New protagonist in mass effect andromeda. Mass Effect: Andromeda is a story of failure. Mass Effect protagonist: Andromeda
Mass Effect: Andromeda Trailer Review
A presentation took place at EA Play. BioWare studio has shown another two-minute trailer, in which you can see a new protagonist, a new ship, game locations, as well as some gameplay. Fans were disappointed with the lack of content. However, we must admit that the rest of the press conference from EA also did not differ in a large amount of information. Each game was allocated a certain amount of time and BioWare filled this time with a completely informative trailer, from which you can learn a lot of interesting details about new game... Let's take a closer look at the video.
Mass Effect protagonist: Andromeda
Let's start at the end. It was in the final seconds of the video that we were shown the main character of the game by her last name. Official confirmation that this girl is the protagonist of Mass Effect: Andromeda appeared only a day after the press conference. Most likely, we will see her family in the game. In the meantime, we can enjoy screenshots and see what progress BioWare has made in facial animation of characters, compared to Dragon age: Inquisition.
In the previous trilogy Mass effect was the editor of the appearance and the choice of the gender of the protagonist. Obviously, all this will appear in Andromeda. In other frames of the video, we see a male character in the already familiar armor with a tinted helmet visor. His face has never been shown, from which one can make the assumption that BioWare brings to life the old developments of the studio, because the Mass Effect series was originally developed around female character, and only at a certain stage of development, a male Shepard with the appearance of Mark Vanderloo became the main character and the face of the entire series. This time, things might be different. The female Shepard in the original Mass Effect trilogy was a big hit with fans and became a popular heroine in fan art.
The Migrating Fleet of the Milky Way
With the main character sorted out, but what about the plot? Apparently, planet Earth is the starting point of the game. Several shuttles go into orbit, where a huge fleet of spaceships gathers. None of these ships are like the ones in previous parts games, from which we conclude that the events of Andromeda will take place much later than the events of the trilogy.
We are shown a huge ship, resembling a hybrid of the Citadel and the Horn, on which, probably, we will go on a long journey to Andromeda. Here you should pay attention to the background. At least two similar vessels are visible there in the form of the Citadel. Perhaps, a whole fleet of ships-arks will be sent to Andromeda, but not everyone will get to the goal.
Hostile creatures in Andromeda
Andromeda will meet the discoverers quite cruelly. In the course of the video, we repeatedly see scenes with broken ships, and not only representatives of the local fauna, but also people act as opponents of the main character. According to rumors, in the main storyline, we will be confronted, trying to stop the invasion of aliens, that is ... us.
From the representatives of the local fauna, we were shown a huge creature that flutters the character as rag doll... Some gaming media called him yagami, although he has only a distant resemblance to yagami, and is unlikely to have developed intelligence like u.
With the same creature, there is a small piece of gameplay, where our character is trying to fill up a giant with a pistol. Apparently, the gameplay is not much different from Mass Effect 3, but open spaces give more freedom and allow less dependence on cover due to the use of a jetpack.
In the next screenshot, a biotic human can be seen making a jump kick. This combat technique was already demonstrated at E3 last year, only there the character stabbed with a uni-blade.
Party members
There will be a woman in the team of the protagonist. Rumors about her appeared a year ago, and even a name was called -. On the video leaked on the Internet, we could see a blonde woman. She was not shown in this trailer, but something more interesting was shown.
In the screenshot above, we see the main character in white armor with the letter "A" on her shoulder pad. Next to her is another woman. Perhaps the same Cora or the asari. But next to them - a creature of unknown origin. I laid out the video in frames and could not see a krogan in this creature. Apart from the armor with a pronounced hump, the resemblance to the krogan is minimal. The unusual head of this creature is especially striking. I may be wrong, but here we see a representative of absolutely new race:
Let's leave the theory and return to the harsh reality. Azari. This is a new asari created with the latest Frostbite 3 technology and advanced facial animation. I must say that the animation is really impressive, although in its realism and cinematography it is noticeably inferior to the recently announced Battlefield 1 on the same engine, and looks somehow cartoonish.
But cartoony is not scary. Trilogy fans agree that the new asari is, to put it mildly, strange. We will not discuss the attractiveness of the Tessian maiden, but only pay attention to some details. The Mass Effect Trilogy has taught us that skin is different from human skin and has a scaly texture, reminding us that members of this race are amphibians (maybe less so than salarians, but still). In addition, they are completely hairless. Here we see both human skin and thick eyebrows. It seems that the artist simply painted the texture of the person in blue and stuck it on the model. Leaving canon is not the best way to earn the respect of Mass Effect fans who have been playing it for 9 long years.
