Agreed. The setup for Andromeda was definitely what I preferred over another Shepard game.
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[PCGAMER] BioWare: 'we're definitely not done with Mass Effect'
- Thread starter Rodjer
- Start date
Chiming in every time it's mentioned...
I have money burning a hole in my pocket reserved for a Trilogy Remaster, whenever EA wants it.
I would be up for either a direct sequel to ME3(preferably the Destroy one so we Reapers are behind us) or a game taking place anytime prior to ME3, before the war. Doesn't need to tell a story we already mostly know through the codex or exposure, I just want more more stories from within the Milky Way. We haven't seen enough of the alien homeworlds outside of the Quarians and Krogans, and I'd love to see a nextgen iteration of the Citadel.
My biggest disappointment about ME: Andromeda was that they tried to tie it to the original Mass Effect Trilogy. I was personally hoping they were going to approach ME:Andromeda the same way Square Enix approaches a new Final Fantasy: totally new universe, new characters, new mythology, new species, etc. I wanted to see BioWare go back to the drawing board & put in the same amount of creative thought they did when conceiving the original Mass Effect for their next chapter.
While I'll always perk up when I hear the mention of "more Mass Effect," the cynic in me overwhelmingly thinks this is feathery bullshit they're putting out there just to make us feel better about Anthem.
Facts are, Anthem basically exists at the expense of the Mass Effect series. It's what put their "C" team on it and the amount of "care" shown to such a beloved series was damning. Everything about the production/release of it shows what a shitshow it was, and even though it still sold millions of copies, they unceremoniously cancelled obvious DLC and support for the game. Seeing Mass Effect skins and whatnot in the game that basically exists at the expense of that series is just rubbing salt in the wound.
Anthem is a game that if it goes well enough, will never be "done." "After" Anthem, they still have the next Dragon Age, which sounds like it is in its infancy of development...AND THEN, maybe Mass Effect? Like seriously, if things go well, can we expect that in 2026 or something?
So yeah, their track record is shit. The huge demand for a remaster of the series seemingly fell on deaf ears (and their idiotic "no remasters" mantra ended up being bullshit as they released Burnout, which was excellent!). The myriad of ways they catastrophically bungled Mass Effect as a series and how they treated Andromeda just shows that their actions speak louder than words.
I wish video games were like sports and they could trade the Mass Effect series to someone else because I'm honestly not confident at all that they'd want to create the type of game anymore that die-hard Mass Effect fans would even want.
Facts are, Anthem basically exists at the expense of the Mass Effect series. It's what put their "C" team on it and the amount of "care" shown to such a beloved series was damning. Everything about the production/release of it shows what a shitshow it was, and even though it still sold millions of copies, they unceremoniously cancelled obvious DLC and support for the game. Seeing Mass Effect skins and whatnot in the game that basically exists at the expense of that series is just rubbing salt in the wound.
Anthem is a game that if it goes well enough, will never be "done." "After" Anthem, they still have the next Dragon Age, which sounds like it is in its infancy of development...AND THEN, maybe Mass Effect? Like seriously, if things go well, can we expect that in 2026 or something?
So yeah, their track record is shit. The huge demand for a remaster of the series seemingly fell on deaf ears (and their idiotic "no remasters" mantra ended up being bullshit as they released Burnout, which was excellent!). The myriad of ways they catastrophically bungled Mass Effect as a series and how they treated Andromeda just shows that their actions speak louder than words.
I wish video games were like sports and they could trade the Mass Effect series to someone else because I'm honestly not confident at all that they'd want to create the type of game anymore that die-hard Mass Effect fans would even want.
Until I hear somebody with some clout at EA saying as such, BioWare will continue this yearly "we're not done with Mass Effect yet" echo from Casey and another random BioWare dev until time immemorial.
If Anthem does well it is. So you're right, but...not for the reasons you think. If Anthem is a huge success, they'll have a lot of freedom.
Following that, you figure Dragon Age is up then maybe Mass Effect right after.
Bingo. Continue something with Shepard or go a completely different direction. Also release a Dead Space trilogy remaster while you're at it.
So weird how Burnout and Bulletstorm are pretty much the only remasters they did. Unless I'm missing some?
Wait, was the Bulletstorm remaster under EA?
Why would they want to continue a lacklustre story which had an unpopular ending? ME is one of, if not the best established universes in gaming, with basically infinite potential. Shepard as a character was a blank page, which had two cliche sides in different colours. His story was one of the usual saving the world type of thing that just got worse and worse.
The ME universe can be a place for anything, you could tell any story within it. Some of the very best SW stories are not about the big fight between the Sith and Jedi either.
I don't know why Shepard is considered a good character, so there's my bias in this. He is absolutely below-average (and in video games, that is telling).
So yeah, I think they had good intentions with Andromeda, they wanted to give the same sensation of exploration and discovery like the first game did, but ultimately they failed. I think the decision between Andromeda and a prequel was not an easy one for Bio, but I imagine the prequel would've been "too soon".
