An Avoidable Disaster - The Tragedy of Mass Effect Andromeda
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- čas přidán 29. 01. 2022
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After shipping Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic on PC in 2004, a team led by Casey Hudson entered pre-production on Mass Effect, the project that would allow BioWare to explore its own space opera across a three-part epic. Mass Effect’s groundbreaking choice-based systems and role-playing elements set the bar for many RPGs that followed, and solidified BioWare as one of gaming’s most pioneering studios. An innovative save system capable of carrying user progress across each entry further elevated the experience. But the characters, the stories, the carefully crafted lore both pronounced and subtle, along with the player’s intimate role in it all, encouraged millions to flock aboard the Normandy in every form it took. The perceived belittlement of the player’s role at the trilogy’s end tainted the journey for some, however, leaving whatever came next with a decidedly tall order to fill.
Shifting their focus to the new IP later known as Anthem, Mass Effect leads at BioWare’s main office in Edmonton assigned the next installment to BioWare Montréal, the support group previously responsible for Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer and Omega DLC. A long road lay ahead for the team, its destination locked to the Andromeda galaxy, pulling Mass Effect away from the Milky Way, Commander Shepard, and the once all-encompassing Reaper threat. Other challenges beyond the stressors of changing the scenery and protagonist beset much of the project’s development, though. An unclear vision, mismanagement, bouts of infighting, and technological woes each contributed to Mass Effect: Andromeda’s less-than-stellar release as well as the series’ impromptu hiatus.
This is the tragedy of Mass Effect: Andromeda.
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The most bizarre thing about how they planned this out is they *didn't* include the Quarians, whom didn't need complex facial animations because of their masks.
you'd think of all races the one that has lost their homeworld and is living out of a spaceship fleet would want to find a new homeworld in another galaxy right?
One guess is with Tali's popularity they decided to save them for paid DLC possibly under EA orders. But given that in the story all the minor races were sharing the Ark carrying the Quarians they might have decided to do it themselves to buy time for the accompanying species to be animated.
I think it's even more bizarre they didn't make really any new insane, crazy alien species for an entirely different galaxy... such wasted potential
@@roguerifter9724 tali'zorah vas normandy best waifu!
@@VentDw3Ler bro her interactions during the citadel dlc fucking cute. Happy I decided to make her main bitch
Friendly reminder that Bioware prioritized development of _Anthem_ over _Mass Effect: Andromeda_ (at least according to Jason Schreier). Given that _Anthem_ had an aimless direction for most of its nearly 7 year long development cycle, _Andromeda_ should have been a bigger priority.
Not to mention people were already shitting on Anthem after it's reveal trailer, because it looked like a blatant ripoff of Destiny...
@@numberyellow shhh you'll anger the anthem spirits
@@numberyellow It's what EA wanted a Destiny clone to have constant income like Destiny but it didn't work out. They used a company who had no idea how to make a looter shooter/RPG and the frostbite engine is a FPS engine only not a 3rd person shooter
@@dnakatomiuk Frostbite is fine, it's just not ideal for what they were trying to do with it...kinda like with ME:A
@@cmdraftbrn lol, challenge accepted.
One of my biggest gripes with this game is how they went to a completely different galaxy and all the aliens are humanoids. The world's didn't feel unique either except for a few of the underground structures. It seems like a huge missed opportunity to make something crazy and new and mysterious but instead it just felt like we were still in the Milky Way.
I disagree with that part i think the planets were great well maybe they werent that different from milky way planets but the context of it being dif galaxy was enough for me to make em intresting the problem was the story being lame no intresting conflict
I disagree, I literally had no feels whatsoever that we were in wolrd similar to the trilogy. The only time I kinda felt that was when you are on the tempest.
This is what happens when activists make video games.
To be fair, its evolutionarily beneficial for intelligent species to be "human shaped" because bipedal locomotion saves energy allowing the species to stay awake longer, avoid predators with more energy and frees the hands for the use of tools. That being said, the Milky Way proved that non bipedal or even grasper limbless species could not only evolve but accomplish fucking space travel raised the bar only to have Andromeda have two sapient species that are essentially just a bony or curvy version of the same type.
The underground structures were basically copy-pastes of each other, none of them felt particularly unique, and all of them felt increasingly frustrating to go through as the story progressed, in an annoying sense, rather than a real challenge.
Almost every in game character who's sent to the andromeda galaxy seem to be the dumbest they could find
Drack the Krogan is pretty cool.
...
That's it.
"My face is tired"😁
Maybe that was the plan all along send all the idiots away so they couldn't make things worse
Yep, Liam is the worst of them, i avoid him and i wich was possible to throw him in the airlock.
Saddly the game doesn't give us this option.
Also, one thing folks don't usually talk about is how massive of an incosistence is the whole premise of the ME: Andromeda.
The technology to make all those arks, is beyond even what the Reapers have.
The amount of resources necessary to build everything that went to Andromeda was staggering, you can simply make all that in a spam of a few years even more so because of rumors of apocalypitc event that may not even happen.
And what is even the point to go to Andromeda for us? Most people don't realize but most of the places in the Mass Effect trilogy are actually located in REAL stars, that map has a true meaning for anyone who likes astronomy.
What Andromeda has besides the galaxy itself?
When they say that folks want that the franchise move on, i don't think anyone would want that ME should move on to ANOTHER GALAXY.
Given a choice i belive vast majority of people would prefer a prequel about the First Contact War than Andromeda, and honestly the plot seems almost like was exactly what was supposed to be... Instead of the relics, we would be finding prothean ruins, instead of facing the Kett in war, we would be facing the Turians, and the angarans would possibly be some other aliens or even renegade turians.
It seems to me that this was the initial idea, and was scraped and reporposed as Andromeda.
@@efxnews4776 yeah but come on man they had a mYsTeRiOuS bEnEfAcToR who had enough stacks of infinite credits that they got it done!
I'm joking but I agree if they weren't going to go all out with a new galaxies' worth of alien designs, why not just do the prequel? So much potential for "eW what's a hooomin?" moments as we make...
*D R U M R O L L*
.