In addition to a man, a krogan, an asari and an incomprehensible creature that looks like a krogan, the main character will be in the team. He can be seen in footage from the ship's command bridge. This means that the Salarians are at least involved in the colonization of Andromeda. We wrote about the fact that they will appear in the new game two years ago. A representative of this race could be seen in one of the first videos dedicated to Mass Effect: Andromeda, when the game existed as a prototype.
Tempest - New Normandy
And, of course, one cannot but mention the technique. The main character Andromeda will have a ship called. It vaguely resembles the Normandy, but overall looks more advanced due to its flat, streamlined body.
Unlike the Normandy, the Tempest command bridge is located in the bow. The main character chooses a destination point on the map and the ship makes a hyper-jump. We saw it a year ago in the premiere video. It can be assumed that Tempest is controlled by artificial intelligence, and the pilot is absent at all.
The ship can enter the atmosphere of the planets and land, hovering above the surface using the mass effect field. The front of the ship is reminiscent of the old Mako, especially the bottom glazed window, which gives a wide angle of view of the landscape.
Mako M40
Speaking of Mako. New model M40 has nothing to do with the all-terrain vehicle from the first part of the game. In early concepts, it looked like a toy car and caused some fears in terms of cross-country ability. But in this video we were shown that he is capable of much. Its clearance is enough to overcome any obstacles.
Outcomes
Summing up, I will say that I really liked what I saw. Large open spaces, beautiful locations, trips to Mako, a new advanced ship and the main thing in the new Mass Effect: Andromeda is intrigue. It was the intrigue that was lacking in Mass Effect 3. We did not know how the story about Captain Shepard would end, but we were waiting for the end. Andromeda, on the other hand, opens up a new unknown world for us to explore in the next few years, in a single player campaign and in multiplayer.
I believe BioWare can create a decent game and finally put the emphasis on quality gameplay. As already mentioned, in Mass Effect: Andromeda there will be fewer cut-scenes, fewer dialogues, and the study of planets, the ruins of ancient races and the search for artifacts will come to the fore. All this brings us back to the atmosphere of the first part of Mass Effect - the only part of the series that had the spirit of science fiction.
And now we just have to be patient and wait for new information about Mass Effect: Andromeda. Less than a year before the release and the hottest details will appear this fall.
Some time ago we were accused of criminal neglect of BioWare's new brainchild. Well, today we will try to correct this oversight by introducing you to the characters of the best RPG of all times and peoples before the release of The Elder Scrolls Vi. The title and "humor" are solely on the conscience of the author of the original article. Particularly impressionable individuals should immediately stop reading and close the page. We have warned.
Beyond starships, biotic wonders, and an impending alien threat, Mass Effect: Andromeda is all about humans (and aliens) to chat, flirt with, and pair ... ring with. They will become the heart and soul of the game. The original trilogy was a massive escapist space opera, but it was fueled by what any other RPG that has gone down in history: elaborate, interesting characters... Who can forget Mordin's hilarious aria about the salarian scientist always busy calibrating Garrus, or the debate between Tali and the Legion over whether the geth have a soul?
We hope Mass Effect: Andromeda brings us many new memorable moments and viral memes. In anticipation of the release of the game, we have collected all the available information about possible companions and minor characters.
Let's start with the main characters. Scott and Sarah Ryder are twins in their twenties. It will be possible to complete the game both for her and for him, and the second Ryder will in any case become one of the central characters of your team (and no, you cannot have an affair with relatives. This is not Game of Thrones, after all!)
Players will be able to customize the appearance of the heroes, choose the backstory and change the name, as could be done in the original trilogy, but if you leave the standard names, some characters will refer to the hero by the name (Scott or Sarah) instead of the last name. The names of the father of the Ryder family and the twin of your chosen hero will remain standard anyway so that family members did not call each other by last name.
We know that the main character will inherit from his father, the famous galaxy explorer and N7 fighter Alec Ryder (more on him later), the honorary title of Pioneer. In this role, the hero will lead a team to explore the Andromeda galaxy in search of new planets suitable for colonization, although, of course, the mission is unlikely to remain so harmless for a long time.
But the personality of Ryder, his actions are completely on the conscience of the player. You can play a hero, a bastard, someone average, or anyone, because we are promised a much more subtle and well-thought-out system of morality than before.
Well, one more curious fact: the main character will have a pyzhak pet (remember these monkeys?), And this pet, apparently, will be able to roam throughout the Tempest spaceship, on which the valiant colonists will travel.
