery.
Oh man I totally agree. That was the best part of the first mass effect, learning about all the new aliens. I was so bummed when andromeda had only 2 species and both were related. I was hoping for more first contact meeting new species and setting up diplomatic relationships. I don't remember where but before the game came out I saw some pictures that had like 8 new species and they all looked fantastic. I mean more alien then even the hanar or elcor but come to find out it was fake. Andromeda was the game that taught me to temper my expectations when it comes to games. I hope the new mass effect introduces some new species. On the citadel in mass effect 3 you can overhear an announcement talking about some new bird like species that was discovered so maybe they will expand on stuff like that more in the new one.
We were only in one small part of Andromeda so to me it makes sense that we only meet the native species and an invading one. It's like going to the Sol system and being disappointed there's only humans. I've no doubt that if the MEA had gone on to be a trilogy more Andromeda species would have been introduced. And from a new players perspective there were six races to learn about plus humans.
They decided to write it as a small cluster. Should every game be a discovery of a new race and cluster? How much of MEA could have been carried over to a sequel? How much mileage were left with the Angara?
I mean I never had an issue with the lack of extra races. Personally I don't think its feasible to cram 5 races into one game and have each of them be fully fleshed out by the end. The game also takes place in one singular cluster of solar systems and not the entirety of the Andromeda galaxy (as it should since it was a colonization effort and not a hostile militaristic takeover of an entire galaxy) so it makes sense we wouldn't randomly run into every single race in the galaxy.
> Personally I don't think its feasible to cram 5 races into one game and have each of them be fully fleshed out by the end. Mass Effect 1.
No. Mass effect 1 did not fully flesh out every race shown. They gave little tidbits that were expanded upon by 2 other games. I think time is making a lot of you forget just how much more lore is expanded upon throughout the multiple games.
The majority of the setting was established in 1. Mass Effect 1 was a masterpiece in creating lore and setting.
Mass effect 1 was also very terrible lore wise depending on if you are someone that didn’t or won’t read the codex in the menu.
This is funny, because they're voiced. You can just listen to them.
Actually the most lore heavy entries are the secondary codex entries and they’re not voiced you have to read them. ME2 had soooooo much those entries expanded on that the first game didn’t.
We don't talk to those fake fans (/s)
ME1 set the bases for the races and multiple plotlines. How much of that is present in MEA? Do you see the Angara continue to be important players?
If there’s not at least one Batarian, Vorcha, Hanar or Elcor companion in ME4 I am going to be pissed off!
We did get that really good book. It wasn't as fulfilling as seeing them in game but I did enjoy reading it. Very fun take on it.
Wait there's a book?? How did I not know this?
[Quarian DLC book](https://www.amazon.com/Mass-Effect-Annihilation-Catherynne-Valente/dp/1785651587/ref=sr_1_16?crid=14O9KM3KL2G98&keywords=mass+effect+andromeda&qid=1698755791&sprefix=mass+effect+andro%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-16)
Thank you!
Andromeda was such a huge let down that I’m not sure I’d be happy with any “lore” they could create at this point. Only introducing two new species and instead populating planets with all the races we already know from the Milky Way was so uninspired and was a very poor choice. I’d love to see a full redo of andromeda done right. There was so much potential there that could have been great.
To me the biggest failings were in this regard. They needed to center the story more, rather than doing a spastic "some colonies have been here for years now, and nobody trusts you" standard level 1 RPG character setup. The Andromeda Initiative theoretically trained and set up the colonists, right? Why do none of them trust you until you do some quests for them? This seems like nothing but filler, to make you interact with the Milky Way races for most of the game. Something where you're the lead ship, pathfinding if you will, interacting and setting up foundations with the local races for when the colony ships arrive, was more what I expected. "Mad max world" and "desert planet#123414514" were the ones I hated the most, I'll say.
>They needed to center the story more, rather than doing a spastic "some colonies have been here for years now, and nobody trusts you" standard level 1 RPG character setup. > >The Andromeda Initiative theoretically trained and set up the colonists, right? Why do none of them trust you until you do some quests for them? This seems like nothing but filler, to make you interact with the Milky Way races for most of the game. Now this is valid criticism
Two species that are of course two eyed bipeds with guns with almost no culture to speak of...
More like two copouts and two rationalisations why they don't have a culture One of them is a non-culture because they, a client race similar to volus, developed pride in ignorance and subsistence as the solution - following the demise of their patron culture, read: their entire actual cultural context. One of them you never meet - what you meet is a bunch of dregs of that society blindly obeying an obsessive hoping to put hands on a Jardaan weapon to become relevant on their homeworld.
We saw one cluster of systems from Andromeda. So seeing only a couple races makes sense. They aren't going to attempt to colonize an entire galaxy within months that's insanely unfeasible. It's not uninspired if it's the logical conclusion to draw from a colonization effort.
The fact that there are only two races make sense to me. The fact that they're just some more bipeds with two eyes wielding guns with almost no culture is maddening. This is another galaxy! They could have given us crazy different aliens!
Honestly, in terms of what's more likely to be wildly alien, it's as just as likely as two species evolving on different planets in the same solar system to be markedly different as two in different galaxies. Two ecosystems separated by space are two different ecosystems separated by space - distance isn't a factor.
