New main character in Mass Effect Andromeda. Characters - with whom you can chat, make friends and confuse. Hostile creatures in Andromeda

Mass Effect Trailer Overview: Andromeda

A presentation took place on Ea Play. The BioWare Studio has demonstrated another two-minute trailer, in which you can see a new main character, a new ship, game locations, as well as a little gameplay. Fans remained disappointed with a small amount of content. However, it is necessary to recognize that the rest of the press conference from EA also did not differ in a large amount of information. Each game was given a definite amount of time and BioWare filled this time quite an informative trailer, from which you can find out a lot of interesting details about the new game. Let's wonder the roller in more detail.

The main hero of the masses effect: Andromeda

Let's start from the end. It was on the final seconds of the video that the main heroine of the name of the name was shown. Official confirmation that this girl is a protagonist of the masses effect: Andromeda appeared only a day later after a press conference. Most likely, in the game we will see her family. In the meantime, we can enjoy screenshots and see what progress has reached the BioWare Studio in the facial animation of characters, compared with Dragon Age.: Inquisition.

In the previous trilogy Mass Effect. There was an appearance editor and the choice of the floor of the main character. Obviously, all this will appear in Andromed. On other roller frames, we see a male character in the already familiar armor with a toned helmet visor. His face has never been shown from which it is possible to make an assumption that BioWare embodies the old studio developments, because the Mass Effect series was originally developed around female character, and only at a certain stage of developing a male Shepard with an appearance Mark Vanderloo became the main hero and the face of the entire series. This time, everything can be different. Female Shepard in the original Mass Effect trilogy had a great success among fans and became the popular heroine of fan creativity.

Migrating fleet of the Milky Way

With the main character figured out, but what about the plot? Apparently, the starting point of the game serves the planet Earth. Several shuttles overlook the orbit where the huge fleet of spacecraft is going. None of these ships look like those that were in previous parts Games, from which we conclude that Andromeda events will occur significantly later than the events of the trilogy.

We show a huge ship, resembling a hybrid of the citadel and the mountain, on which, probably, we will go on a long journey to Andromeda. Here you should pay attention to the background. There are at least two similar vessels in the form of the Citadel. Perhaps the whole fleet of the arks will be sent to Andromeda, that's not all before the goal will be distinguished.

Hostile creatures in Andromeda

Andromeda will meet the discovers quite cruel. In the course of the roller, we repeatedly see the scenes with broken ships, and as opponents of the main character are not only representatives of local fauna, but also people. According to rumors, in the main scene line We will resist, trying to stop the invasion of aliens, that is, ... us.

From representatives of the local fauna, we showed a huge creature that the character of the character as rag doll. Some gaming media called him a yag, although he has only distant similarity with Yagami, and it is unlikely to have developed intelligence as.

With the same creature there is a small passage of the gameplay, where our character is trying to fill the giant from the pistol. Apparently, the gameplay is not very different from Mass Effect 3, but open spaces give more freedom and allow less dependent on the shelter due to the use of Jetpak.

In the next screenshot, you can see a biotic man who makes a punch. This combat reception has already been shown in E3 last year, only there the character struck the university.

Commitanty

In the team of the main character there will be a woman. Rumors about her appeared a year ago, and even called name -. On a merge in the online video, we could see a blonde woman. In this trailer, she was not shown, but they showed something more interesting.

In the screenshot above, we see the main character in white armor with the letter "A" on the shoe. Next to her one more woman. Perhaps the same bark or azari. But next to them is a creature of incomprehensible origin. I laid out a roller on the personnel and could not see Krogan in this creature. In addition to armor with a pronounced hump, similarities with Krogan minimal. The unusual head of this creature is especially striking. Maybe I am mistaken, but here we see the representative absolutely new race:

Let's leave the theory and come back to harsh reality. Azari. This is a new Azari, created using the latest FROSTBITE 3 technologies and advanced facial animation. It must be said that the animation is really impressive, although in its realism and cinematographicity is noticeably inferior to the recently announced Battlefield 1 on the same engine, and it looks like a cartoon.

But the cartoon is not scary. The fans of the trilogy converge in the opinion that the new Azari, to put it mildly, is strange. We will not discuss the attractiveness of the Tesysk Virgin, but only pay attention to some details. The mass trilogy effect traveled us to the fact that the skin differs from human, and has a scaly texture, recalling that representatives of this race are amphibians (may, to a lesser extent than the Salaarians, but still). In addition, they have completely absent hair cover. Here we see and human skin, and dense eyebrows. It seems that the artist simply frightened the man's texture in blue and shoodled on the model. Care from the canon is not the best way to earn respect for the fans of a series of mass effects that play it for many 9 years.