Fighting comrades in Mass Effect: Andromeda
These are guys, girls and same-sex aliens who will join your team. You can take them with you on assignments, they will have their own classes and skill trees, you can communicate and interact with them a lot, and in some cases it can even come to a love relationship.
Like the Ryders, Cora arrives in the Andromeda galaxy aboard the ark ship Hyperion. She will be one of the two companions of the protagonist available from the very beginning of the game. It was first shown to the players along with Liam in trailer "New Earth", immediately making it clear that she would be one of the possible options for romantic interest for Scott Ryder. Details awaited the players in the video, representing team members where Cora even reads the text.
Cora is a human biotic specialist in ground operations. Having risen to the rank of officer of the Alliance military forces, she was assigned to the unit of the Asari paratroopers under a special program for the interspecific integration of military forces and served alongside the Talen Daughters. She is the deputy commander of the Pathfinder team and is effectively the successor to Alec Ryder, so it’s rather strange that one of Ryder’s children ends up becoming the Pathfinder. Obviously, this problematic issue will have to be solved in the course of the game's plot.
Social news site Reddit recently leaked information from a marketing study: "The bark is able to create a biotic shield that protects everyone within the hemisphere from outside influence, while allowing you to continue to fire on opponents."
Previously, such an orb was an Adept-class exclusive (Justicar Asari) skill in Mass Effect 3 multiplayer (although such a shield was created by the selected biotic during a suicide mission in Mass Effect 2), which suggests that Cora will be an Adept. But on her profile page on the official Mass Effect website, it is said that her "favorite" biotic skill is biotic charge, and her weapon is a shotgun, which is more like a stormtrooper class. This is also confirmed by Lead Designer Ian Fraser at Twitter.
Oh, and one more thing: Cora's last name is Harper. Like the Ghost (whose real name is Jack Harper). Interesting, very interesting.
Liam is the security specialist responsible for incident response and emergencies... From the same video with the introduction of the team we learned that he studied engineering at university, but then decided to retrain as a police officer. For his diverse skills, Alec Ryder personally chose him to complete his assignment. Liam is a Londoner with a British accent.
“Liam is a young, enthusiastic, sometimes overly idealistic follower,” said artistic director Mac Walters in an interview with Game Informer. He has high hopes for the future of humanity in the Andromeda galaxy and will try to inspire and cheer others in the most difficult situations. However, he is quick-tempered, hot-tempered and often overreacts emotionally. Apparently, somewhere in the middle of the game, this youthful idealism will face the harsh reality, and we will have to witness this.
Despite his light and cheerful disposition, he takes his duties very seriously, and he supports and respects Ryder's decisions. According to the same Walters, it is Liam who is the one who will always cover the back of the main character.
As for the guesses about Liam's class - here, again, you can refer to his page on the official Mass Effect website. It says that he prefers to fight in close combat, using a jetpack to fly up to the enemy, and a "overclocked" resotron with two blades (maybe Ryder can now use this too?). His Favorite Ability: Ravager Strike (Leap forward, stunning enemies and hitting multiple targets with a jetpack). In Mass Effect 3's multiplayer game, this ability was a unique technical skill of a turian ravager, which is suggestive of a soldier class. But let's not forget that this guy also studied to be an engineer.
Peebee is an Asari, but don't jump to conclusions based on what you've learned about this race from previous games in the series: Peebee has little in common with both the proud and arrogant Liara and Samara and the femme fatale Morinth.
“In situations where Liara was very serious, Peebee was lively and playful,” Mac Walters said of her. - At any opportunity, she acts contrary to generally accepted norms, she does not care about culture, traditions and all that. And the concept teamwork alien to her. "
BioWare wants to break the stereotypes that have developed among players about representatives of alien races, so the new asari will be windy and straightforward, rather than restrained and diplomatic. Probably, the whole point is in the very nature of the mission associated with the search for colonies: such expeditions from time immemorial attracted outcasts. Peebee, by the way, is an abbreviation for the full name of Pelessaria B "Sale. She hails from Port Leram, the capital of the planet Hyetian (Milky Way, Silean Nebula, Nahuala), a stronghold of the Asari scientists.
The Milky Way quickly bored her, and she went to Andromeda as part of the expeditionary flagship Nexus, but soon left it, preferring independence. Her page on the official Mass Effect website states that she is "pathologically independent." She is interested in alien technologies that the protagonist has to research when traveling through the Eleus cluster, which means that their paths will definitely cross.
The site says that Peebee is a shooter and chaotic biotic, her favorite weapon is the Sidewinder Outlaw pistol, and her favorite skill is Invasion. These are new additions to the Mass Effect series, so you can assume that Peebee will be a biotic adept, but with a couple of new tricks.