.
_First Contact_
😐
They gave a tripple AAA title, with a AAA advertising budget, to a B+ studio who didn't have the authority to say 'NO' to every new concept and technology forced upon them from the higher ups. It's a miracle they shipped at all. The fault lies not with the studio but with EA/Bioware's top management.
Rule no.1 of game development - don't change tools during development. You stick with what you know and what works, even if it becomes outdated.
Because of this rule, Monster Hunter World was made with MT Framework instead of the new RE Engine that was being used for a while at that time. Guess what ? Yeah, they delivered... shocking, right ? haha
More like D-team
I'd more call it C team. I've always viewed Austin, the SWTOR studio, as the B team, and not in a bad way.
Good point
@@gamenetic6426 MT Framwork and RE Engine are both made by Capcom, so they had people who could use it.
Unreal Engine and Frost was not made by the same devs, so switching engines is harder.
Also, OP said changing engines DURING development. No one should be doing that, no matter the engine.
The talent has left Bioware and the developers bit off more than they could chew, much like CDPR with Cyberpunk 2077. When I saw that aside from Peebee all the Asari had the exact same face I knew it would going to be a mess. I managed to play it a few years after release, post patches and it was decent, but nowhere near the level of the OG trilogy.
i dread what monstrosity they'll turn mass effect 4 into. they'll ruin the whole legacy of the original trilogy
A lot of the original beloved talent at BioWare has recently(ish) reformed under Archetype Studios. Included is Drew Karpyshyn which has my hopes up that the narrative side of things is in very good hands.
Yep, and even though they are still working on free DLC and patches for Cyberpunk 2077 it still isn't anywhere it's original vision making it obvious that it needed 2 or 3 more years for next gen only.... Making it multiplatform limited the technology to the PS4's now outdated hardware.... And thus they hand to downgrade the heck out of it, but also optimize it properly which clearly they didn't do hence the game being broken as hell on launch.
@@Dragonk116 I don't know, Cyberpunk looks like a never ending project, they announced it back when last-gen was next-gen, CDPR got crazy trying to improve it graphically, but their main problem was the story, pretty generic in my opinion and only focused on you spending time with Keanu Reeves.
I knew I wasn’t going crazy about the Asari. They are literally all the same.
The talent that made Mass Effect great is largely no longer at Bioware it is the same with Blizzard the talent behind WoW is also largely gone these companies are not going to create anything even approaching their past glory.
Players make the mistake of attaching good games to company names when what they should do is attach it to developer names if those developers leave expect your games to decline.
It's pretty much the same story across all established studios, Rockstar, Naughty Dog, Obsidian etc.,
i'd say even CD Projekt Red since a lot of key people who made TWC3 have since left.
Those legendary company names are nothing but skin suits at this point.
The writing was on the wall when they sold out to EA it was just a matter of time.
@@misanthropicattackhelicopt4148 While I agree EA sucks they are not necessarily the problem. The problem is that people eventually move on veteran game devs often leave to form their own companies.
@@charmingpeasant9834 what is TWC3?
@@FexxarTV The Witcher 3
Regardless of the things that could've been fixed with time like weird animations, bugs, etc.
The worst part of the game was its cringy dialogues, bland characters and completely non-threatening villain. Even if the technical side was influenced by EA and rushed production, the travesty of a script is entirely the devs' fault.
@@TheCoolCucumber you need to read up on a lot of the past issues with andromeda. It was mainly bioware who were at fault mostly along the way. EA actually gave them extensions, didn’t ride them and didn’t impose any technical limitations, like being forced to use frostbite (which was BioWare’s decision, not EA).
The bad writing, animations, characters, designs, technical limitations, story (and a bunch of other things) are solely BioWare’s fault. This was a secondary bioware studio who didn’t have the experience or talent to handle such a beloved IP that cracked under pressure and didn’t follow thru with a good ME game.
This isn’t my opinion, it’s a fact that’s provable by just doing a bit of research during the lead up to release and some time after. Many ex-bioware devs have come forward and spilled the beans on many of these topics, and the main culprit is bioware, not EA.
I don’t like giving EA any credit, but sadly, in this instance, most of the fault lay with bioware.
I only played the game long after its' release when it had all the patches and was on large discount. They had fixed technical issues and tuned up the animations/character models, gameplay wise it was solid. BUT the shitty writing is something they are never able fix and that's the worst part of the game IMO. There's a reason why I have re-played the trilogy multiple times, I want to experience that epic journey again, interact with all those great characters again and experiment with different choices. Andromeda? I have no desire to replay it at all.
BioWare's writing has been terrible for ages now.
yes very true dont forget blue Shrek. Anyway at least the jet pack was kinda cool.
Forced diversity SJW writing is never good, no matter how much cope people have. This game failed before it launched.
I'll never forget getting early access and logging in to play, ready for a brand new adventure in my favorite game franchise.
And man I will NEVER forget the absolute feeling of dread that set in as I was creating a character. Everything just looked...wrong.
It took me a few playthroughs to realize there was a relatively good game buried under piles of b.s.
Never been more disappointed with a game. Until 2077 that is....
What happened in 2077? I wasn’t alive then yet.
/s
@@Golemoid Cyberpunk 2077 destroyed all our souls...
"relatively good game", ehem certainly not..
@@galacticquasaur2956 speak for yourself, I loved it.
Slink would you say it's worth playing through? I tried twice and most recently got stuck where the main quest objective is unachievable so I need to restart, not sure if it's worth it
Had a good 40 hours in this game. Felt like that a second entry to this series would have ironed out most problems. But man, EA gotta stop shovin Frostbite down every publisher's throat.
Yep. Even the planned Quarian DLC would improve a lot on the game, I bet. It's a shame it was killed. This game had potential especially after the arc crashed. That dyson sphere would be awesome to explore. Like a Halo but more monumental.
Fortunately, Andromeda served as a lesson to not force anything on developers, and give them enough time in development if they need it.
The next Mass Effect looks incredibly promising, and it is slated to release in 2025 if everything goes right. They have ditched Frostbite entirely, and are now working with Unreal Engine 5.