In addition to man, Crohana, Azari and incomprehensible creature, similar to Croogan, will be in the team of the main character. It can be seen on frames from the command bridge of the ship. This means that Salaarians at least participate in the colonization of Andromeda. The fact that they will appear in the new game we wrote two years ago. The representative of this race could be seen at one of the first rollers dedicated to the masses effect: Andromeda, when the game existed in the form of a prototype.

Tempest (storm) - New Normandy

Well, of course, it is impossible not to say about the technique. The main character of Andromeda will have a ship called. He removed reminds "Normandia", but in general it looks more advanced due to the flat streamlined case.

Unlike "Normandy", the command bridge "storm" is located in the nose. The main character chooses the destination on the map and the vessel makes a hypper jump. We have seen it a year ago in the premiere video. It can be suspended that Tempest is controlled by artificial intelligence, and the pilot in it is generally absent.

The ship can enter the atmosphere of planets and land, hung over the surface using the field of mass effect. The front part of the vessel resembles old Maco, especially the window with the lower glazing, which gives a large angle of the landscape.

Mako M40.

By the way, about Mako. New model M40 has nothing to do with the all-terrain vehicle from the first part of the game. In the early concepts, he looked like a toy machine and caused some fears in terms of passability. But in this video, we were shown that it was capable of much. Its clearance is quite enough to overcome any obstacles.

RESULTS

Summing up, I will say that I really enjoyed seen. Large open spaces, beautiful locations, travels to Mako, a new advanced ship and most importantly, which is in the new Mass Effect: Andromeda - Intrigue. It was the intrigue lacked in Mass Effect 3. We did not know how the story would end about Captain Shepard, but they were waiting for the completion. And Andromeda, on the contrary, opens the new unskilled world in front of us, which will have to be studied in the next few years, in a single campaign and in the multiplayer.

I believe that BioWare can create a decent game and finally will focus on high-quality gameplay. As already mentioned, the Effect effect: Andromeda will have less cat-scenes, fewer dialogues, and the planets will be released, the ruins of ancient races and search for artifacts. All this returns us to the atmosphere of the first part of the Mass Effect - the sole part of the series that had the spirit of science fiction.

And now we have to gain patience and wait for new information about Mass Effect: Andromeda. To the release remains less than a year and the hottest details will appear this fall.

Some time ago, we were accused of criminal nebid to the new BioWare brain. Well, today we will try to fix this laughter, introducing you with the characters of the best role-playing game all times and peoples before the output of the Elder scrolls. Vi. Title and "Humor" - exclusively on the conscience of the author of the original article. Especially impressionable personalities should immediately stop reading and close the page. We warned.

In addition to starships, miracles of biotics and an impending alien threat, Mass Effect: Andromeda is people (and aliens), with whom you can communicate, flirt and spar ... ride. They will become a heart and soul game. The original trilogy was a large-scale Escapist Space Opera, but she focused on the same name that any other role-playing game: worked out, interesting characters. Is it possible to forget the cheerful Aria Mondin about the Salarian scientist, ever-busy garrus calibrations or the debate of Tali and the Legion about whether the soul gets?

We hope that Mass Effect: Andromeda will give us many new memorable moments and viral memes. On the eve of the release of the game, we collected all the information available information about possible satellites and secondary characters.

Let's start with the main characters. Scott and Sarah Riders are twins twenty with overnight years. You can go through the game as it, and for it, and the second rider in any case will become one of the central characters of your team (and no, with relatives it is impossible to turn the novel. This is not the game of thrones, in the end!)

Players will be able to configure the appearance of the heroes, choose the background and change the name, as you can do in the original trilogy, but if you leave standard names, some characters will contact the hero by name (Scott or Sarah) instead of the last name. The names of the father of the family of riders and the twins of the hero chosen by you in any case will remain standard to members of the family did not call each other by last name.

We know that the main character He will inherit from the Father, the famous explorer of the Galaxy and Fighter N7 Alec Ridera (more about him further), the honorary title of pioneer. In this role, the hero will have to lead the team to study the Galaxy Andromeda in search of new planets suitable for colonization, although, of course, hardly the mission will continue to remain so harmless.

But the identity of the rider, his actions - completely on the player's conscience. You can recoup the hero, the bastard, someone's average, and anyone, because we promise a much more subtle and well-thought-out system of morality than before.