Already confirmed that it will be possible to have a romantic relationship with her. The voice actress, Christine Lakin, admitted that Peebee has become one of the most fun and interesting roles in her career for her.
The winds are turian. Little is known about her so far. She flashed in the trailer " New earth", And was first presented in gameplay trailer, shown at the 2016 Game Awards, where she accompanied Sarah Ryder and Drak (more on him below) on a ground mission to the planet Kadara. It is confirmed that she will have a loyalty mission, so she will definitely be a potential companion for the protagonist.
If BioWare continues to shatter stereotypes, then this turian should be a reckless dumbass who hates guns and calibrations (unlikely). She is tall, both in the videos and in the game itself, so the developers provided unique motion animations... Here, in fact, is all the official information.
Drak is a krogan, dressed in a cool spacesuit decorated with bones. He appeared in trailer from the Game Awards 2016 ceremony: left Tempest with Ryder and Vetra. V another trailer he, too, flashed: here he is throwing some aliens to the ground. "I don't need an army," says Scott Ryder. "I have a krogan."
Game Informer wrote that the krogan will also have its own loyalty mission. The krogan's name was not mentioned, but it appeared during a marketing research data leak, where there was a hint of a reward for completing this task: earn Drak's loyalty to you and your team, which will also unlock a new skill tree. "
We don't know how he is in combat - well, other than the fact that he's cool - but biotics are rare among the krogan. With the exception of Rex, who, thanks to a rare biotic gift, became an authoritative Martial Master and leader of the Urdnot clan, other krogan in the Mass Effect series are aggressive, exclusively melee fighters who prefer shotguns. assault rifles and heavy armor.
So, we talked about five possible companions (except for the twin of the main character, who will probably also be able to participate in ground operations). They are all from the races of the Milky Way that players already know, but according to Eurogamer, BioWare has confirmed that at least one satellite will be from a new galaxy.
Shortly after the New Earth trailer, Funko, the creators of the cute big-headed figurines, introduced their line of figurines based on the new game. One of them was created on the basis of the lilac representative of the new hangar race. The figure is called Jaal. BioWare is in no hurry to confirm the information, but in the trailer he (or she?) Was given quite a lot of time, and even his own figure already exists, so most likely Jaal will become the sixth and probably the last possible ally of the protagonist.
Everything else is written with a pitchfork on the water, but on Twitter Ian Fraser wrote that if he wants to assemble the most assault of all assault squads, he takes Cora and some other character under development with him on a mission. Since we do not know anything about other possible satellites, it can be either Jaal or some other character, still unknown to us.
BioWare representatives claimed that Ryder's team will be smaller than before in Mass Effect, but each character will be worked out in more detail, they will be better revealed in dialogues. In the second part of the trilogy, as we remember, there were 12 possible satellites, two of which were from the DLC. In the third part, there were only seven satellites, and Javik was also added only to the DLC. It is possible that Mass Effect: Andromeda will only have five or six teammates, but maybe we will be presented with one or two more - on the day the game is released or as a downloadable paid add-on.
Mass Effect: Andromeda Minor Characters
And now we will introduce you to supporting characters who are unlikely to participate in ground operations.
Meet your dad. More precisely, the father of the protagonist. Alec Ryder was one of the first people to pass on the other side of the repeater. Upon his return, he also became one of the first participants in the military program, which would later become known as N7, thereby confirming his status as one of the best soldiers of mankind. From video presenting the Pioneer team we also know that he fought the turians in the First Contact War in Shanxi and served as a military attaché 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 this, probably (see below about the CAM), the vital question is connected: where, in fact, is the mother of the twins? For sure
One of the best studios, 5 years of development, $ 40 million in production budget, thousands of man-hours worked. The amount of resources invested in Mass Effect: Andromeda can hardly be overestimated, so everything that Bioware showed and promised caused delight among fans of one of the best role-playing series. And in March of this year, EA sent us on a long journey to the Andromeda galaxy to find for humanity new house... The only question is, how did this trip turn out? Does Mass Effect: Andromeda truly transcend the original trilogy and reaffirm a gripping action-RPG space opera not to be missed? Let's figure it out ...
Mass Effect: Andromeda plot
Let's remember why millions of people got addicted to Mass Effect games in the first place. Exciting space networking? A charismatic protagonist? Role-playing system? Branching of dialogues? Creative combat? Oh sure. But first of all, the atmosphere. An atmosphere that, on an intuitive level, allowed us to completely immerse ourselves in the process and experience almost every event, every dialogue, because all these details in combination led us to the significant, unknown, dangerous. It is rare that an RPG can repeat this feeling, in my case so accurately.