My biggest hope for the next game would be that Bioware brings forth some highly requested features. Namely a fully decked out character creator (face and body), and different origins for the protagonist (last name changes depending on origins, similar to in Dragon Age Inquisition) - This could let the player finally be able to choose races, and in turn make the game even more replayable. This would mean things like unique dialogue, and perhaps unique quests depending on origin, and perhaps different ways to recruit squadmates.
It would totally make sense to do this in a post-Reaper War setting, so that you could get up to speed on how the different races fared after the war.
EA IS the publisher.......You mean developers
@@uncleho1945 Thats because that didn't actually happen....Thats just a fantasy fairytale that imbeciles cooked up in their own tiny little warped brains......Something those same simpletons create about every game that gets "ruined" in their basic little minds....
@@uncleho1945 Nice fanfiction you got there. Here is a hint for you - maybe it was left out because nothing like that actually happened/affected game development.
The glitches and technical failures were memeable, but were secondary to the game's plot failures. There were elements of a good game in there, but it was structured entirely wrong. They should have focused less on the Kett in the first game, keeping them purely as an unknowable horde, and focused entirely on finding and developing a relationship with the Angara, allowing you to make that friendly or hostile by your own choices. It should have been way more about exploration, and NO advanced teams that already have bases set up and contact made, YOU would be the first person to communicate with the Angara and would need to build language with them over time.
Yeah, the plot is the biggest problem. With OG trilogy I always want to know what will happen next. In ME andromada it's just the combat gameplay carrying me to go on.
My pain was even worse considering I was working as a QA tester for EA at the time. I worked on Andromeda from its inception until launch. As a huge ME fan, it was just painful
Damn, that had to be disappointing. Any interesting stories from the Andromeda QA desk, or is it all under NDA?
@@jackcole8604 I'm not working for EA at the moment, haven't for quite a long while so I'm not sure if NDA still apllies.
Nonetheless, I can't see any harm in sharing a few funny instances :D
Needless to say the facial animation bugs were aplenty and quite hilarious, if you think they look bad now, they were even worse, they just couldn't do any better unfortunately, it wasn't due to lack of skill either, time and budget constraints were the culprit, as usual.
Ragdoll effects would, in classic frostbite fashion, would stretch across the screen, sometimes even crashing the game outright
There were quite a few cutscenes where your party members would aimlessly do stuff in the background, walk around, stand in front of whoever it was that you were taking to.
Had a few instances where female Rider's face and neck would stretch out during some cutscenes.
Had a customization bug where female rider would look as if she had bruises on her face, remember someone filing that bug, one of the devs commented on it something along the lines of "this looks like she suffered domestic abuse, would let it slide but I know better, fixed"
Yeah there tons more. Like unplugging your headphone jack and then plugging it again would cause the game to crash like 7/10 times, but those were fairly old builds of the game thay we were testing on, don't think any of that happened to real users.
And yes, it was disappointing... But I did enjoy working the guys there, really nice ppl for the most part. We'd play pranks in each other during work just to keep us sane. People don't realize that QA works their butts off.
The main reason so many bugs are the way they are at launch is because time isn't enough to iron them out..
@@bitofapickle are you still in the games industry? If so where or how would you recommend getting into it? I assume starting with QA?
@@SavageSenzu hey! Sadly no, I'm not in the game industry anymore,it just doesn't pay well, unfortunately..unless you're a developer or if you do art or a map designer... though I did spend some 4 years working as a senior QA tester and various other roles. I do still have some connections in EA though.
And yeah, starting with QA is pretty much the easiest way to get into the gaming industry, the pay is awful, it will get slightly better as you evolve...IF you have a thirst for knowledge and want to actually advance yourself (most don't).... After this you can branch out in several different areas depending on why a you want to do.
Plus it opens up other jobs like software QA and automation QA which is paid pretty handsomely depending on the company and experience you may have.
If you find any open positions for gaming QA, go for it, they usually always hire people without any prior experience, they always need testers :)
@@bitofapickle Female Ryder specifically? How curious
This is one of my favorite CZcams channels. Also I actually enjoy this game's combat and some character interactions. But most of the dialogue and quest giving NPCs were just terrible.
Combat is the best in the series. Hands down. But every other thing just falls flat.
You're high
Writing was weak but otherwise I did enjoy the game aswell
@@thecalham Well the rpg element was too weak for me but then again buying and playing ME: legendary made me realise that ME 1 is my favourite and the reason for that is that it has the most rpg mechanics out of the three. And I'm kinda in the minority so. But nice that you enjoyed the game.
Npcs and squatmates were edgy, cringy and Just dumb. Gameplay was awseom
Not to be outdone, BioWare Edmonton decided to follow up Andromeda's excepcional launch with a masterpiece of their own: Anthem.
The rest is gaming history.
At 3:45 it begins one of the key problems with MEA. They weren't there to find habitable planets in case they failed from the citadel. As a secondary motive it was revealed in the memories you unlock but the primary motive and why everyone signed up had nothing to do with a reaper backup. Arriving as refugees would have been a totally different tone. Arriving after the Nexus was another big story flaw. You feel less like an explorer when everyone else has already explored it and all you were doing was using your magic AI to fix another broken AI. The combination of these two factors has your character set up as an explorer who never seems to be exploring. The bad animations were meme worthy but that is not why the game was mediocre, the story and characters were the real flaws.
Yep. Bland enemies, bland allies, and a bland, unremarkable world. The game deserves credit for the work put into it, but it just feels like they forgot to put some heart into it.
@@Scorch052 that's because they were too focused on making political posts on Twitter
Never really thought of the issues of arriving after the Nexus, but yes, arriving with the mission to be a back up against the Reaper invasion is a good play. A lot of the problems in the plot that occur are from Tann's incompetence/not fitting the role of director and racism which happen because the Nexus arrived first. You never get a chance to kick his butt out which could have been a major decision with consequences one way or the other later. Obviously the fact SAM is a deus ex machina is another major issue... that's definitely lazy in parts. The story could have still played out the same way but Ryder is there at the key events that dictate what happens next.
at least if that was the core part of the plot it would have made sense and made it a better game on that alone
@@mariobadia4553 Because that's definitely what EA pays hundreds if not thousands of employees to do every day during a game's development.