Well, another curious fact: the main character will be a pet pyrup (remember these monkeys?), And this pet, apparently, can wander Throughout the Space Ship "Burya" on which the valiant colonists will travel.

Combat comrades in Mass Effect: Andromeda

These are guys, girls and same-sex aliens, which will come to your team. They can be taken with themselves on the tasks, they will have their own classes and trees of skills, you can communicate with them and interact with them, and in some cases it can go to love relationships.

Like Riders, the bark arrives in the Galaxy Andromeda on board the Ark ship "Hyperion". It will be one of two available satellites of the main character from the very beginning. For the first time, players showed it together with Liam in trailer "New Earth" Immediately giving understanding that it would be one of the possible options for romantic interest for Scott Rayder. Details were waiting for players in video, representing team members where the bark even reads the text.

Bark - a biotic man, a specialist in terrestrial operations. Having reached the officer of the Alliance's military forces, it fell by a special program of interspecific integration of the military forces into the division of Azari's paratroopers and served with the "daughters of the talen". She is the deputy commander in the team of the pioneer and, in fact, the successor to Alek Rader, so it's rather strange that one of the children of the Raider becomes a pioneer as a result. Obviously, this problem is to be solved along the plot of the game.

In the social news site Reddit recently leaked information from the marketing research: "The bark is able to create a biotic shield that protects everyone within the hemisphere from exposure from outside, while allowing you to continue to fire on opponents."

Previously, such a sphere was the exclusive skill of the Adept class (Justicear Azari) in a multiplayer game in Mass Effect 3 (although such a shield created the selected biotic during a suicidal task in Mass Effect 2), which suggests that the bark will be precisely the Adept. But on the page of her profile on the official website of Mass Effect, it is said that her "favorite" biotic skill is a biotic charge, and the weapon is a shotgun, which is more like a class of attack aircraft. This is confirmed by the leading designer Jan Fraser in Twitter..

A, and now what: the surname of the bark - Harper. Like a ghost (the real name of which is Jack Harper). Interesting, very interesting.

Liam - Specialist of the Security Service, responsible for responding to incidents and emergencies. Of the same video with the team presentation We learned that he studied engineering at the university, but then decided to disappear on the policeman. For the diverse skills, his personally chose to fulfill his task Alec Rider. Liam - Londonets, he has a British accent.

"Liam Young, full of enthusiasm, sometimes an excessive idealistic follower," said the artistic director Mac Walters in an interview for Game Informer. It imposes high hopes for the future of humanity in the Galaxy Andromeda and in the most difficult situations will try to inspire and encourage others. At the same time, he is quick-tempered, hot and often reacts unnecessarily emotionally. Apparently, somewhere in the middle of the game, this youth idealism will face a harsh reality, and we have to become this witness.

Despite the light and cheerful temper, he belongs to their duties very seriously, and the decision of the Radéra supports and respects. According to the same Walters, it is Liam - one who always covers the main hero of the back.

As for the guesses about Liam class - here, again, you can contact his page on the official website of the Mass Effect. It says that he prefers to beat in the near battle, using a jet settling to take care of the enemy, and the "dispersed" receptron with two blades (maybe such a rider can now be used?). His favorite ability: "Blow of devastants" (a jump forward with a stunning of opponents and strikes a few goals using a jet wreck). In a multiplayer game in Mass Effect 3, such an ability was a unique technical skill of the Turian soldier, which suggests a class of soldiers. But let's not forget that this guy also studied at the engineer.

Pibi - Azari, but do not hurry to draw conclusions on the basis of what you learned about this race from previous games of the series: Pibi is equally small in common both with proud and arrogant Lairo and Samara, and with a fatal female Morint.

"In situations, when Liara was very serious, the Pibi is alive and playful," Mac Walters told her. - With any convenient case, it comes in advance to generally accepted standards, it doesn't care about culture, traditions and all that. Yes, and the concept teamwork For her alone. "

In BioWare, they want to destroy stereotypes that have developed in players with respect to representatives of alien races, so the new Azari will be windy and straight and non-restrained and diplomatic. Probably, the whole thing is in the very nature of the mission associated with the search colonies: such expeditions of the time of the centuries attracted marginals. Pibi, by the way, is a nickname, cut from the full name of Peregesari B "Sale." She comes from the port of Lerama, the capital of the Planet Giiiian (Milky Way, Silean Nebula, Nahuala), the Oklota Azari.

