Summary
A former BioWare developer thinks 2017’sMass Effect: Andromedashould have been a purely multiplayer title rather than another single-player RPG. While 2012’sMass Effect 3marked the final chapter of Commander Shepard’s quest to save the Milky Way from the Reapers, BioWare continued its successful sci-fi series withAndromeda, a sequel/spin-off taking place in another galaxy and starring a new assortment of playable characters and squadmates.Andromedaembraced a wider open-world format that put a further emphasis on exploration, even as it maintained the branching narratives and moral dialogue choices of the previousMass Effectgames.
Mass Effect: Andromedasuffered from many issues during its production, including being developed by a different BioWare team based in Montreal and switching from Unreal Engine 3 to Frostbite 3, which required all of the game’s assets to be rebuilt from scratch and led to it launching with countless bug, glitches, and questionable facial animations. While many of these problems were later corrected through update patches, the divisive first showing, coupled with a plot that fans felt was inferior to the originalMass Effecttrilogy, resulted in disappointing sales that put the series in stasis for years untilthe announcement ofMass Effect 4in late 2020.
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Former BioWare General Manager Aaryn Flynn, who departed from the developer shortly afterMass Effect: Andromedawas released in 2017, recently sat down for an interview in the latest issue of EDGE magazine to reflect on his 17-year-long tenure, which spanned the development of severalMass EffectandDragon Agetitles. When discussingMass Effect: Andromeda, he admitted that BioWare was trying to do too much with the game and said that it would have been better off focusing on the multiplayer element it inherited fromMass Effect 3.
According to him,Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer was popular enough with a subset of the game’s community and would have been ripe for a standalone gameplay experience. Flynn believes that if BioWarecommittedMass Effect: Andromeda’s resourcestoward fleshing out its multiplayer instead of making another massive single-player RPG, the game would have been more successful. He adds that publisher EA was in a period of transition duringAndromeda’s development, and BioWare’s commitment to the game strained the studio and negatively impactedDragon Age: Inquisition, which was also in development at the time.
Whether fans would have embraced the standalone multiplayer game Aaryn Flynn thinksMass Effect: Andromedashould have been isn’t certain, asMass Effect 3’s online component was divisive among fans and wasleft out ofMass Effect Legendary Editiondue to BioWare deciding that restoring it wasn’t worth the effort. Still, the co-op and survival-based gameplay modes have their own devoted following, and perhaps a game dedicated to them might have performed better than theMass Effect: Andromedaplayers did get.
Mass Effect: Andromedais available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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