Looking forward to your Rise and Fall / An Avoidable Tragedy of Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 !
Any news on that game ?
@@eustachedelamoustache, not really.
Andromeda was a beautiful trainwreck. There were so many videos detailing the many bugs and glitches. The characters are so odd and derpy looking, the dialog off putting and strange. You can even see this while they were making the game at 8:49 with the Joker like grimace in the characters face.
Facial animations often take the top spots on lists of complaints but the writing is a much, much bigger problem in this game. Good dialogues and interactions would have helped alot, previous Bioware games didn't exactly have that good facial animations either (they weren't as bad as in Andromeda obviously but still)
@@jackiemortes Exactly, the derpy face animations, bugs, and glitches could have been forgivable if the the writing didnt come across like a 12 year-old's fan fiction. Who ever wrote this trash clearly had no idea what they were doing. Its a shame because I actually enjoyed the combat and the environments were beautiful, but i just couldnt get past how terrible the writing was.
The dialogue was perfectly normal. Go to a college campus you will see that’s how sjw really talk. Everything missing is the constant upward inflection on the last word of the sentences
@@cidfacetious3722 Dude....why? Lose the political agenda, it's a video game.
Beautiful because besides that, everything was beautiful. The planets, combat, environments, sound design. All of it was beautifully crafted
As a 3D artist myself I can imagine how switching to 3Ds Max and dealing with Frosbite could have been a huge problem. It doesn't excuse the shitty writing, quests, story and characters though, but on a technical level, the mess makes sense.
With all the money EA makes, they shouldn't have abandonned it. If they only kept a team working on it for a year or two they could have made an enhanced edition and correct a lot of problems.
Instead they sent them on Anthem... what a waste. I'm curious to see how the next Dragon Age and ME4 will turn out.
They didn’t switch to 3ds Max, they switched from 3ds Max to Maya
Imagine listening before talking about something you know nothing about…
And I'm a 3D artist myself, my work in on my Steam profile.
Have a sneaking suspicion you can pour petrol in a dumpster flowed by a match and have a vision of the ME4/Dragon Age releases. Their best games are already out and we likely wont see anything better. They say the worst part of age is living to see heroes turn into villains, but I remember EA being a studio responsible for great games 20 years ago. Unless a studio has good funding without a corporate overlord calling the shots you will get a cookie cutter game with the highest calculated investment dollar to profitable feature ratio. When they get big enough to reach this level you have a soulless company with a once great name.
Honestly... I gave up when I saw Ryder smile after learning his/her Dad died... Jesus Christ... . I don't care if I have to wait longer for a game. Just give me a finished game. When did the industry become so full of shit? What happened?
Profit overtook passion.
Games used to be made by people who loved what they did, now they’re made by corporations trying to make a quick buck. It doesn’t matter how much effort, IPs and even peoples’ health is sacrificed. The shareholders want money ASAP, and managers who don’t deliver get replaced.
@10:59 You know you done messed up when the narrator can’t help but laugh 😂
First time he's ever almost lost it
Best moment in the video (which was solid as usual of course). 🙂
Andromeda could have been such a good game and in some aspects does it really show that. The Mako was fun to drive, gunplay and overall movement felt good, game looked amazing (for the most part) and the story showed hints at something greater BUT sadly it ended up hollow and void of that special mass effect feeling.
When Bioware had to use the FrostBite Engine, I knew they were screwed.
Same.
Smh. Again, bioware wasn’t forced, they chose frostbite. Many ex-bioware devs have come forward and stated this. Idk why ppl keep pushing the notion that bioware were forced when past (and current) employees have stated it wasn’t EA’s decision at all.
People gotta stop blaming EA for every fault in the world when they don’t know the full story. Just like bioware chose unreal engine 5 for the next mass effect, they outright chose frostbite for andromeda.
@@NeckPUNCHattack the op didn't say they were forced
@@Heru_Iluvatar the op literally said “when bioware HAD TO USE THE FROSTBITE ENGINE.” If you understand what’s being said, then you also understand that means they were forced to stop using the unreal engine and “had to use frostbite.” It literally can’t be meant any way other than they were forced… because… if they weren’t forced, they would’ve continued to use the engine they liked/were most comfortable with.
Sorry, but the op DID say they were forced.
They chose it, you are right. Many people are just coping.
Mac Walters ruins everything he gets his hands on. The first cracks in ME story started showing when he was brought on to co-write ME2, and that's how we got Babby Reaper. After that, he had full writing credit for ME3, and we all know how that ended.
yep ended with a great game that had an OK story improved when they fixed the ending which had a theme around sacrifice for the greater society which some imbeciles cried and shat their diapers over because wah they didn't get an ending with their Shepard getting old on a porch somewhere....
@@lutherheggs451 Nah, people were mad because the ending made no fucking sense.
@@lutherheggs451 >ME3
>great game
pick one, please. The entire game is dogshit. From Cerberus becoming the galactic empire, to Kai Leng, to the death of sidequests, to Kai Leng, to zero wrap-up to half the cast, to Kai Leng, to playing like Gears of War with biotic powers, to Kai Leng; did I mention Kai Leng?
Forget the ending, the whole thing is fucking garbage. Cope harder please
a WIDER audience
@@lutherheggs451 Mass Effect 3s story is pretty bad, not horrible but not good, not even "ok"
Cannot get enough of this narrator's voice. It's what really sells it as a professional, high level production. Great script, good b-roll, appropriate music, it all just comes together so well.
I got Andromeda from a bargain bin. It led me to the OG games. Andromeda introduced me to Mass Effect. I’ll always love it for that alone.
Same here, got a pre-used copy of Andromeda as my first mass effect game back in 2018. Took me a while to get invested but when it happened i was hooked. I then went back to the original trilogy and loved it. Ever since Mass Effect has been my favorite IP of all time. Funny how the OG trilogy was like a 3-part prequel for me lol
Never played andromeda, only the OGs.. glad to see people are still discovering them :)
@@shitalkingoon You should give a try to Andromeda imho. If you won't like it, that's fine, but if you like it, will be cool.