The Milky Way quickly bored her, and she went to Andromeda as part of the expedition flagship "Nexus", but soon left him, preferring independence. On its page on the official website Mass Effect states that it is "pathologically independent." She is interested in alien technologies that have to explore the main character when traveling to the accumulation of Elea, which means they will definitely cross them.

The site says that Pibi arrows and a chaotic biotic, her favorite weapon - Sidewinder Outlaw gun, and a favorite skill - "invasion". These are new in the Mass Effect series, so we can assume that Pibi will be a teptoma biotic, but with a couple of new tricks.

Already confirmed that it will be possible to start a romantic relationship. Actress of voicing, Christine Lacin, admitted that Pibi became one of the most amazing and interesting roles in his career.

Wind - Turian. It is still known about it quite a bit. She flashed in a trailer " New Earth", And first was presented in gaming process trailer shown at the Game Awards 2016 ceremony, where she accompanied Sarah Rider and a fight (about him below) during the ground mission on the Cadar planet. It is confirmed that she will have a task on loyalty, so it will definitely be a potentially possible companion of the main character.

If BioWare continues to destroy stereotypes, then this Turian must be a careless lad, hated gun and calibration (it is unlikely). It is high growth, and in the rollers, and in the game itself, therefore developers provided unique motion animations . Here, in fact, all official information.

Drak - Crohan, closed in a steep jade, decorated with bones. He appeared in trailer From the Game Awards 2016 ceremony: I went with the "storm" with Rider and the Wind. IN other trailer He also flashed: here he throws some aliens on the ground. "I have nothing to do with anything," says Scott Rider. "I have Crohan."

In Game Informer wrote that Krogan also had his own loyalty task. The Krogan named was not mentioned, but it appeared during the leakage of the marketing research data, where there was a hint at the reward for the execution of this task: "If you agree to fulfill his tasks and help him find a secret refuge of criminals to return the ship to the right owners, you To deserve loyalty to the fight in relation to you and your team, which will also open access to the new skill tree. "

We do not know what he is in battle - well, in addition to the fact that he is cool, but biotics among Croogans are rare. With the exception of Rex, thanks to rarely biotic gift, the authoritative combat master and the leader of the Clan Urdnot, other Crohanas in the Mass Effect series - aggressive fighters of extremely melee, preferring shotguns, storm rifles and heavy armor.

So, we talked about five possible colleagues (if you do not count the twin of the main character, which is likely to also be able to participate in ground operations). All of them are the Milky Ways already familiar to the players, but, according to Eurogamer, BioWare confirmed that at least one satellite would be from the new galaxy.

Shortly after the "New Earth" trailer, FUNKO, the creators of cute big-headed figures, presented their line of figures on a new game. One of them was created on the basis of the lilac representative of the new race of the hangar. Called figurine jal. In BioWare, do not rush to confirm the information, but in the trailer, he (or her?) Delivered quite a long time, and even his figure already exists, so, most likely, Jal will become sixth and probably the last possible companion of the main character.

Everything else - forks on the water written, but on Twitter Jan Fraser wrote That if he wants to collect the most assault from all assault detachments, he takes with him to the task of the bark and a certain still being revised the character. Since we don't know anything about other possible satellites, it can be like Jal, and some other, who is still unknown to us a character.

Representatives of BioWare argued that the team of the rider would be less than earlier in the Mass Effect, but each character will work in more detail, they will reveal better in the dialogs. In the second part of the trilogy, as we remember, there were 12 possible satellites, and two from DLC. In the third part there were only seven satellites, and the Javik also added only to DLC. It is possible that in Mass Effect: AndroMeda will only have five or six falconians, but maybe we will present one more or two on the day of the game or as a loaded paid addition.

Minor characters Mass Effect: Andromeda

Now introduce you to the auxiliary characters, which are unlikely to participate in ground operations.

Meet your dad. More precisely, dad is the main character. Alec Ryder became one of the first people who passed on the other side of the repeater. After the return, it became also one of the first participants in the military program, which will later become known as N7, which confirmed its status of one of the best soldiers of mankind. Of video with a pioneer team representation We also know that he fought with the Turians in the war of the first contact of Shanxi and served as a military attache on the citadel in the 60s of the 22nd century.

He is not only an experienced soldier, but also a scientist interested in the possibilities of using artificial Intelligence "As a means of improving the human body" (hmm). With the same, probably (see a little lower about himself), an urgent question is connected: where, in fact, the mother of the twins? Surely

Why spin-off cosmic saga became such disappointment.