Here we are offered a similar role. You are Scott or Sarah Ryder, depending on the gender character, you are the discoverer of a new galaxy. You should not become one, because you have never prepared for this, but the circumstances are such that there is no choice. Yes, it is the “discoverer” that is the local analogue of the SPECTRUM status. And this status allows Shepard to act in the same way as before, because in the new galaxy there is no one more important than the discoverers.
Okay, we'll come back to this later. And why on earth did we end up in this distant galaxy at all, you ask? The game does not give specific answers about what happened to the Earth and other colonies, what happened to the solar systems of the Salarians, the Turians and in general the local characters seem to hardly remember the events of the original trilogy, because if something is remembered, it is very blurry. So, the visionaries of humanity and all other species that are known to us from the first parts, having found planets potentially suitable for colonization, built three space stations like "Citadel", packed the best scientists, military and entrepreneurs (!!!) in cryo-chambers, called it all "Andromeda Initiative" and in 2185 set off in search of a new home in an unknown galaxy. Their journey lasted 600 years, and now, on the threshold of the fourth millennium, the spaceship of humanity - "Hyperion", arrives at its destination. And here, as usual, is already full of problems and dangers. The boat hits the cosmic bunches of energy that have enveloped much of the galaxy's solar systems like a spider web. It is after this incident that our hero wakes up. Well, everything is in shit and someone needs to save the day. It was decided to make a landing on the first planet of those that should become a new home for the colonists, but the conditions on the planet, at first glance, are in no way suitable for life. Slaughter atmosphere, kinetic storms, however, several steps forward and now the first contact. And here the heroes begin to discuss how to introduce themselves, how to act in order to properly recommend themselves to the local residents. Only now our heroes do not seem to see that these residents have blasters in their hands and no one will shake hands here. This is how we get to know the Kets. Chum salmon are a hostile, invasive species, the goal of which is very original - to exterminate or conquer all living things in the Helios system.
Logic in Mass Effect: Andromeda is generally a secondary thing and not even the main problem. Remember, Shepard constantly had to make elections? Constantly choosing between two fires? Numerous compromises to appease the two, and if no compromise was possible, we chose what we felt was best for the majority, thereby creating a new problem of the hero's relationship with one species, but strengthening the bond with the other. This is called some kind of a roll. In Andromeda, this roleplay is almost completely absent. For all tens of hours, you only have to make a choice once in favor of this or that nation. But even after that, there will be no consequences. Causality is not about Andromeda. Here we are waiting for an absolutely straight line that leads to the same thing. Even Telltale's games have more repercussions from our dialogue than would seem to be an AAA action-RPG.
What about supplementing the universe with information from minor NPCs? The answer is simple. If you spoke to one NPC, you spoke to all. So the dialogues in the little things are different, but most of the questions boil down to: "What made you join the Initiative?" just discourages talking to anyone other than the characters needed to advance the story. wide choice system of dialogues. As a result, thousands of lines of text written by screenwriters are reduced to self-copying and just blah blah blah.
Despite all its epic nature and scale, despite its acquaintance with other civilizations, species, races, the game managed to present everything so flatly that somewhere inside the passage I want to start doing everything contrary to logic in order to add at least a little finger of some kind of drama to what is happening , but you will not succeed, the game will still lead you to where you should be without significant consequences. The only difference will be the number of friendly troops in the final battle, and only in the cutscene !!! You will not feel the gameplay difference.
In the release trailer, accompanied by the gorgeous soundtrack Rag "n" Bone Man - Human, there was a feeling that many adventures awaited us, a lot of unknown, situations in which it would be very difficult to find the right way out, where we would be forced to make mistakes, because as the track itself says "We first of all, just people - do not blame us for everything ... ". But as it turns out, this little deceitful marketing gimmick is not the biggest problem ...
Animating characters' faces in Mass Effect Andromeda
Even before the release of the game, the Internet was flooded with videos, where players began to give out concerns about character animation. Lack of emotions, facial expressions, gestures, crooked lipps and, in addition, eyes that live their own lives. Facial animation in most dialogues is just horror, and when you consider that these very dialogues are 70% of the game, then the scale of this horror becomes even more obvious.
