While the Mass Effect franchise is one of BioWare’s most popular IPs, pushing the studio to create a special Mass Effect Legendary Edition trilogy that’s due out later this year, it hasn’t always been a smooth ride. Considering how passionate fans are of the series, certain controversies have arisen over the years due to things not going quite the way players expected them to, including the original ending of Mass Effect 3.
The most recent release, Mass Effect Andromeda attempted to tell a new story in the series away from the familiar faces of the trilogy. While the game introduced a lot of new elements and improved gameplay such as combat, fan reaction was largely mixed. Technical issues plagued the game at launch, leading to a wave of memes depicting odd facial animations and other bizarre behaviors. However, the biggest issue that the fans seemed to have with the title was the lack of diversity with the alien species, especially considering this game was supposed to take place in an entirely different galaxy. According to various BioWare developers, this wasn’t originally the plan.
In a recent interview, senior writer Neil Pollner addressed the strange omission and admitted that Mass Effect Andromeda was likely a game that wouldn’t have been able to live up to expectations due to the high bar that was previously set, but also the logistical expectations of going to a new galaxy. Part of the issue was that the budget for Andromeda was smaller than the original games, meaning the promise of loads of new content, characters, and lore were already limited at the start.
During the early days of development, BioWare Montreal started coming up with and proposing ideas for new alien species, up to ten in total, though most were ultimately cut leaving the Kett, Angara, and Remnant. Ultimately, the three were chosen and evolved mainly to become more cosplay-safe than they may have started out as. Franchise design director Dorian Kieken also admitted that early alien concepts were pretty unique, but were ultimately dropped or changed to make it easier for fans to cosplay the characters. The budget further limited what species the team was able to bring forward from the classic games, which explains why many of the established races were also left out of the final game.
But we were only given the budget for two new species, plus the Remnant. Not to mention that we couldn’t even include all the Milky Way species. And we weren’t going to be able to let you travel throughout the galaxy. This meant that we had to develop the story around some pretty glaring inorganic limitations. So, not only did you get something that felt (and was) much smaller than what you got before, almost everyone playing the game probably had something that they really liked about Mass Effect that just wasn’t there.
In addition, Pollner mentioned that the original idea for the Ryder Twins exploring these new planets was more akin to being an explorer and Pathfinder rather than a shoot first conqueror. The first contact experience was going to be largely different than what was launched with the Milky Way species learning how to communicate with the new races rather than simply gunning down kett. However, with the new races being cut, most of the stories and gameplay associated with the first contact gameplay moments were left out of the game as well.
I think the thesis statement for why is that the Mass Effect trilogy was an incredibly demanding endeavor. The checks that were written for it, the complexity of the experience was insanely massive. The team worked their asses off non-stop for so many years, on back-to-back-to-back games. The prospect of doing the same thing again was not only exhausting to imagine, but totally impractical. Some of the ‘lessons’ learned from the original trilogy are ones that are important for game development but result in the player experience being less. When you’re talking about triple-A development, the original trilogy is actually the anomaly, not Andromeda.
While Pollner ultimately admits that he found Mass Effect Andromeda to be pretty fun once the technical issues were ironed out and the initial disappointment faded. However, fans will likely be left wondering what could have been with this news. With the next Mass Effect already in development, it’s possible that some of these ideas may get to see the light of day after all, especially if BioWare is able to learn from what went wrong with Mass Effect Andromeda.
Source: TheGamer
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