To bookmarks

Mass Effect: Andromeda has become one of the most high-profile failures for latelyBut many still ask the question: How could developers release such a raw game? They could not not know about her numerous shortcomings. A journalist of the portal Kotaku on anonymity conditions talked to the developers of the game and found out the reasons why Andromeda turned out to be so blatant failure.

We have retold material.

Idea

The first Mass Effect 2007 was a nonideal game: I especially didn't like the fans of Mako, the all-terrain vehicle, which was constantly driving a player. Nevertheless, Mass Effect 2 and 3 developed the successful sides of the first part - the plot, dialogues, combat system, and the study of the planets was discarded.

When in BioWare decided to create a fourth game in a franchise, the company wanted to update the game. In addition, it was given to the development of the BioWare branch in Montreal, although before this Mass Effect was engaged in the studio from Edmonton.

Casey Hudson (Casey Hudson), executive producer of the main trilogy, engaged in a new title with the code name Dylan, so that there was no time to continue Mass Effect. His secret project is called so because the team is going to create the equivalent of Bob Dilan from gaming Industry.

Casey Hudson

BioWare Montreal was based on the development of additional content. Now she had to create a game for the first time.

Nevertheless, no one threw them on the arbitrariness. When the first meetings began in 2012 on what the game was played, both the experienced BioWare developers and Hudson himself, who wanted to provide a decent start project. He also offered to abandon the reapers and the Shepard Commander - a complete update of the concept.

As a result, it was decided to make the game about what was lacking in the first part of the Mass Effect: on the study of space.

Many said: We never revealed the potential of Mass Effect 1 completely. Combat system We turned out, the plot too. Let's do the pilot.

At first, the developers wanted to make the Mass Effect attached, the action of which would have happened during the first contact war, when humanity first encountered aliens. Then closer to the end of 2012, Hudson asked fans about what they like more: sequel or prequel the original trilogy. Fans chose the first as the participants of the focus groups.

So BioWare abandoned the original idea, although the word "contact" passed and became the code name of the project.

No Man's Sky from Bioare

In 2013, Mass Effect: Andromeda entered the pre-production stage - at this stage, the team decides how the scale will be their game what to develop and how. BioWare also hired a new director of the Gerard Lehiany project (Gérard Lehiany), which before that was engaged in games about the Spider Man in the Beenox Studio belonging to Activision.

Lechyani came up with several very ambitious ideas for the game, one of which became the basis of her plot: during the events of the main trilogy, the Council of the Citadel sent the colonists to a new galaxy in case Shepard would be able to stop the reinstalls.

Gerard Lechyani (left)

In addition, Lehery wanted in his game there were hundreds of planets available for research that would be generated using procedural algorithms, rightly as in No Man's Sky. (This sad famous game Then has not yet been announced.)

Due to the procedure generation, it was possible to significantly expand the scale of the game. This ambitious idea accounted for many in the team.

No Man's Sky with graphics and plot from BioWare. Sounds gorgeous.

One of the developers of Mass Effect: Andromeda

In 2013 and 2014, the developers tried different concepts that are now very reminded by No Man's Sky. For example, in one of the prototypes, the player flew to the galaxy on space ship And he could sit on any planet, for the movement on which he was issued "nomad", a new all-terrain vehicle. Then you could get into the ship and fly further.

But without any problems. No one knew how to insert the story of the BioWare level into the game with procedural generation of the planets. Many departments lacked employees, technological problems arose. The only one who understood how to make procedurally generated worlds, there were level designers who used the WorldMachine tool. The rest had neither knowledge or resources.

Even without procedural generation from the Mass Effect team: Andromeda, the default was one huge problem - Frostbite, the game engine.

In the gaming industry, it is considered one of the most powerful, but at the same time one of the most difficult. FrostBite is able to generate magnificent graphics, but DICE, the creators of the engine, sharpened under the first-person shooters like Battlefield - there were no even the most basic functions to create RPG. The BioWare programmers had to develop them from scratch, including the character animation system.

One of the developers of Mass Effect: Andromeda conducts an analogy with cars. Unreal Engine He compares with an SUV, which is capable of a lot, but quickly does not go. Unity is a small city typewriter: weak, but it is easy to park anywhere. And frostbite is a Formula 1. What is what it is sharpened, it turns out great. But nothing more.

In particular, the problem of steel planets, because Frostbite could not generate a map of more than 100x100 kilometers, which for the cosmic role-playing game was not enough. Also enough problems and with the save system, the generation of textures on the fly and important for RPG mechanics.