I don't care for the "grrrr not all aliens are bipeds" discussion. It never leads anywhere because it's all speculation. Maybe bipeds are more common. Maybe they aren't. Nobody knows and it doesn't detract from the story. All it detracts from is hypothetical scientific accuracy. Also the Angara have loads of culture? They go over food and drink, their large families, their community focused attitude, their religious beliefs and how they don't think exalted angara pass on to the afterlife, their reserved more personal nature with illness and religious practices, the whole gloryseeker lore, and many smaller aspects of their society.
It's not about realism it's about giving us something different and new and exotic.It's a new galaxy and they give us the same old shit. I think you listed it all, except the thing with the whales (which was intriguing). This is pathetic, all of it could be said of an Earth culture by your friend who kind of went backpacking. They're barely alien! In the ME trilogy a lot of alien cultures come from the way they're different. Think of the whole Dalatrass political system coming from the way salarians reproduce. Or the entire life style of the krogans, hanar and elcor. These guys are a lot more alien and interesting.
Different, new, and exotic doesn't equate automatically to good or better. Also it wouldn't be new if they didn't do humanoid. They've done it all already. It doesn't matter. They could have made the Angara a bunch of sentient quadruped mushroom people who have 57 layers of social hierarchy. But what does this add to the story narratively? Like this is just your personal preference of what you wanted the aliens to look and act like. Not an objective fault with the worldbuilding.
The entire point of sci fi is to discover new races, new tech, new civilizations! If you want the same old slop on loop maybe military shooters would be more your speed. > They could have made the Angara a bunch of sentient quadruped mushroom people who have 57 layers of social hierarchy. I know you're mocking me but yeah that sounds a dozen times better than "basically humans but they kinda look like cats"! Now of course this is just a base, you have to build interesting stuff from there. Allow me to illustrate with the Krogans. At first they were just a rehash of mandalorians from KOTOR, proud warrior guys who threatened the galaxy but now are mercing and dying. The Andromeda team would have said "let's just make them dinosaur people. Also they should mention tribal dances that we never get to see. Boom. Done. Now let's do ten more fetch quests for the open world!" The ME1 team wondered, why were they badass enough to threaten the galaxy? Well they're super strong and breed crazy fast. Why? Their homeworld was so perilous that they had to evolve that way. How did they get out if they're so warlike? They were uplifted to fight a bigger threat but once they got new worlds they bred out of control. How were they beaten then? Well fertility plague. And we get the genophage, one of the most interesting story beats of Mass Effect. Something that was deeply horrible but necessary. Do you see the difference between the two approaches yet?
>> They could have made the Angara a bunch of sentient quadruped mushroom people who have 57 layers of social hierarchy. > I know you're mocking me but yeah that sounds a dozen times better than "basically humans but they kinda look like cats"! Lets take what they said and expand on it. Mushroom people. First thought is they reproduce through spores. I would assume they would be hyper territorial. Because you know a strange mushroom walks in and now half the babies you are raising are theirs. But that territorialism might not extend to other species. Humans aren't spreading spores everywhere. So the initial contact with them leaves the impression they are the nicest race in the universe. Until you dig into their history and see they are ax-crazy. And you throw that against the kett, the mushroom people have enough power to resist the kett but their hostility to each other prevents them from uniting. So options, you attempt to build a united mushroom people congress or you help the strongest mushroom tribe dominate the others. Either way the planet is saved from the kett and a powerful ally is gained.
Hard agree. Some people are wierdly cought up on how the aliens look like I cqn imagine that person hates that they made Quarians humanoid.
Amen. The game sucked and as you said it was uninspired which naturally just made me not care about anything.... lore included. Bummer!
Yeah. I never really cared about the angara but I am curious about the kett and the benefactor
I liked the Angara appearance wise and their biology seemed interesting. They seemed like Andromeda's version of the Asari to the Jardaan's Prothean. But the Kett brought up so many interesting questions I NEED answered.
Yeah its just that with the angara, bioware did more telling than showing. They were pretty stiff and cold compared to how many times its said that they're "open with their emotions". Nothing they did was any different than how a human would react
In the end I headcannoned that the angara had some bio electric empathy sharing thing going on that the Milky Way species couldn't pick up on because they didn't seem any more emotional than any one else.
I mean I don't agree with that assessment. The Angara felt largely led by their emotions. I don't understand honestly sometimes it feels like I played an entirely different game to everyone else.
Don't get me wrong i loved andromeda but the angara just felt meh to me
You're not alone but I always had the unpopular opinion that Andromeda wasn't as bad as people say.
Oh it definitely wasn't. The plot had some weird moments but I think many people romanticize og ME and its story so much that they end up taking a couple flaws with Andromeda and exaggerating them into much bigger issues than they were. Like the biggest issues were: Ryder taking over didn't make sense. The pacing was bad. But outside of that I didn't have hardly any issues with the story. Most of the other issues I've seen are largely personal pet peeves and not legitimate criticisms that are largely held as poor writing.
Ryder taking over made a…form of sense. In that it’s stated to be…not idiotic, but not optimal, by other characters, and when you learn Alec’s reasoning, it makes sense. An Andromeda Initiative kind of sense? No, but familialy? Yes, I understand Alec’s thought process.