You're lucky! Mass Effect 1-3 were phenomenally good. Andromeda was that broken I never finished it because i had to restart after full clearing the rebel planet and the game bugging out during the purging sequence.
Then the online was lagfy and buggy as hell. It shat on the previous entries, all to perfect Anthem which was great but ultimately incredibly limited once you finished the story.
I can't help but think if the resources spent on Anthem were spent on Mass Effect, Andromeda would have been one of the best games Sci fi games of our time.
Mistake #1, outsourcing your game to the people who made your multiplayer. It's weird thats happened more than one in video game developments
My problem with Andromeda was the rehashed big threat story and the lack of diverse alien races in andromeda. I feel like the game would have clicked better with me if they made the story more about exploration and discovery.
it's poorly done ME 1 story....
Lmao careful you'll be called a SJW judging by your comments
Mass Effect IS my favorite game franchise. I can't count how many times I've replayed the trilogy, unmodded and modded. Although I had my enjoyment with Andromeda, and I still stubbornly believe there's a good game in there, overall it's such a underwhelming let down.
Dude I played the trilogy like 10 times. Finishing me3 as we speak on legendary. The farthest I went with mea is the ice planet and ditched that insult cluster fuck of a game that is mea. The only thing it has in common with the trilogy is the name (mass effect) that's it
Imagine developing a story driven role playing game and putting the story on the back seat.perfect
Never forget that the Bioware's A team handed this off to their B team so they could focus on Anthem. 🤣
No, BW Montreal helmed andromeda while Edmonton helmed anthem. Anthem stared development in 2012 and andromeda started in 2013. How could Edmonton “hand off” the game to Montreal when they were working on anthem a full year before andromeda even started development?
@@NeckPUNCHattack Found the simp folks lmao.
Love the channel. Wanted to say that I look forward to each of these videos because they are AMAZING.
I feel like this is the first time watching a video of yours that wasn’t at least a 9 months old. This is like a huge deal. I’ve been watching occasionally for a year.
They put out very competent videos regularly
Been over 10 videos in the last year. How have you been a fan for a year but haven't kept up with any content in the last year
I bought Andromeda last year during a Steam sale and decided to give it a go to see if it was as bad as people said. The original trilogy is my favorite game series and I've replayed each game multiple times, something I can't say for any other game.
It was shocking how steeply the dropoff in quality was. Visually, the game looks great (if you ignore the character models) and the combat mechanics are definitely a noticable improvement over the previous entries. But the quests were infuriating, so much of "go to this planet, run to this point, go to another planet and run to another point, and then to another" etc etc. The dialogue was cringey at best and felt like it was written by people who know they're not funny so they try to cram what they think are jokes in every other line. The Angara were a horror to look at and I hated having them on my screen. Speaking of the Angara, they were nowhere close to filling the void left by the Quarian, Hanar, Volus, Drell and other species.
I get that the team worked super hard and endured terrible crunch to get this game out the door, but the game wasn't finished and they had been mislead by poor management/decision making. It's like me working 1000 hours to install a floppy disk into a quantum computer. Hopefully they've learned their lesson and whatever the teaser was for will be a game worth playing and enjoying
Shoutout to Vetra and Drack for being at least the more interesting squadmates in Andromeda!
I recently played through the Mass Effect Series with a friend who had never heard of Mass Effect before and ended the journey with Andromeda. Having gone through the highs and lows of the Mass Effect Trilogy (and watching him die a little inside when I revealed every ending possible for Mass Effect 3), my friend's opinion of Andromeda was that it was average. It was, essentially, Mass Effect: College with Surfer Bro Ryder commanding the Tempest Fraternity while attempting to complete his first year without getting kicked out. And yet, with the decisions my friend made, we watched our Ryder go from Surfer Bro to Respectable Jock to Student Council President in a remarkable way that caught us off-guard. Andromeda was definitely a step down from Mass Effect 3, but the game had potential to become its own thing. Sure it was rough around the edges and the crew felt more like a high school clique than a proper crew, but we had fun with it. And by the time we got to the end of the main story, we found ourselves a little depressed at the game would never have the chance to explore the Quarian Ark or a few of the other things that had caught our interest. I wish it had another year in the oven before it came out, but knowing what was happening at Bioware at the time, I don't believe the game would have gotten better if given more time.
Overall, an average game that probably would have been received better had it not been a Mass Effect game. I hope the combat in this game gets moved over to the new Mass Effect 4 (or whatever it ends up getting called).
when first playing it, i really liked Andromeda for being Mass Effect 1 levels of openness and rpg opportunity, mixed with the great combat systems perfected in later games. Andromeda is the most "fun" out of all of them, but it definitely hits a wall for me. I lose interest around Havarl and Voeld because there is very little interesting about the story and characters.
Imo Andromeda is a very solid title. Good plot, good game play and really good side missions,especially comparing to awful me1 side missions.
Your research is always so thorough, nicely done.
I actually like ME:A, yes it had problems, but there were moments in it I really liked and enjoyed the combat overhaul. The orginal ME is hard to follow so it's a tall order and having EA muck things up with frostbite, it can't have been easy. That a game got off the ground at all is good, though it wasn't the best it could have been, though there was some real talent from concept and environmental artists, level desingers and programmers just trying to get frostbite to not wreack total havoc.
I also liked Andromeda. I also find amusing that some people claim ME1 is some kind of an masterpiece. It has one of shittiest mechanics, annoying driving and those side missions. Oh my God. Same friggin layout and I do mean identical layout on like 30 side missions. Worst level design ever. I literally could memorize it completely and worst of all know pretty much exact layout and run through them. Side missions on Andromeda where actually really good, like 100x better than me1
The gameplay was the best in the entire franchise....The story was meh at best.
@@lutherheggs451 I actualy enjoyed Andromeda's story more than ME1, ME2 or ME3.