Bulletstorm's remaster was NOT. Gearbox published that one (and put in the Duke Nukem version).
So, yeah, EA's still quite on their "no remasters or remakes" tear.
*sigh* My last THREE purchases were Kingdom Hearts PS4 collection, Shadow of the Colossus PS4, and Resident Evil 2 Remake.
Nostalgia is a helluva drug.
I really feel like Anthem should have just been set in the Mass Effect world. However, going forward I think if they really want to win fans and critics back they need to do a collected trilogy on PS4 and Xbox One.
Or if somehow Anthem turns out worse than ME : Andromeda...
First thing they should do for the next game:
DON'T.
MAKE.
IT.
CENTERED.
ON.
HUMANS.
Seriously, just let us pick what race our protagonist is. That could have been easily implemented on Andromeda, yet they fucking locked the player to the most boring race in a rich universe full of way more interesting options.
I was actually talking about this with friends, Mass Effect created a universe that is way much more bigger and richer than the stories they want to tell in it.
DON'T.
MAKE.
IT.
CENTERED.
ON.
HUMANS.
Seriously, just let us pick what race our protagonist is. That could have been easily implemented on Andromeda, yet they fucking locked the player to the most boring race in a rich universe full of way more interesting options.
I was actually talking about this with friends, Mass Effect created a universe that is way much more bigger and richer than the stories they want to tell in it.
Andromeda was perfect for it since EVERY race was having Pathfinders and exploring new planets at the same time. Nothing about the Ryder story demanded it be human-centric... Oh well.
as cool as this would be the reality is that would be virtually impossible to do satisfactorily. dragon age origins managed to sort of do this, but mostly because humans, elves, and dwarves can all fairly easily share the same animations (or at least, the rigging could be relatively easily changed between them) whereas mass effect has lots of aliens with vastly different body and face structures. making an RPG with the fidelity of mass effect that can account for the player being a human, turian, krogan, or volus for example would require an absurd amount of work. even cutscene framing would have to be changed pretty radically per species. that's also two more voice actors to hire per species... it really piles up. obviously loads of RPGs exist where the player does have this kind of freedom, but not in the AAA space. It's a bit easier to give players this kind of freedom in games that aren't fully voice-acted, have more abstracted interaction, etc.
it's really not a matter of "just" letting the player pick; it wouldn't be easy to implement at all. it'd be a monumental undertaking.
Mass Effect Andromeda and No Man's Sky, now there's a tragedy in three acts.
I miss the old days when companies would outsource games if the original studio was busy doing other stuff. The modern games industry would never let stuff like Half Life: Opposing Force, FEAR: Extraction Point, KOTOR II, Fallout: New Vegas exist. Instead of entire games being outsourced to studios with the freedom to put a creative spin, we've now got publishers controlling IP with an iron fight and only allowing in-house studios or direct partners to tackle them. Outsourcing has changed meaning to studios tasked with doing grunt work for the main studio. The AAA-capable independent studio is disappearing.
Give Mass Effect to a bunch of studios. Let them create games in a variety of genres within that universe. Have some narrative insight for the sake of canon and consistency. But just make the darn games.
Give Mass Effect to a bunch of studios. Let them create games in a variety of genres within that universe. Have some narrative insight for the sake of canon and consistency. But just make the darn games.
This is mostly what I want at this point. I'm interested in replaying the trilogy but I don't feel like getting all the texture and controller mods to be able to play it on PC the way I want.
If ME ever comes back, it will probably be a spin off that relies heavily on gaming services to work. Meaning micro transactions. I have very little hope for Bioware or EA games to be good. I have written them off a long time ago. The way they butchered Andromeda will never be forgivable.
What studio you think would be best talent to work on mass effect and i think EA or Bioware don't trust anyone with mass effect after andromeda
No thank you! Mass Effect has too many good things going for it to just die!
I would rather see a Jade Empire sequel. Replayed the game recently, and I would love a sequel that expanded in the concepts of the Open Palm/Closed Fist philosophies (beyond Good & Evil trappings), and a Character Creation system.
Any studio could make a Mass Effect game. Just as any studio could, and did, make a Star Wars game. The entire reason games like Star Wars: Jedi Knight 2 and Star Wars: Jedi Academy exist was because Lucasarts were willing to license the Jedi Knight series out to Raven Software. We got Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic because they were willing to license out to Bioware. We got KOTOR 2 because they were willing to license out to Obsidian. Gearbox did excellent work with the Half-Life series. You could give Mass Effect to Gearbox and get an excellent game in return. The pool of independent developers is shrinking. But you could cut deals with other publishers to use their development studios to make interesting games set in the Mass Effect universe instead of waiting years and years for Bioware to make something. Imagine if we had dozens of Mass Effect games in a swathe of genres. That's how you explore a universe.
The best thing to do is remake the ending with a remastered trilogy so they are not painted into a corner.