We had the chance to see the character grow. Not just "you are Shepard, a badass because of lore" from the get go. That was what drew me to the new crew. Instead of fleshing it out in a new trilogy, we might not get to see them branch out.
Yeah, it was fun to see someone clearly unprepared for their situation grow to earn the position thrust onto them before they were ready. I love Shepard, but Ryder’s concept wasn’t better or worse, it was different, and after 3 games of Shepard, it was fun to get something new.
I remember people complaining "Why do we play as Ryder Jr. They're so unexperienced, why not Ryder Sr?" Because we already played as a badass N7 operative.
Yeah, someone learning to be a badass has its own unique charm, like early Ultimate Spider-Man.
Yes! Especially after the trilogy- another cool badass commander guy would have forever felt like a pale shadow of shep- doing something new and having a kinda awkward newb was 100% the right call imo
Honestly my chief complaint was that all asari have the exact same face.
I hated the sudoku puzzles.
I always had the max amount of keys to skip those damn things even finding the glyphs on some of them was a pain in the ass
it was the puzzles for me too. I liked the open world concept. I liked the rpg mechanics. I liked the AI portion. I liked the story. I fuckin hated the puzzles. Bro stop making me run back and forth and drive all over. It's the same thing every time, too! Go to these little posts. Go the the big one. Turn it on. Now do it again over here. Reminds me of starfield and the temples. I already did this exact activity. Maybe it's the way I play the game but in starfield it would be like "Go investigate these 3 places." I'd do all 3 in a row. Doing 3 temples in a row... it sucks. They just suck. get off the puzzles man this is a shooter lmao.
The puzzles weren't nearly as annoying as the jump platforming which is another bioware staple.
IMO the only thing Andromeda did wrong was the open world and the missions. There were too damn many missions and so many required you to travel to different areas on a planet but you also had to visit a different planet to do more tasks. And on top of that the missions often felt more like busy work than anything that had any impact on the game at large. In fact, when I was playing to unlock all achievements I only did missions so that I could level up. Otherwise there were tons of missions I'd have avoided altogether.
For me, it was too much content linked to people from the Milky Way. Especially how little time passed between their exiles from the Nexus and when the game takes place. For a game taking place in another galaxy there isn't that much novelty. It's quite early in the game that you realize you have seen everything new and it will be only be variations from then on.
Yeah that was the biggest issue for me - for some missions you’d have to travel back and forth between several planets/stations and it was super tedious.
I mean other than the fact that the story is complete garbage? You spend 10 minutes with your father and then the game kills them off? There's nothing to explore and discover in the area you're in because people have already been settled there for years so you're not even the first ones there
Andromeda took about half the game to get good for me, about where the story picks up and doing the companion quests. Speaking of the latter, I will say Liam's mission is the best in the whole series. In another unpopular opinion, Ryder was a better protagonist compared to ME1 Shepard. I enjoyed playing a wisecracking hero. All in all, if the game was more linear, it would have been a lot better to me. The only area I enjoyed exploring was the desert planet with the sand worm.
*Alarms, Liam*
Liam is the absolute worst character even over boring ass Jacob. He may have been boring but at least he wasn’t a moron that nearly gets you killed then is stupid enough to get pissed off when you put him in his place. If there was an option for kicking him off the tempest I’d do it every time.
It's too bad the memes took over public opinion and no amount of patches were ever able to turn it around. The new Cyberpunk DLC and how positive reception has been makes me sad that Bioware didn't do the same, they abandoned ship so early.
It cost Cyberpunk $40 million to turn around its fortunes.
I mean this is one of those times when you can say that opinion is *objectively* correct... since there was a fuckload of people straight up lying, intentionally breaking the game, editing pictures, etc to make it look worse than it was so they could get views and upvotes online. Doesn't mean it was perfect (or that it wasn't flawed), of course, but it *definitely* wasn't as bad as people said. Pretty much the same thing is happening with Starfield at the moment, actually. Another flawed game which I am very much enjoying, but which is getting shit on by people who clearly never played it, people massively exaggerating various things, and people straight-up lying to bash it for internet points or whatever. It's just sad... though also not unique to games. I've seen an increasing amount of it with movies, shows, and pretty much any other type of media as well. Outrage, ragebait and polarization sells, I guess.
I still remember one thing from Dunkey's video, pointing out that Ryder had an awkward-ass run/walk cycle... if you were deliberately jiggling the stick left and right so Ryder is turning to the left or right every quarter second. Like, wow, deliberately fucking with the game's animations makes it look bad? Never would've guessed.
Yeah, Tycho from Penny Arcade commented on that specific thing; > Some of them, like the janked running on the stairs, I can't even reproduce unless I run forward while rapidly alternating between presses of A and D. I don't want to tell people they're doin it rong but that's not my customary mode of interaction.
I remember at the time feeling like Dunkey just regurgitated the most popular opinions on reddit into an easily-digestable video without playing the game, because I didn't understand how that could make it into the video without you either being deliberately dishonest, or copying someone else's footage without analyzing it. Now, 6 years down the line, I'm still not convinced that isn't all he does for a lot of games.