But I see what you might not like in Andromeda.
I feel embarrassed to admit that i didn't hate Mass Effect Andromeda (i loved the combat and open world exploration). But it was a huge step backwards as far as story and characters. Especially after recently playing the Legendary Edition of the ME trilogy.
I also played Andromeda months after release, so i didn't encounter the numerous bugs other people did. I wish the game wasn't rushed out and given to the B team. Andromeda should have been the main focus of Bioware instead of Anthem, which is WORSE than Andromeda imo.
I too don't hate Andromeda, but I disagree. I think that Andromeda's companions and the ship crew are far better than those of the original trilogy. They have more depth and personality.
@@vaniellys wait what 😂
@@vaniellys I can see how you come to that conclusion. I prefer the original trilogy crew more but I definitely enjoyed Andromeda's crew and would love to see more of them. Except Liam.
Can you guys do a video on Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, the game had an interesting 2-year development cycle, with the publisher constantly interfering with the developer's initial plans for the title and cutting a large amount of content from the final product.
I am addicted to this channel. Such high quality!
Been playing games since the late 90s and I can confidently say Mass Effect is my absolute favorite single player franchise. It's a beautiful mixture of all the space operas that came before and it's on the most interactive medium we've ever had. Despite it's flaws(mainly the rushed ending which they've made up for with the Citadel DLC IMO) I will forever cherish the memories of my countless playthroughs of the trilogy which made a huge impression on me as a young boy. Every thread I see about mass effect on the internet I see overwhelming amount of love for this franchise and it really makes the studios handling of the IP even more painful. I wish EA and Bioware gave their IP the respect it deserves and fully devoted their resources to it when they decided to make another entry. Andromeda was a punch in the gut and an insult to the Mass Effect name. Technical difficulties aside, the writing, character designs, dialogue all felt uninspired, soulless and forced. Didn't have an ounce of charm. I'm not sure it deserves a second chance. If this is the state of Bioware now, it maybe best to let this franchise rest forever.
I feel the same way.
The programming issues they had were surpassable. The main problem was: weak plot, horrible and uncharismatic characters (new aliens included), and a feeble and despicable main character.
Tip: When you make a followup to the most beloved sci-fi videogame franchise of all time, you should probably not only have two new races in the galaxy you move the series to; one of which is a rip-off of Warframe's Grineer, and the other a ripoff of Avatar's Na'vi. You should also probably have more than two bland personality types represented in your crew of 6, if a stellar supporting cast is one of the reasons your original series was so beloved in the first place.
Just a thought.
Just subscribed. You do really good work!
The narrator of GVMERS videos is the best, seriously.
2003 - Bioware developers dressing nerd shirts while doing an actual lightsaber combat at the background of the interview - games like KOTOR, Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins
2019 - Bioware is shown as a serious capitalist corporation where people dressed in corporate suits decide stuff in black tech rooms with red and blu lights - games like Anthem, the ending of ME3 and Andromeda.
Bioware magic isn't crunch. Bioware magic was those nerds doing a lightsaber fight in the middle of an interview. And that magic is gonne for good.
I'm literally in the middle of a playthrough of this. It's really disappointing that the launch was such a mess because I think a sequel properly done would be awesome.
The game has a bad rep because of the less than ideal launch. The Majority of the problems, as you know, were cleaned up within a month or two. There are some mind-blowing good mods out there that really reduce the grind and smooth out the game play. The story flows better and the character development feels more consistent - once you're not spending hours collecting useless crap (this coming from someone who likes exploring and finding loot). I ended up really liking the game, story and characters once the grind and resource drudgery was taken from a deafening roar to a whisper through modding. It's a crying shame the game didn't get some good DLC later on, like a Quarian Ark. It's far fetched, but perhaps it's not too late?
I really enjoy Andromeda. It gets an unfair rep. I hope the next ME game connects to Andromeda.
@@jonathangriffith5699 As long as the story is coherent and good, it doesn't have to in my opinion, but I would like to have a ME:A 2, nevertheless.
I'll say pre-congratulations on reaching 500K subs, I expect you'll reach that by your next video!
The game was exhausting to finish, because of its useless open-world aspect that doesn't serve the immersion at all. I just felt like I was in an MMORPG constantly looking at my quest log to know what to do.
The fights were very messy too, and if you had the misfortune to discover the power of melee attacks the game was just spamming melee attacks.
The 'Single player MMO' feel is exactly how I felt about Dragon Age Inquisition. I'm not sure when they adopted this design philosophy (best guess is Dragon Age 2) but ever since they have they keep making these single player MMOs and they've all fallen flat imo. DA: 2, Inq and Andromeda are all mediocre single player experiences at best.
GVMERS is awesome! Every video is excellent, informative, and thoughtful.
I love Mass Effect.
I have played the trilogy many times over.
I have never once had the desire to play Andromeda.
i replayed the trilogy with legendary edition, and thought, sure ill give andro a go, i went in expecting it to be terrible, and even with those expectations i still came out disappointed, the multiplayer is really good though, but everything about the game is so shite
Same here via my beloved PS3. Blasphemous I know considering everyone in the U.S. were devoted to their Xbox 360s.
Yes, technical glitches (Almost every single mission bugged out in some way on my PS4) and derpy animation caused problems with Andromeda, but I think that the biggest issue is that it is NOT a Mass Effect game.
People (including me) went into it expecting the same 'flavor' as the Trilogy, but Andromeda is different in almost every significant way. New writers, new dev team, new software, new characters, new aliens, new location, new story, I could go on and on.
Andromeda (and Mass Effect as a franchise) would have been better served if Andromeda was it's own thing, judged only against itself. Most of my disappointment came from the fact (and it is a fact) that Andromeda just didn't FEEL like Mass Effect. Andromeda is an ACTION (capital action) rpg (lower case rpg). Impressive effects and graphics were never part of the original Mass Effect's appeal. It HAD action, sure, even fun action in ME3, but it was more about the setting, the characters, the friendships and relationships, the lore, and the overarching plot. It is awesome because the writing is awesome, and the tools used to deliver that story worked.