A video has circulated around the network comparing the animation of the first Mass Effect and Andromeda. 10 years difference, and emotions and natural behavior can be traced more precisely in original game... Again the question: "What the hell, Bioware?" This question is most often found in the comments to such videos. The answer to this question lies in several things. First, the Frostbite engine provides much more power than the UE3. And where there are more polygons, moving parts and microparticles on the character's face, it is more difficult to make mistakes. But why were these mistakes made? In games where the amount of dialogue is simply transcendental, the developers do not direct each scene separately. A specially developed algorithm is responsible for the dialogues, which must orchestrate the character's face in relation to words. Bioware claims that they are working on fixing the problem, but I do not believe that they will be able to fix the animations of all the characters and breathe even a drop of life into them.
Mass Effect Andromeda gameplay
As for the promises of hundreds of planets, the incredible fullness of these planets, juicy pictures, completely new gameplay opportunities and a new, ultra-diverse armed units, these are almost the only aspects that return and even surpass the sensations that the original trilogy gave.
Yes, indeed, there are hundreds of planets in the Helios system, but physically we will be given less than a dozen to visit, the rest you can simply scan for some anomalies or resources like the same scan in previous games. However, those planets that we can still land on (that is, story-oriented) are really striking in their fullness and detail. We will visit abnormally cold planets; hot; on a planet with impenetrable jungle or a monthly comet planet. Each of them has its own atmospheric properties, flora, the detail of which is really impressive. What Frostbite gives out visually cannot be compared with the capabilities of UE3, so at least visually we got the Mass Effect we deserved.
The new prototype of the planetary all-terrain vehicle "Mako", that is, "Nomad", will help us in the study of colonized planets, it is on it that we will ride and study the lion's share of the time spent on each of the potentially new houses. And it should be said that the movement on this six-wheeled monster is really one of the best innovations. This is a full-fledged all-terrain vehicle with the ability to switch traction to overcome steep mountains, with the ability to accelerate steeply on the plains and even jump over small rifts. Also "Nomad" serves as an apparatus for pinging deposits of minerals we need, and sets probes for their extraction in miner mode :).
About new opportunities in battle, claims to the developers, personally, I have no. The cover system has migrated here, but it does not work quite like in the previous parts, where it was a copy of the Gears of War mechanics with cover and rolls. Here, the character himself takes a position at the shelter if he is close enough and gets up himself when we go out into the open area. There are no rolls as such, here we have more opportunities, the character has learned to jump and even throw forward in the air and on the ground using a suit. This provides ample opportunities in firefighting, and besides that, we have ample opportunities for biotics.
Throughout the game, we raise the level of the character, for points, pump over our shooting or kinetic skills, opening up all new possibilities and somewhere from the middle of the game we already look like a killing machine with a blaster sniper rifle, a shotgun, an assault rifle and a set of kinetic skills. A crafting system is also present. All collected minerals can be used for research and development of new armor, weapons and their modifiers. In sum, all these options create ample opportunities for customization and weaponry of the character and do not cause any complaints. It's a pity that you can't put some kind of automatic machine gun on Nomad, so that you don't have to get out every time, bumping into small groups of enemies on the way.
Sorrowful Findings from Mass Effect Andromeda Review
As a result, we got a game that, when compared within the franchise, loses in almost every aspect of its predecessor. Yes, visually striking. Yes, it is striking in detail, has good combat, wide customization and exploration options, but at the same time it in no way fulfills what it was created for. Does not convey the feeling of a discoverer of a new galaxy, has a flat, completely uninteresting and predictable plot, a complete absence of a role-playing system as such, huge problems with the animation of almost every character, a good portion of bugs (which, by the way, somehow bypassed me) and poor sound accompaniment. The game rewards only those who like to climb for hours on every location and look for at least some meaning in what is happening. Taken together, this is without a doubt the weakest RPG from Bioware at the moment.
Why the spin-off of the space saga has become such a disappointment.
To bookmarks
Mass Effect: Andromeda was one of the most high-profile flops for recent times, but many are still wondering: how could the developers release such a raw game? After all, they could not have been unaware of her many shortcomings. A journalist for the portal Kotaku spoke with the game's developers on condition of anonymity and found out the reasons why Andromeda turned out to be such a blatant failure.
We have retold the material.
Idea
The first Mass Effect of 2007 was not a perfect game: fans especially disliked Mako, an all-terrain vehicle that the player constantly had to ride. However, Mass Effect 2 and 3 developed the good sides of the first part - plot, dialogue, combat system - and planetary exploration was dropped.
When BioWare decided to create the fourth game in the franchise, the company wanted to update the game. It was also given to BioWare's Montreal division for development, although Mass Effect was previously handled by an Edmonton studio.
Casey Hudson, executive producer of the main trilogy, took on a new title, codenamed Dylan, so he didn't have time for a sequel to Mass Effect. His secret project is so named because the team is about to create the equivalent of Bob Dylan from gaming industry.