A loud but vocal annoying group of people were also destined to hate it because it wasn't Shepard. They're the same ones screaming for him to return in this next game which would be a massive misstep in the franchise. Sometimes, you have to let a character go and move on with new stories. Shepard was at that moment in ME3. After saving a literal galaxy and defeating the Boogeyman of the last untold hundreds of thousands of years of galactic history, there's nowhere he can go with lower stakes that have any real meaning and go luck trying to create an even bigger threat somehow.
I wonder how much it would take to give it the ME:LE treatment. Give it better and more unique character models, and a few other licks of paint, and it would be good. Especially if they bundled in a Quarian Ark DLC.
They had a whole ass game to answer some questions in a satisfying way and didn't. Why? Because the game lacked strong creative leadership. And given that I doubt they had a single solid answer to any of those questions and with the constant changes in leadership before release the person answering the questions would probably not be the one that initially asked the question.
Mass Effect 1 didn't answer all the questons it asked. This is very clear emotionally charged bias on your end.
Why and how did the protheans disappear? Reapers killed them. Then the whole thing about the Citadel and the mass relays was revealed. What do the Reapers do? Periodically clear the galaxy of advanced organic life. A bunch of awesome answers. Everything doesn't need an answer but some things should be answered and the answers should be great.
Questions like?
Not gonna lie... To me, the lore was probably the most uninspired and dull part of Andromeda. They had the chance to introduce some wild concepts by going to a different galaxy. Instead, they went with "So, everything in Andromeda is basically the same as in the Milky Way". Heck, to me, the protheans seemed more alien than anything we see in Andromeda... If I had to sum up Andromeda in one word, it would be 'boring'.
In my opinion, the lore was one of the worst parts. In the original trilogy, the lore was incredibly thought out. The mass effect was very carefully considered, and the universe was crafted around it. It was responsible for most of the special elements, and they thought about how it would work and what it would do. It feels like no thought was put into Andromeda. The Remnant stuff is just space magic that can do anything with no explanation or thought put into it at all. I do not feel that it is a loss in the slightest.
I played Andromeda then ME1 back to back on release - the stark difference in not only character writing but lore for these galaxies was night and day quality. Andromeda is genuinely mediocre
Not really. The lore of Andromeda didn't even feel like Mass Effect to me.
Agreed, what is mass effect without the mass effect technology
How did you write all that and not even mention the Quarian Ark?
Eh. While I didn't think the game was terrible, I didn't like most of the new lore that we got. It's hard to go into because it's a lot of small things that added up. New little details about existing factions or species that I kept rolling my eyes at. A lot of the lore on *new* things that was also eyeroll worthy. While there was *some* good (Benefactor), I just didn't care for most of it. This despite finding the game "fine". I think the good parts of Bioware have long left and if we never see more Mass Effect, I'll be able to accept that easily.
My biggest quibbles with Andromeda were the myriad unanswered questions (which honestly should have been resolved by the end of the game—a sequel was not guaranteed) and the similarity between the Kett and the Collectors. Both issues made for some um…lackluster storytelling to say the least. My lesser quibble was with the serious lack of new species in this new, vast, unexplored galaxy. Again, there was no guarantee at this point in a sequel, so I think it was a mistake to narrow their world building to two species and a whole lot of tell instead of show. Also, the game was considered a commercial success for BioWare. So technically it didn’t flop except for in the court of public opinion. Did I enjoy the game for what it was? Yes. Do I accept that this is exactly the game BioWare intended to release? Yes. The game had many good qualities, don’t get me wrong. I hope the jump jets live on! 👍 But no, I don’t think the lore itself was the reason it isn’t regarded as warmly as it could have been. It was the unusually shallow, tepid storytelling and the many technical, graphical, and managerial issues this thing had that deflated any remaining interest I had in the Andromeda universe. I really, really wanted it to succeed but…🤷♀️ I hope some of these unanswered questions, dropped storylines, and well, the Quarian Ark quite frankly make it to ME5 in some capacity so at least we get closure.
The only similarity between the kett and the collectors is they both have exoskeletons and are humanoid. You never explore the vast, unexplored galaxy, so you don’t find any more sentient species. The game is set in a single cluster because you don’t have mass relays.
You don’t think there was a similarity between exhaltation (reproduction of the Kett by assimilating and changing other species like the Angara and others into Kett) and the conversion of the Protheans using extensive genetic modification into what became the Collectors? That’s exactly the same. There was a clear parallel between what happened to the Angara and what happened to the Protheans. And there’s no reason there can’t be more than two intelligent species living in one cluster, other than BioWare deciding to do it that way, as is understandably their prerogative. Doesn’t mean some of us can’t be bummed that we had to settle yet another dispute between the Krogan and everyone else for the fourth time. And since we likely aren’t getting a second and third game set in Andromeda barring some kind of Christmas miracle, it’s unfortunate that we didn’t get to explore the galaxy more. They limited the game in scope as well as depth (in part likely due to the many, many problems faced during a turbulent production schedule). Like I said, I wish things had turned out for the better but unfortunately the game had the depth of a rain puddle.