Confusion

If 2013 was the year of opportunity and interesting decisions, 2014 became the year of conflict for developers. Studios in Montreal and Edmonton constantly quarreled: People from Edmonton insisted that the pre-production was implemented weakly, and the ideas of developers were not worked enough - the staff of the Montreal Studio in response stated that colleagues from Edmonton sabotize their project.

By the end of 2014, at least a dozen developers left Bioare Montreal to other studios, and it was unclear who they will be replaced. Particularly injured the team responsible for the animation - its composition did not replenish.

In August 2014, BioWare left Casey Hudson, and Soon Gerard Lechyani. A screenwriter series Mass Effect Mac Walters (Mac Walters) came to his replacement. New Creative Director - New Vision Game.

Mac Walters.

However, even the realization of old ideas went with difficulty. Combat mechanics It was nice, like everything that concerned the all-terrainist "nomad", but with flights in space and procedural generation of planets constantly had problems. In principle, it was possible to create planets, and it was possible to travel on them, but, as one of the developers remembers, it was trite uninteresting.

Another developer who came to the project by the end of the pre-production, recalls that then the team did not have many necessary tools, like model models. Usually at this stage, the developers create a "vertical section" - a piece of game that serves as a demonstration of what will be in it. In the case of Andromeda, the cut did not work.

The team had a spare plan for the case if the procedural generation of the planets could not be done - they could simply take a star map from previous games of the series and fill it with new content. Meanwhile, time went, and the developers could not choose one of these two options.

Much time went to the creation of technological prototypes mechanics, which will not be included in the game, like flights in space - all due to the fact that the concept of the game was not clearly defined.

By the end of 2015, leading staff understood that the procedure generation system does not work. The concept did not like it - and they looked at No Man's Sky with interest, "but they could not make it work. Therefore, it was decided to reduce the scale of the game.

First, instead of hundreds of procedurally generated planets, it remained thirty. Their landscape was created by WORLDMACHINE, and the rest was arranged manually. Then from thirty planets left seven. Such radical changes caused confusion in the team, especially in the departments responsible for the design, the plot and the cat scene.

We had a lot of questions: what does it mean for us as for the development team? What will need to be cut? What will remain in the game? Who will work on?

One of the developers of Mass Effect: Andromeda

Such changes are not uncommon for the gaming industry, but they usually occur at the pre-production stage so that the developers have the opportunity to re-plan the work process before taking for the creation of the game. As a result, much of what was done for Andromeda Studio, I had to throw out - it was especially strongly affected by the plot, levels and cat-scenes. The development of these aspects, in contrast to the combat system, multiplayer and driving, severely lagged behind the schedule.

Even more confusion

Since 2009, BioWare consists of three studios: in Edmonton, Montreal and Austin. Above Dragon Age: Inquisition and Mass Effect: Andromeda They worked together, in the framework of the One BioWare initiative.

What was the successful approach, but in the case of Andromeda minuses turned out to be more than the advantages. Studios were difficult to interact on a banal reason: they are located in different time zones. Only to collect everyone on the video conference could take an hour, and Logistics turned into a nightmare. The companies like Ubisoft with studios in several countries have army producers engaged in the synchronization of employees. BioWare was not ready for this.

Nevertheless, the company's choice was not. To finish the development on time, more and more people began to translate on Andromeda, but some departments simply could not get started. Take for example the plot: due to the fact that during the prelimination of the leading staff too much thought about the key ideas of the project, the foundations of the plot were not approved, and the team had to first work them out, and then it was already taken for the main work.

Many of these key ideas stayed in the game, such as the image of the chief character, SAM, artificial intelligence, helping the player, and the final battle on the meridian. But most quests and dialogues needed to create from scratch.

But it's not just in the plot. Almost all the developers with whom the author spoke, admitted that almost the whole game was created in the period from the end of 2015 to March 2017. That is 18 months instead of five years. The movement began thanks to Maku Walters, but he was not impressive.

The situation complicated that the respondents called the project regression. Usually, when creating the game, the last months go to the "polishing" - during this phase, the bugs are corrected, the mechanics are calibrated and the existing content is improved. In a word, the game becomes noticeable better. Andromeda, on the contrary, worsened.

We completed work on some element, tested it and finally approved. Then we moved to another task, and for our spins, what we just created, began to fall apart.