Casey Hudson
BioWare Montreal was founded to develop additional content. Now she had to create a game for the first time.
Nevertheless, no one left them to their own devices. When the first meetings began in 2012 about what the game would be about, they included veteran BioWare developers and Hudson himself, who wanted to get the project off the ground. He also suggested abandoning the Reapers and Commander Shepard - a complete revamp of the concept.
In the end, it was decided to make a game about what was missing in the first part of Mass Effect: space exploration.
A lot of people said we never fully explored the potential of Mass Effect 1. Combat system we did it, the plot too. Let's get down to pioneering.
Initially, the developers wanted to make a prequel to Mass Effect, which would take place during the War of First Contact, when humanity first encountered aliens. Then towards the end of 2012, Hudson asked fans if they liked the sequel or prequel to the original trilogy. The fans chose the former, as did the focus group participants.
So BioWare dropped the original idea, although the word "Contact" stuck and became the project's codename.
BioWare's No Man's Sky
In 2013, Mass Effect: Andromeda entered the pre-production stage - at this stage the team decides how large their game will be, what needs to be developed and how. BioWare also hired a new project director, Gérard Lehiany, who previously worked on Spider-Man games at Activision's Beenox studio.
Lehiani came up with some very ambitious ideas for the game, one of which became the basis of its plot: during the events of the main trilogy, the Citadel Council sent colonists to a new galaxy in case Shepard failed to stop the Reapers.
Gerard Lehiani (left)
In addition, Lehiani wanted his game to have hundreds of planets available for exploration, which would be generated using procedural algorithms, just like in No Man's Sky. (This is sad famous game was not announced then.)
Procedural generation could significantly expand the scale of the game. This ambitious idea appealed to many in the team.
No Man's Sky with graphics and storyline from BioWare. Sounds great.
Co-developer of Mass Effect: Andromeda
In 2013 and 2014, the developers tried different concepts that now closely resemble No Man's Sky. For example, in one of the prototypes, the player flew across the galaxy in a spaceship and could land on any planet, for which he was given a "Nomad", a new all-terrain vehicle. Then it was possible to climb into the ship again and fly on.
But it was not without problems. No one knew how to insert a BioWare-level plot into a procedural planetary game. In many departments, there were not enough employees, technological problems arose. The only ones who understood how to make procedurally generated worlds were the level designers who used the WorldMachine tool. The rest had neither the knowledge nor the resources.
Even without procedural generation, the default Mass Effect: Andromeda team had one huge problem - Frostbite, the game's engine.
In the gaming industry, he is considered one of the most powerful, but at the same time one of the most difficult. Frostbite is capable of generating great graphics, but DICE, the creators of the engine, honed it for first-person shooters like Battlefield - it lacked even the most basic functions for creating an RPG. BioWare's programmers had to develop them from scratch, including the character animation system.
One of the developers of Mass Effect: Andromeda draws an analogy with cars. He compares the Unreal Engine to an SUV that is capable of a lot, but does not go fast. Unity is a small city car: weak, but easy to park anywhere. And Frostbite is a Formula 1 car. What it is imprisoned for, it turns out great. But nothing else.
In particular, the planets became a problem, because Frostbite could not generate maps with an area of more than 100x100 kilometers, which was not enough for a space RPG. There were also enough problems with the save system, texture generation on the fly and mechanics important for RPGs.
Confusion
If 2013 was a year of opportunities and interesting solutions, 2014 was a year of conflict for developers. The studios in Montreal and Edmonton constantly quarreled: people from Edmonton insisted that the pre-production was poorly implemented, and the ideas of the developers were not well developed - the staff of the Montreal studio in response stated that colleagues from Edmonton were sabotaging their project.
By the end of 2014, at least a dozen developers had left BioWare Montreal for other studios, and it was unclear who would replace them. The animation team was particularly hard hit - they were never replenished.
Casey Hudson left BioWare in August 2014, followed by Gerard Lehiani. He was replaced by Mass Effect writer Mac Walters. New creative director - new vision of the game.
Mac Walters
However, even the implementation of old ideas was difficult. Combat mechanics evolved well, as well as everything related to the rover "Nomad", but with flights in space and procedural generation of planets, there were always problems. In principle, it was possible to create planets, and it was possible to travel around them, but, as one of the developers recalls, it was simply not interesting.
Another developer, who came to the project at the end of pre-production, recalls that the team did not have many of the necessary tools, as well as work models. Typically, at this stage, developers create a "vertical slice" - a piece of the game that serves as a demonstration of what will be in it. In the case of Andromeda, the cut failed.