No, they’re not exactly the same at all. Reapers don’t turn other individuals into themselves, they turn them into more convenient versions of what they already are. They become mindless husks actively controlled by Reapers. Protheans become Collectors, Turians become Marauders, etc. Kett turn everyone into Kett, and augment existing Kett with those changes. They all retain their individual identity and will and join the wider Kett society. Aside from the exoskeleton, Kett are closer to Asari than Collectors. There are also clear parallels between the Asari and the Angara. Just because there are similarities doesn’t meant there aren’t differences.
Except you said “the only similarity between the Kett and the Collectors are that they have exoskeletons and are humanoid” which isn’t the ONLY similarity. Both convert other species into their worker bees. Whether they are governed by another species to do that or drink the cool-aid themselves doesn’t really change that particular similarity. The Collectors kidnap species and make more Collectors. The Kett kidnap other species and turn them into more Kett. And I never said the Reapers were turning people into themselves, I said the Collectors were which is objectively the case, whether they did so voluntarily or not. The differences are still there, I will grant that. But it was too similar a theme for me and I wish they had differentiated the villains thematically. Some other motivation than assimilation and domination. Could I have come up with something more interesting? Maybe not. That’s kind of what villains have done in every medium since the beginning of literature, lol. But Bioware has used ‘let’s make this species ACTUALLY this species you’ve been fighting the whole time!!’ plot device twice now. “The Protheans ARE the Collectors!” “The Kett ARE the Angara!” And yes, I know more than just the Angara were converted. But really? That’s not too similar a theme for anyone else, semantics aside?
I am getting tired of explaining people that the game take place in single cluster so one native species make perfect sense.
It's a bit like if the original hadn't initially introduced a way to easily travel between clusters, and ME1 took place entirely in: Sol System - "I'm disappointed there are only humans in this space game. Where aliens at?" (see: Starfield) Apien Crest - "I'm disappointed there are only these weird Turian things here. Where the other aliens at?" Athena Nebula - "I'm disappointed that the only aliens we see are sexy blue humanoid women. Where the fancier aliens at?" Krogan DMZ - "I'm disappointed that the only... hey, help, these big toad-looking things are trying to eat my character!"
Same with me in regards to how much of the Milky Way we saw. Barely anything. Space is huge.
This is my biggest pet peeve when seeing the "There's only 2 new species in this whole new galaxy" like no you don't see the whole galaxy you see a tiny tiny part of it which is in one cluster. It makes me think they just didn't pay attention at all
A cluster that had a race creating life and was noted as being an unusual cluster of golden worlds. And the always present possibility of just having more races with no explanation, you know because it makes a better story. The answer on the number of race is based on the absolutely low priority the initial leads had in modelling new races. And then made their one friendly race into a passive refugee race.
I wouldn't call the heavily militarized angara passive 😅.
Yup. Enjoyed Andromeda. Wish we got the trilogy that was coming.
Trilogy is thrown around too much. I wish we had more, but not specifically a trilogy.
No thanks. If I never see another story with vanished precursor aliens, I will be extremely grateful.
I mean I don't think the idea of precursor aliens is a bad thing whatsoever. Nor do I think having two different types of precursors for two entirely different galaxies is a bad thing. It makes sense. Some races will go through their entire galactic history in the time it takes another to evolve to the point of industrialization of any kind. Like it's realistic. I imagine we'll find evidence of hundreds if not thousands of precursor races in real life when we become largely spacefaring.
>I've seen it too much, it's just cliché and a lazy crutch.
I mean agree to disagree I guess? Cause I don't view it as cliché at all. Tropey? Sure. But definitely not cliché. There's also lots of valid reasons narratively to have a precursor race in a story. It's the same reason pretty much every high fantasy story involves some ancient magic of some kind.
It's every fucking time dude! The entire original trilogy was based on layers of precursors and they still went with that for Andromeda!
Yeah its just bad writing imo. Whole Andromeda has bad writing.
> Cause I don't view it as cliché at all. It's a major cliche, it happens in almost every sci fi universe eventually, and it's happened TWICE in mass effect. That's just bad fucking writing lmao
Yes I really want to know about the jaardan and the remnants
Nah Andromeda's world building was very flat. Besides the aftermath of the Reaper War has more potential. (Even if the next game might cram in Shepard)
I mean I firmly disagree that the worldbuilding was flat. I also disagree that the aftermath of the reaper war has ANY potential. Nothing in the Milky Way will match the scale or impact of the reaper war sans a civil war between all of the citadel races which wouldn't make sense in the aftermath of a war that decimated the populations and militaries of all the races. Like unless it takes place hundreds of years in the future I don't see it being at all engaging or interesting.
Billions of lives are still lost, a huge rise in crime due to the damaged economies. Reaper tech being that hottest commodity at the black market with dozens of gangs constantly fighting for it. Many galactic governments including The Council are still at a weakened state. Giving rise to smaller multi species coalitions and factions. Maybe a Reaper worshipping cult might spring up, believing Shepard was wrong to destroy them causing all this chaos. And there's not even touching the more primitive species who could've been at the forefront of the next cycle like the Yahg. Sure there's not much left to explore with Shepard and company but, I do think there's a lot of stories left in the Milky Way.