On my second look, Andromeda is a fun shooty-game. Combat is a lot more open and fun... but I never played Mass Effect for the shooty bang bangs. Go into it with the right expectations, and it is not a bad game at all. It's just not a Mass Effect game. It's a good Andromeda game, though!
This is pretty much what I said in my comment but better put. I think Andromeda is a lot of fun, but it just doesn't feel like a Mass Effect game. It's like as a kid when I would take my Star Wars action figures and have them fight my super hero figures--characters designed for a different universe ham-fisted into something that only kind of resembles something you love.
Andromeda has the same problem as C2077 - a lot of obvious bugs that everyone hyper-focuses on, instead of other severe crippling issues. So you get people gaslighting you that it's actually le good under all the 'bugs'. No it isn't, and neither is Andromeda.
I really appreciate that you guys didn’t do a sponsor spot this time
First video I’ve seen in a while and it was excellent
They deserve to make money man, you can skip the sponsor lol
I only just played Andromeda for the first time with the Legendary Edition, and I was pleasantly surprised. It does drag on somewhat. Exploring planets can be a bit of a chore.
I felt the gameplay was enough to keep me playing, but the main story was overall fairly weak, the antagonist lame, and I didn't care for Ryder and crew much. But you are running around in a open world with solid 3rd person shooting elements while throwing space magic left and right.
I love the game despite the problems. The characters and the potential it had was really good. I hope they can use that to make a better game.
I hope people can recognise that the game can be better and wasn't as bad as everyone said.
AMAZING work, as always!
My face is tired...
Rest in Peace, good-old BioWare...
Honestly I would have preferred a story similar to how to Spanish fought the Aztecs, a small band of warriors "allying" with weaker subject races. Make renegade and paragon a thing again, make promise and keep them or break them. Think it would be cool personally.
Let's all hope they learned a thing or two from this for the next installment...
It all depends on Dragon Age 4. EA has given them full freedom to choose whatever engine and budget they want. It all depends on what they deliver.
I'm well acquainted with what happened to Andromeda but I need to listen to it through GVMERS Epic Voice.
Top shelf work, as always.
One of the more interesting vids I've watched. I enjoyed the combat of this game but the story was a bit of a step down. Eager to see the next topic of what disaster of a game comes next.
You are being generous with "a bit of a step down" part, but I completely agree. Good combat and I see what they were going for, but it just didn't work.
The mass effect andromeda novels are worth a read or listen if you can. Annihilation specially is amazing, audio book is read by Tom Taylorson and its superp
8:50 I remember, many years ago, when I first watched the teaser trailer for Andromeda. When it reached to that part, I just went awwwww and buried my face in my hands.
As someone recently experiencing the hell that is tmj... I get "my face is tired" now.
The worst thing for me was that instead of an adventure where we try to settle in a new frontier we got another "lets save the universe from overpowered enemies" scenario. And they also had the audacity to have more milky way races in the andromeda galaxy than natives. And those natives? An amazing 3 "Races" - and i use that term lightly - ALL of whom were artifficially created ... i mean, really? They should have had a fan gathering and let those fans make up a story. a couple thousand random stories put together would have made a better arc by far.
Man, these videos are always top tier quality. Great job guys 👌
passing the torch from Bioware Edmonton to Montreal for Mass Effect Andromeda was always gonna be a massive risk given that the Montreal studio developed only a portion of the Trilogy (the Omega DLC and ME3's multiplayer).
and not just that, they should have never prioritized procedural generation over a compelling story with likable characters and good writing to begin with. What made the Mass Effect Trilogy so compelling was not necessarily the exploration aspect, but because of the superb worldbuilding, memorable characters and excellent writing.
This entry in the franchise did more damage than any "bad-ending to Mass Effect 3" ever did...
I liked mass effect Andromeda.
The problem is they ONLY Gave US half a game. And kill it for anthem
I didn't even mind the technical issues when I got the game, and believe you me I defiantly noticed them. It was the story and characters that let me down, they were just crap.
What a fantastically made video. Very very good.
Great work on video!
The biggest let down which let me to botch this game was the moment you land on one of planets (krogan one if I remember correctly) and you see this big alien crashed ship. I was amazed at thought of exploring IT and learning about the ancient aliens. Even the companions mention that shipwreck as something important.
Then the wreck is used as a location to chase some bad guys that stole some shit from us and as a shooting gallery with generic enemies.
When i went through that mission i just unistalled and never played it again.
The thing I found so crazy and disappointing was how good the good parts were. The combat loop was awesome and when the animations were working correctly they were great. If it had more time and focus from higher up in the corporate ladder I think it could have been a masterpiece. The team seemed like it knew what it needed/wanted to do to make a good, even great, game
A tragedy indeed. The combat was so much fun though. I kinda think that if it were called something other than mass effect it would have done much better critically.
Yea the game is fun but the story and characters aren't memorable.
I kept glitching in combat so wasnt a fan I only got the legendary edition for 1 and 2 and I didnt even enjoy them as much as I used to bioware needs to get its shit together and not try to rely on magic to get it done this time
Mass Effect was a highly-successful franchise. And they fucked it over for Anthem. End result? Both games sucked hard. Just idiotic management
I agree, the combat was pretty fun and fresh over the previous title, the planet exploration was ok for me, and the background story in andromeda was exciting enough, but the flow of the story and awful animation made me stop in 25% story progress.
@@mriddley That's funny, I actually glitches everywhere BUT the combat lol. You're right about Bioware though. That's the real tragedy. To watch the slow agonizing downfall of such a legendary studio brings tears to my eyes.
Ah a timely and relevant video as always, totally not 4 years late to the party ...
I love your channel, and the masterful work behind your videos. I did get a huge chuckle though the moment you read the Patron's name-- "Get Rekt". XD That person gets a free beer on me.
Instead of trying Anthem 2.0 which was shelved, fixing Andromeda would have been more profitable for them. The idea of Andromeda is great and with good execution, it can be a great game.
could have been - we know the rest from experience
Not really you cant fix writing and story with updates.