The team had a backup plan in case the procedural generation of planets failed - they could simply take a star map from previous games in the series and fill it with new content. Meanwhile, time passed, and the developers still could not choose one of these two options.
It took a lot of time to create technological prototypes of mechanics that would then not be included in the game, like flying in space - all due to the fact that the concept of the game was not clearly defined.
By the end of 2015, senior staff realized that the procedural generation system was not working. They didn’t stop liking the concept - and they looked with interest at No Man’s Sky - but they couldn’t make it work. Therefore, it was decided to scale down the game.
At first, instead of hundreds of procedurally generated planets, there were thirty left. Their terrain was created by WorldMachine and the rest was hand-arranged. Then seven of the thirty planets remained. These drastic changes caused confusion within the team, especially in the departments responsible for design, storyline and cut scenes.
We had a lot of questions: What does this mean for us as a development team? What will need to be cut? What's left in the game? Who will work on what?
Co-developer of Mass Effect: Andromeda
Such changes are not uncommon in the gaming industry, but they usually happen during the pre-production stage so that developers have the opportunity to re-plan the workflow before starting to create a game. As a result, much of what the studio was doing for Andromeda had to be thrown away - especially on the plot, levels and cutscenes. The development of these aspects, in contrast to the combat system, multiplayer and driving, was far behind schedule.
More confusion
Since 2009, BioWare has three studios in Edmonton, Montreal and Austin. They worked on Dragon Age: Inquisition and Mass Effect: Andromeda under the One BioWare initiative.
In some ways it was a successful approach, but in the case of Andromeda, there were more disadvantages than advantages. It was difficult for studios to interact for a banal reason: they are located in different time zones. It could take an hour just to get everyone together for a video conference, and the logistics turned into a nightmare. Companies like Ubisoft, with studios in several countries, have armies of producers dedicated to keeping employees in sync. BioWare was not ready for this.
However, the company had no choice. In order to finish development on time, more and more people began to transfer to Andromeda, but some departments simply could not get started. Take the plot for example: due to the fact that during pre-production, the leading employees thought too much about the key ideas of the project, the foundations of the plot were not approved, and the team had to first work through them, and then take on the main work.
Many of these key ideas remain in the game, such as the main character, SAM, the AI helping the player, and the final battle on Meridian. But most of the quests and dialogues had to be created from scratch.
But it's not just the plot. Almost all the developers with whom the author of the material spoke admitted that almost the entire game was created in the period from the end of 2015 to March 2017. That is, in 18 months instead of five years. The movement began thanks to Mack Walters, but he was not omnipotent either.
The situation was complicated by what the respondents called the project regression. Usually, when creating a game, the last months are spent on "polishing" - during this phase, bugs are fixed, mechanics are calibrated and existing content is improved. In a word, the game is getting much better. Andromeda, on the other hand, was getting worse.
We finished work on some element, tested it and finally approved it. Then we moved on to another task, and behind our backs, what we had just created began to fall apart.
Co-developer of Mass Effect: Andromeda
The true reasons for this regression are difficult to identify. Sometimes it collapsed due to the engineer updating a key system, in other cases due to a change in the NPC model. According to the developers, this process was terrible, because they constantly reworked what a few days ago was recognized as ready.
In this video, the regression is clearly visible. It could be triggered by anything from changing lighting to overly computer-intensive animation. With other games, "downgrades" happened, and more than once ( Watch dogs, "The Witcher 3"), but never at such a late stage of development.
The "late" departments dealing with effects, cut-scenes and sound had the worst. Their turn always comes at the very end of the project, but everyone else finished their parts of the game later than they should have, so the "late" departments had critically little time.
According to the developers, the situation has been completely hopeless in recent months. They call Mass Effect: Andromeda the hardest project of their life.
Animation
This part of the game was initially considered problematic, along with the plot and procedural generation of planets. Over the past months since the release, most of the talk has been about animation: theories about the reasons for its poor quality range from extremely naive (EA bought BioWare, and everyone in the studio was lazy) 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-production, engineers and animation technicians were trying to decide how they would do animation in Andromeda. And they got into trouble.
Initially, the studio wanted to hire the Egyptian company Snappers to create beautiful facial animations, but no one knew how to incorporate them into the game. And everyone was constantly arguing about which technology to use.
Some insisted on the FaceWare program used at Capture Labs, EA's Vancouver lab, but others thought it wasn't good enough. Almost all lip movements Andromeda characters were generated by the popular FaceFX program that interprets sounds and automatically changes the position of the NPC's lips.
One source cited former BioWare animator Jonathan Cooper as a very credible account of the reasons for the poor animation quality.