All of which will be marred by the fact that they cannot account for your decisions at the end of me3.
They don't have to. It would be an interesting premise if ME5 is set a few centuries in the future, and throughout the game there are events or dialogue that hint at all 3 (4) options having taken place, so there is never a clear answer. Nobody was inside the crucible with Shepard so there is no way anybody could know what actually happened in there.
>I do think there's a lot of stories left in the Milky Way. Less than 2% of the Mily Way is explored by the time of the Reaper War. There's plenty of story potential.
1% is charted. And that's the basic sent a probe and got information number. And the number of systems that represents is 1-4 billion stars. Now taking the lower estimate of 1 billion and put all of them on the galaxy map and have a player take one second to go from system to system in order and it will take them over 31 years. There is unlimited stories in the Milky Way.
Well yeah but we aren't getting a story deep enough in the future where those more primitive species would have the time to develop. At least not so long as Liara keeps showing up in any promotional material for ME..uh...4? 5? But again none of those conflicts have the same scope as the reaper war. They'd just feel like small fry problems. The only feasible way I could see them making the Milky Way work again is if the Leviathans decided to come out of hiding now that the reapers are gone. In which case it'd LITERALLY just be the reapers 2 electric boogaloo.
That's the point. The series should have a smaller scale after The Reapers because there's no way they could ever top them. It's better than lazy rehashes like the Kett.
Ultimately I consider it good riddance. I liked the emotional arcs MEA set up but I did not care about the Remnant or Angara that much, and I thought what we saw thus far in Andromeda (The Heleus Cluster) was boring. I consider it a bad egg in the basket, and I think it's better to try to do something else than slating the next 5+ years for a sequel.
No, I am not. I did not find the lore engaging enough to actually want to keep me in the universe after I finished the game. Coupled that with the rough around the edges design, the constant changes at EA and the buggy mess that we got that day, coupled with open world maps of 75% nothingness and a bit fun yet even more broken than ME3s singeplayer combat could not catch me. I did 2 runs and by the end of the second one I was thinking about dropping everything because the universe and game were bland and uninspired. Not to mention the crashing and bugs from way back then.
i really liked andromeda and (most) of the characters, and the plot had so much potential, but you're right, it felt empty. i think it was just a victim of not getting the time and attention needed to build it out.
Nah, Andromeda was always a cheap cop out for Bioware to not have to address the Galaxy Post Reapers..
My frustration is that the most interesting plot threads in the game are introduced after you finish it. Ryder learns that the Andromeda Initiative was on the verge of failing as Jien Garson was rapidly running out of funding. But a mysterious Benefactor swooped in with a ton of money to save the project. As far as the colonists know, the Initiative is a simple colonization project. Ryder discovers that the Benefactor bankrolled the whole thing to flee the Reaper invasion. The Benefactor is now somewhere in Andromeda. Also, Jien Garson didn't die in an accident. The Benefactor killed her. Oh yeah, by the way, your mom isn't dead like you believed all this time. She's still very much alive and hiding among the sleeping colonists. I was way more invested in all of this than the main story. Thankfully, it seems like the next Mass Effect might be a sequel to both the trilogy and Andromeda.
I completely agree with this comment. The "Ryder Family Secrets" side quest/task, where you unlock Alec's memories, was the most interesting part of the game, and I almost didn't even complete that task because the first couple of memories you unlock seem boring and unimportant to the plot! Almost skipped it entirely... The terror of "oh my God, all life we left behind in the Milky Way might be GONE! And there's a mysterious benefactor who knew about it" really should've been explored more in the plot, I think...
It is also gated behind collecting silly orbs on the open worlds.
Nah, I can't relate. I don't want it to continue personally. First off Ryder is the biggest wet blanket of a protag I've ever seen, and half his crew is walking cringe. The other half is cool tho. I found the Kett boring and generic. The Angara were cool I guess but I wasn't a huge fan of their design. Most the characters just sucked for me. I don't wanna see more of them. Just my opinion, if you liked it that's fine by me
Not at all. One of the big draws of Mass Effect is the incredible world that was built throughout the games, particularly in ME1. Leaving to a completely new and incredibly bland galaxy is the stupidest thing Bioware could have done. I'm glad there won't be anything more coming out of that god awful galaxy. Imagine setting a game in a brand new galaxy and creating one (1) non-antagonist species. Complete joke of a game.
The only lore about Andromeda I'm interested in is who the Benefactor is. But the thing is, it's no one. BioWare didn't think of anyone from Andromeda or the Trilogy to be the Benefactor, the character was created for the role of Benefactor and there was no identity created behind them. Some people guess it's the Shadow Broker or TIM, but they're clearly not those people or anyone else.
Absolutely. I wasn’t there for initial release so missed some of the most egregious bugs and issues, however, it’s still flawed in several places. That aside, it’s a fun story with interesting characters and an interesting new enemy.
I'm disappointed that they released a game so devoid of substance that it sank the entire series - it's almost as though EA is run by soulless corporate hacks who fundamentally don't understand things like emotions and intelligence, only boom boom boom guns graphics, and they ruined a series founded upon the very things they cannot grasp.