One of the developers of Mass Effect: Andromeda

The true causes of this regression to identify is difficult. Sometimes everything collapsed due to the fact that the engineer has updated the key system, in other cases due to the change of the model of NPC. According to the developers, this process was terrible, because they constantly reworked the fact that a few days ago were recognized as ready.

According to this video, regress is good noticeable. It could be caused by anything from changing the lighting to too demanding to the computer resources of the animation. With other games "Dungradda" happened, and more than once ( Watch Dogs., "Witcher 3"), but at such a late development phase - never.

Worse, the "late" departments engaged in the effects, cat-scenes and sound. Their skid always comes at the very end of the project, but all the others ended their parts of the game later than they should have been, so that the "late" departments of time were critically short.

According to the developers, in recent months, the situation was completely hopeless. Mass Effect: Andromeda They call the most difficult project in their lives.

Animation

This part of the game was originally considered a problem, along with the plot and procedural generation of planets. For those who have passed from the release of months, the most sensations were about the animation: theories about the reasons for its low quality differ from the extremely naive (EA bought BioWare, and everything in the studio struck) to insane (BioWare made all the characters ugly, because the studio is fighting for social justice) .

In fact, there were several reasons.

In 2013 and 2014, during pre-grades, engineers and animation techniques tried to decide how they would make animation in Andromeda. And they have problems.

At first, the studio wanted to hire the Egyptian company Snappers, which created excellent personal animations, but no one knew how to include them in the game. And everyone constantly argued about what technology to use.

Someone insisted on the FaceWare program, which enjoys in the Capture Labs, Vancouver Laboratory EA, but others believed that it was not good enough. Almost all lip movements of Andromeda characters were generated by a common FaceFX program that interprets sounds and automatically changes the position of the NPC lips.

One source mentioned Jonathan Cooper (Jonathan Cooper), the former Animator BioWare, as a very reliable statement of the causes of poor animation quality.

ELECTRONIC ARTS marketers are those still frustrated. It was difficult to come up with an idea badly than in advance to release the first hours of Mass Effect: Andromeda in relatively open access (just for a paid subscription on Origin Access). You know, with which the most impatient players met: with jambs of facial animation, a vulnerable string of plot and boring trips on all-terrain vehicles on a desert planet. The new Mass Effect came out in conditions of universal ridicule and indictment. Such a negative background would not hurt only a unconditional masterpiece, and Andromeda in this category does not like. But did you deserve a similar attitude? Yes and no.

Protein and arrow, where are you now?

If BioWare had no need to remove the Milky Way of the Milky Way of the Milky Way with the notorious "traffic light", the events new game It could well happen in some weakly studied corner of a familiar galaxy - the local frontier turns out to be too hugged. After all, the Ark ship with the main hero on board arrives in Andromed after the builders of the supporting space base "Nexus". A little more than a year it took that part of the personnel managed to raise the riot, climb from the station, become local gangster groups and settle in a couple relatively suitable starry systems. Yes, and the first after the prologue planet meets us with earth landscapes, abandoned by advancement and crowds of aggressive aliens. Pioneer, say? Oh well.

Directly with location research in Mass Effect: Andromeda at first, too, everything is so-so. It is difficult to stay and not to start thoughtlessly sweeping on the all-terrain vehicle from one point of interest to the other, riding past the bases with the ever-reborn opponents and striving to end as soon as possible with painfully long trips on huge spaces. One planet replaces the other, and the gameplay does not change in any way. Moreover, even when Andromeda surprises something new, it quickly turns into a routine: an unexpected collision with a truly impressive enemy - repeat three times on other planets; Descent to the mysterious structures of the forerunner - there will be twenty of the same pieces; The fascinating capture of the enemy base with forcing himself strongly run by the "boss" - for the third time you don't even care. And it is a fry cosmic Sudoku ...

Surprisingly, this facade is hidden not the worst research process. On the planets are harnessed interesting places, Never designated on the map, so that unhurried search still brings fruit in the form of a spectacular natural phenomenon or generous treasure with equipment. This is especially noticeable in local jungle, for which the all-terrain vehicle is not provided - the territory turned out to be more compact and worker more than the rest. Fans of climb every corner will find something in Mass Effect: Andromeda, but there are two problems: it's all the same by the level of the saturation of the world, this is not the Elder Scrolls from the same Bethesda Softworks, but the Mass Effect series itself after the first part went completely different way, Turning into a corridor fighter with spectacular production and bright heroes. And on this field Andromeda plays with great difficulty.