@@TheReaper569 I mean you technically could, although it would be extremely expensive, time consuming and probably not remotely worth it considering how ruthless EA is known to be.
@@gamerinatrance3618 yes but re writing, more animations, new cutscenes.
You might as well put a dlc or make a new game.
I'm currently doing another playthrough of this game, and I still absolutely love it. From the moment the music on the title screen started playing, I was hooked with the sense of becoming a Pathfinder in Andromeda. I think the worlds that were created are beautiful. I love the feeling it gives you exploring an unknown galaxy, but still feeling like you're apart of the Mass Effect universe. It really was unfortunate how EA handled juggling Anthem and Andromeda. Knowing the potential there could have been for continuing the Pathfinders story. I sincerely hope we'll return to this universe.
The real tragedy is the bizarre cadence of this text-to-speech narration.
Imagine hiring someone to make a statue of you and then a few weeks after they start, you take his tools away and give him a screwdriver and an axe. Tools iz tools, right?
Those poor souls who had to switch from Andromeda to Anthem
Although I never played ME trilogy I pre ordered this game with the knowledge that it was a great franchise. I bought the deluxe edition and I regretted it. I fell asleep so many times. I'm playing the trilogy for the first time and wow its such a beautiful game. I hope that the new one is made with love and care as the first 3. I won't pre order tho. I learned my lesson with MEA and cyberpunk.
Personally for me the story wasn’t bad but I do agree it doesn’t live up to the original trilogy in terms of story telling. At least in ME 1-3, almost every decision I made felt it had a legit impact with dire consequences depending on what choices I made. I even liked how I was given the option of playing either paragon or renegade. And depending on what I gravitated towards to gain points in one of the respective sides to unlock certain dialogues, it made it all the more immersive.
There's only one thing I regret about this video: you didn't mention the overhyping reveal trailer, I still have goosebumps when I watch it... I had high hopes with this game, a "trail of hope" that was subverted.
But as always, an excellent video from Gvmers.
Wow, your videos are movies! Amazing work
All the game companies we know and used to love 10-15 years ago are a shell of their former selves. Most those developers are gone, suits over run everything, gaming has no soul like it used too. My hope is only with indie devs.
Great video. I don't know why, but I watched Matt McMuscles video about this game and this is what I was looking for. His videos cover interesting game failures, but they are so snarky and condescending that they clearly come from someone to with no background in development of media and fiction of any kind. This channels videos are always very satisfying.
What are you talking about? He worked in the games industry for nearly a decade and was even a producer in a recent game, the beatdown. He even mentions it in his videos several times.
man i hope the new ME is 3 player coop all the way through the entire story and you can all create your own character with like an adept on the team , a sentinel and like a soldier or just whatever 3 you want to learn each other’s play style and work together to do whatever you’ve gotta do that would be so cool man
Gvmers is an amazing documentary series
i just finished the trilogy again fully Modded and i just experienced the Best Ending for Mass Effect 3 ever no start child no bullshit you just open the citadel arms Crucible docks and arms it self amd thats it Geth and EDi survives Normady goes back to the Citadel and find the commander barely alive so he lives too it this was the official ending no one would've have any issues with the Ending hell i want to play the trilogy again since i know now it has the Perfect ending
Modders really Saved that series
Please tell me the mods name
@@Goldsrc17 its the Audemus Happy Ending Mod but you should also use Expanded Galaxy Mod, Andersons Final Conversion Restored, LE Community Patch and Take Earth Back this one is very Good check them out theres also Harbinger Overhaul Mod, LE3 Opening Remaster and Spectre Expansion Mod if you want the Full Package
@@LyuboA thank you so much for the reccomendations
@@Goldsrc17 yaa the games are very different when you mod them and if you mod the combat the way you like to play and its completely different games i had lots of fun and will replay them soon again thats for sure
oh boy... this one is gonna hurt. a perfect horror movie to end my night
I never finished the game after purchasing it on sale a few years back for one simple reason. It wasn't because of the mechanics, the bugs I could overlook, I'm an oldschool gamer so find them interesting. It was the lore, the character design, all showed hallmarks of conflicting ideologies and viewpoints of people that were as they seemed to think "improving" on the original design of Bioware, yet anyone who even cares liked the original system, not the one they wanted us to prefer.
the dialogue
Great stuff as usual :)
The best animated scene was a romance scene and I think thats hilarious
It wasn’t so bad, it did introduce me to Mass Effect. I am playing the first 3 now because of it. I am enjoying it so far.
it was so bad, you just dont know any better and have recency bias
@@artemislogic5252 finished the first Mass effect and well into the second. Really enjoying it.
Still haven’t changed my position.
@@markdempsey8790 we'll see lol
@@artemislogic5252 Maybe I’ll change my opinion after I finish ME 3.
I wish they would have allowed Ryder a little more narrative customization similar to Shepard's background choices but the team got screwed.
Thanks for the vid
I decided to play Andromeda after finishing ME legendary edition, and I quite like it. Sure it's not the same caliber as The Normandy's crew but they're alright, but it could be better.
the devs also where denied support for the frostbite engine because fifa took precedence
They really should've just stuck with Unreal Engine.
Fantastic documentary as always. I was one of the few that loved Andromeda despite technical issues. I thought the game-play was more streamlined, enjoyed the open-world aspects (similar to Dragon Age Inquisition), and really hope we get a follow-up at some point. Due to all the improvements they made, people should really give this game a chance.
Just about month ago completed Andromeda as I noticed it on Gamepass. I was reluctant to try, but decided to give it a change. Glad I did as game to wasn't even half as bad it was bashed when it launched. Yes it isn't too deep, but plot line and new setting seemed good idea. Didn't even encounter bugs or any weird animations. I highly suggest to try it. It would be nice to see sequel to it, but that's likely not happening, which is such a shame.
I recently started the Legendary Edition of the OG games, and like if we're being honest Mass Effect was never really the beacon of animation quality and has definitely always had jank and glitches. Andromeda isn't perfect, but I enjoyed my time and the game play is really good and I appreciate the freedom it gives you compared to Mass Effect 2 and 3