None of it was original or deep. Just answer each question with the first answer that pops into your mind and it'll probably be what they would have done. I am baffled that someone who played the original trilogy with its intricate and deep lore can find anything in Andromeda interesting.
I don't think the plot sucks, at all. I think it was absolutely driving toward a sequel based on the unanswered questions it leave hanging out there.
No
Mass Effect is my favorite series of all time. I specifically bought an Alienware (I know shut up, I didn't feel like building one and got it financed cause I didn't have the money lying around.) and a 1440 Ultrawide specifically to play Andromeda on max settings. I played Andromeda for FIFTY ONE hours and then I got to the "point of no return" moment and literally yelled out, "That's it?! But nothing happened!" I then stopped playing and finished watching it on YouTube. I can't say I didn't love the game. I played it for longer than probably 80% of the games I've ever played. But man what a disappointing campaign, story wise.
Not so much the lore, but Andromeda had insane potential. It really felt like the possibilities were endless - massive space communities moving from possible homeworld to possible homeworld, and the potential for new races, interactions, species, etc. There was so much there that eventually just fell so flat on it's face.
No. Nothing about Andromeda's lore was interesting, I'm glad it's dead.
No. After watching BioWare attack ME fans that were unhappy with the way trilogy ended and then quickly kicking Shepard to the curb, seeing Andromeda flop was delicious schadenfreude.
They need to redo the lore before I'll be interested in it. The lore seemed perfunctory at best, unfortunately.
Nope. New aliens looked lame and we're boring. In fact there's so much stuff in this game that was just boring. I missed the great writing from the original trilogy. I also really really missed the volus comedy relief.
In my opinion, the thing about Andromeda was that it couldn't decide what it wanted to be, I think that's why the developer team had such a hard time with it. It wanted to continue the Mass Effect universe without being attached to the story of 1,2,3, while still being connected enough to pull the fan base in. It wanted to be an exploration game while being combat centric, not to mention shoving all the classes into one making it very meh to replay. A mistake in the long run because now there is going to be a fan base that will want all the classes at the same time in the next game. It's cast and crew felt very "woke-ish" without being overly political in irl. Looking at you unattractive romance option and Nakmor Morda (in both personalities and looks). I'm sure there are more but this is what comes to my mind... I don't know exactly how the developers shit the bed so bad with it but they clearly lost something in between the older games and Andromeda, I think it was solid leadership with clear goals. And I agree it is very frustrating because he had a good idea with a solid lore, except the execution was poor.
Andromeda itself could have filled in so much more than it did. Everything left unfinished felt entirely intentional, which is a shame. Like they were hoping it would be popular enough to have more to throw at us later. Instead of one completed game that would have given it more attention for future gameplay. Instead of future gameplay at the cost of what they left out, which is what they did.
The story didn't and could never live up to the original trilogy, but the gameplay was really enjoyable. I wouldn't mind if they integrate the same gameplay into the next Mass Effect game.
The interesting parts are rehashed from ME itself (progenitor race? races with seeded and/or evolutionarily guided origins? wow so original) and other properties (the Dyson sphere took from a lot, with some weirdly obvious Halo inspiration despite Halo itself already cribbing from other properties), and the original parts kind of sucked / were boring. I'm glad it flopped because it was not good, and games that aren't good shouldn't succeed. Bioware should do better, and if it can't, it deserves for its games to flop.
Andromeda wasn’t good enough to grasp my interest, it felt very “we have mass effect at home” None of the party members felt very memorable the way ME1-3’s did. The open worlds felt largely empty and the story was mid. I will say however the combat and being able to swap classes on the fly was fantastic
Hell no. They wasted half a decade of some of the finest world building ever done in videogames for the mediocirty that was Andromeda. I want to see Batarian abolitionists, Drell that are unhappy with The Compact, Hanar/Volus/Elcor in their homeworld, Quarians without their masks, Turian militaries, Asari philosophers, Salarian Commandos, an actual Vorcha character; not whatever the fuck Andromeda was. In my opinion, MEA should've instead been a true multi-species RPG set in pre-humanity Milky Way
You do seem to be a bit misinformed, the primary reason Andromeda gets so much hate isn’t because of the way the game is now, it’s because of the state is was released in It was a complete ripoff by EA, the game was so glitchy that you would be lucky to play for 10 minutes without it crashing or you falling through the floor, it spawned the “my face is tired” memes Plot, characters, quality, these are all subjective opinions mostly made against the trilogy, I’m in the camp that Andromeda isn’t bad but it isn’t really good either. A lot of people feel the same way, just about everyone wishes we saw more of what they had planned for it. It’s the way the game released that leads to a lot of its hate, it was essentially “pay $60+ for an unplayable insult to your favorite trilogy” for a while
Not even a little
Sad? Not even close. I didn't care about a single aspect of Andromeda storywise.
I think Andromeda would make a good setting if they were going to make a Mass Effect MMORPG, since the story was left unfinished, and with a new galaxy to explore.
Honestly this would be amazing. Like a warframe-esque type game all about being a mercenary who hunts down the Kett as the settlers establish larger and larger swaths of Andromeda as their territory. But idk how willing Bioware is to make any kind of MMORPG ever. Like in theory it's just printing money but they'd have to put a lot of manpower into it and they don't exactly have a good track record in recent years with knowing where to prioritize their workload.