If we talk about the mechanics of battle, then on paper she looks great. The hero is low, he hung on the back of the pitch and is not obliged to hide in shelters. Weapons - the sea, and it is really diverse. Want - take a loved one since the second part of the "black widow" and shoot the enemies of the head; If you want - grab a chic kvarian shotgun, junning opponents with electric arc. Do not you like to recharge? Here is a cash step. Do you like to consider cartridges at all? Collect gun based on relic technologies without these! The character development system finally left classiness, and no one bothers to play biotics with a heavy machine gun - from restrictions only weapon weight, slowing the recharge of abilities. It would seem that it is happiness.

But we have huge open spaces, remember? Most battles in Mass Effect: Andromeda does not happen in the premises, so why all these tricks, when it is easier to shoot enemies from sniper rifle From a safe distance, especially since the opponents on such a shooting do not react in any way? At the middle distance, the battles also often cause bewilderment: you can kill a dozen enemy blanks running to the same shelter in the order of living (ha ha) queues. With the battles in closed spaces, things are better: smarter computer opponents do not become, but already able to deliver problems. However, even the premises are spacious here enough to find a way to check the trick with a sniper, and from the devotionless aggressors it is easy to exhibit on the jetpack. In the end, B. single game A variety of combat capacity Mass Effect: Andromeda rests on a very medium level of shifting themselves.

Gray mediocrity

However, we flew to a new galaxy not only for battles and research. The developers boasted that voiced dialogues in Mass Effect: Andromeda is almost more than in the second and third parts total. And it would be better if they deceived! Such a number of completely empty conversations will be difficult to find somewhere else. Why monotonously voice over thousands of characters, if most of them do not play any role and can only tell the darkened domestic details of their boring life? Who can be wondering why the next faceless colonist flew to this damn Andromeda? To learn from the aborigines about their way of life, a little more interesting, since for the player they are at least a little in a novelty, but by the time of their appearance, a persistent disgust to empty abrasions is already produced.

No less empty instructions of these characters. The content of all the tasks without exception is reduced either to post quests, or to multiple scanning, or to stripping packs of enemies. The lion's share is spent on the trip on the all-terrain vehicle, and if you don't care, you will also have to fly to another planet, once again watching the annoying animations of the takeoff and landing of the native ship and waiting for the end of a long journey to the destination point and back. In the exciting form, the developers are more or less worked out only the main tasks.

With key characters, not everything is too smooth: the leaders of "Nexus" are not interested, the leaders on the planets are a little better, and the traditional GlavGad learns the villainage pathos only at the end of the game. The first impression on the team of the ship "Storm" at best no: the partners were also injured from the void of dialogues about the life and personal problems, and their characterists reach for a long time. Most satellite replicas are background verses on board the ship, which are funny, but do not make any sense. And only when you already approve with the fact that Mass Effect: Andromeda is not able to offer anything except the characters of the level of youth series CW, the team "storms" still begins to show character in personal and plot missions.

It is true and in relation to the main hero of the new Mass Effect. Rider Jr., by inheritance, received the position of pioneer, half of the game gives the impression of infantile mattress against the background of both Charismatic Shepard, and quickly removed from the plot of the Father. Having spilled out of the Mass Effect system "Paragon / Rengage", the developers did not competently with the loss: without branded polar replicas, the illusion of choice became completely ghostly, and the character of the character is sterile. The idea to show the formation of a new hero is commended, but its implementation is difficult to see the clock killed on the trips to the desert planets.

Song of someone else's world

Closer to the final Mass Effect: Andromeda gives solid positive emotions: A woken plot acquires a dynamics and allows you to enjoy cinematic entertainment, the protagonist finally forms a character, and the "storm" team becomes close and almost native. But what to do with the previous tens of hours of a monotonous game? To understand and to forgive? Oh, if it were possible to erase from memory boring running with a scanner and a gray meaninglessness of most dialogs ...

Of course, you can make a phint ears and submit a Mass Effect: Andromeda direct continuation of the ideas of the first part that the game is sometimes very reminded, and mostly disadvantages, and not advantages. Just hardly the developers actually tried to return to the roots of the series - just a Canadian variation of modern "sandboxes" not far from gameplay ten-year old.

Before us the worst game Under the signboard BioWare over the past few years, however, Mass Effect: Andromeda - not yet failure. In the best moments of the adventure in the new galaxy, joy are brought to the worst - irritation, but for the most part - just bored. And few people will endure a very middle and secondary running on the planets for the sake of rare bright outbreaks of the most MASS EFFECT.