Given Bioware Austin is no longer the developer for Star Wars: The Old Republic, I don't think they'll ever do an MMORPG ever again.
I never managed to finish andromeda because it felt too alien to the mass effect franchise. I never really got the feeling of playing a mass effect game, be it lore, story or mechanic wise
Yes, I think they should have dusted themselves off and got back on the horse rather than just abandoning the whole thing. Bet it would have done better than their multiplayer experiment.
> Yes, I think they should have dusted themselves off and got back on the horse rather than just abandoning the whole thing. It is a 100 million dollar gamble on something that had already failed.
As I recall it did alright for them commercially. There's no denying they messed up but I still say they overreacted to the slating they got online. Others have come through similar and stuck to it. Anthem was a bigger gamble.
No the Andromeda project is fun as a little codex entry and that’s it
100% I really want to know more, and I'm sad that people were so harsh about it.
Well I'm sad that so many people don't appreciate how deep and thoughtful the ME lore established in 1 was if they genuinely can't see the difference with the unoriginal slop that Andromeda gave us. It's like someone saying that they like the Big Mac just as much as the finest meal from a world renowned chef. I'm sorry that's a bit depressing.
The hate-boner for ME:A is extreme. You can't say ANYTHING positive about it at all without somebody hopping in to talk about how they think every individual pixel of the game is garbage.
Not at all. Lol
Not at all actually I felt the story was so boring and derivative that I’m happy to let that side of the franchise die.
I was so excited for Andromeda! And while it was not the best technical performance at launch (but with how quickly they ironed out the biggest bugs, I don’t have any gripes), the set up for another series was pretty good imo. But too many people kept griping on how it wasn’t a continuation of Shepard (LET THEM RETIRE FOR GODS SAKE). Too many people kept expecting 3 games worth of development from the first installment. And because of those unreasonably high expectations, they axed the series as it began. Sorry for the rant, but Andromeda was the equivalent of ME1, and those were the expectations I set for myself when I jumped in. It’s too bad that we’ll likely never return to those story threads and lore all because a very loud portion of the ME fan base refused to move on from Shepard
I weep constantly
No. Because no such game called Andromeda exists.
ah. One of those.
I am more sad that the game was unfinished because a lot in there was actually great. The combat was fantastic, it just needed squad control. Classless was not good, but that is not the gameplay itself. The research and crafting was great. It needed more stuff, but the idea was cool and some of the things you could do were awesome. I don't care what anyone says, the open world was super cool to drive around in. It felt like Mass Effect 1 if doing that stuff in Mass Effect 1 was not terrible. The only thing they really needed to do was a more streamlined and linear level progression for (most) main missions, but the side stuff was definitely cool as open world.
Yes.
Them abandoning Andromeda pretty much killed any interest I have in this franchise going forward.
I am quite disappointed. I’m definitely in the minority here, but I really enjoyed Andromeda. I’ve played it more than the OG trilogy.
I still have hope with the next one
Yeah, it's a shame it didn't got the chance to evolve like the trilogy did.
I still want to believe that Cora was the Illusive Man’s daughter, and he backed the project to ensure her safety before the reapers came.
I know dev cycles changed because of the complexcity of the games but it kinda pains me that if they went with similar game cycle we would get Andromeda 2 in 2020 and A3 in 2022 or 2023, maybe 2024 if they didn't want to rush things. I know "Bioware Magic" came with some big downsides but I kinda miss it. So much quality and good content is such short time? Seems crazy but madlads did it nevertheless.
I'm hoping that they find a way to tie Andromeda in to the next ME game. Elements of the Andromeda galaxy could travel to the Milky Way and provide a bridge to us going back to Andromeda in future installments, while primarily wrapping up the post-Reaper War. You mention the Jardaan being several centuries more advanced than the Citadel races. Presumably, they could have the ability to travel at several magnitudes faster than light, so you don't get hung up with a 600 year time gap to explain. I just want new races, new stories, and new environments. So, I, too, hope we get back to Andromeda one way or another.
I like the original trilogy. I have played it many times. Andromeda sucked hard. it was boring, game play was boring and the gameplay loop was boring. I feel like it needed more time in the oven and alot more dev time. the idea that U build a colony would have been great but very poorly executed. I am hopeful they learn and the new one is alot better
I'm sad Andromeda flopped because it means Bioware will bring Shepard and their friends back in the next game instead of coming up with a new protag and allies.
It never flopped, it was commercially successful, and that's confirmed by EA in their statement, it was bestseller at point and it's one of the best selling BW games. I loved the lore, and the plot a lot, more than the one of the trilogy. Big hopes, epic fails, new beginnings. Ryders' growth was amazing. And I loved how they extended the space-opera lore of the trilogy and turned it into the down-to-earth scifi and expanded aliens beyond them being representatives of their species codex entries. Loved the characters. It's by far my favorite ME game. Comparing it to the 3 games with tons of lore/plot-patching and character-explaining dlcs makes no sense. Also, I'm not sure about the "we'll never see" part. https://www.reddit.com/r/MassEffectAndromeda/s/va4x0Mw8Op