Support NeoGAF

[pudel]

Exactly, your post is very helpful to my point. Most of these AAA devs who make open world games aren’t good at making open worlds. If those same devs simply scaled back just a bit instead of trying to get that ‘Our game is vast, 60 hours, money well spent’ quote then we would have better quality experiences that don’t overstay their welcome with a less than 10% completion rate.

It’s actually a good thing that 2020s Bioware just said this. Now all they have to do is improve their writing team and they will have enough of what they need.

I would rather see more good open world games....but your approach seems to be way more "realistic"...unfortunately.

 

[March Climber]

Lately I've noticed, in my own gaming habits, that I no longer can play new RPGs that aren't featuring a big, open, immersive world to get lost into. I don't care how good the story is, the graphics, characters or even roleplaying systems.

I would rather replay games from Gothic, The Elder Scrolls, Fallout series that did open-world decades ago (with great success) than pay full price for games that lack ambition.

Another terrible take from another AAA developer. It's like they all, as a group, lost ambition and courage to push the limits of video games. I want planets in my space opera RPG, not corridors.

You have to understand that most of what you’re naming are older franchises. Games from people who have either retired or moved on. Quite a lot of modern devs aren’t building worlds as complex anymore. Instead most of the devs who are left making open worlds are building single player MMOs. Fetch quests, long stretches of empty land, collectathons, and grindy fluff to make you feel like you’re helping a static town as you watch an XP bar ding on a new level.

If a dev tells me they would rather not build that time consuming BS then I’m all for it.

I would rather see more good open world games....but your approach seems to be way more "realistic"...unfortunately.

I would take 10 more Mass Effect 2-style experiences over 100 Skyrims and Fallouts.

It has never been about the size of the game that makes one legendary. That is only one aspect and when a dev is good enough they don’t need it.

 

[Lunarorbit]

Really bad game, horrible mass effect. It was a laughing stock when it came out. Have zero faith in Bioware. Story telling is a major component of ME and that magic is long gone

 

[MujkicHaris]

You have to understand that most of what you’re naming are older franchises. Games from people who have either retired or moved on. Quite a lot of modern devs aren’t building worlds as complex anymore. Instead most of the devs who are left making open worlds are building single player MMOs. Fetch quests, long stretches of empty land, collectathons, and grindy fluff to make you feel like you’re helping a static town as you watch an XP bar ding on a new level.

If a dev tells me they would rather not build that time consuming BS then I’m all for it.

This might the the weirdest take I've read here on NeoGAF.

If the current AAA developers keep on refusing to innovate and build bigger, ambitious worlds then --- someone else will take their place.

 

[nowhat]

I will never forgive the hate mob for what they did with AC Unity, Andromeda and Days Gone. they are a big reason why we never got sequels to those games.

Surely releasing in a completely broken state when it comes to the tech had nothing to do with the reception?

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Bioware pretending they know how to make good game in 2024?

Maybe when they had a competent crew, twenty years ago.

 

[Gojiira]

Lmfao…Just cant ever admit they did a fucking awful job, awful dialogue,awful characters,awful story,ZERO RPG…Literally worse than a Bethesda game.
Wish these idiot devs would just grow a spine. No we wont look back on it as some kind of misunderstood classic. It was trash at launch and its still trash now.

 

[Braag]

It took me 3 attempts throughout the years to try to finish it, cause the game honestly just put me to sleep. I eventually finished the story, but couldn't name a single character or location if you asked me today. It was so unimpressive and forgettable.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

I will never forgive the hate mob for what they did with AC Unity,

That game on last gen consoles was worse trainwreck than CP2077 at launch. However kudos to Ubi for going all out - I don’t think Unity crowds were matched even to this day.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Don't get me wrong, I have my fair share of complaints about Mass Effect Andromeda, like the launch tech issues that were meme'd to death, the bland open world hubs, and the writing being generally middling. But overall, I still had plenty of fun with it and have no regrets putting 100 hours into it.

 

[darrylgorn]

And then he said Andromeda was a good game

 

[Boss Mog]

Andromeda was not made by BioWare though, but by its thankfully defunct BioWare Montreal subsidiary.

 

[ClosBSAS]

The game wasnt that bad, gameplay and gunplay were good, but the characters man....so woke in a not so much woke era, so whack, so stupid, so ugly.

 

[lmimmfn]

So they're saying it's our fault?

Seems to be quite a common view from devs/publishers recently.

 

[Complistic]

I can't get more than a couple missions into Andromeda without booting up literally anything else. I've tried like 5 times. But sure, it's a great game.

 

[Wishmaster92]

And this is you can’t get excited when they say the next mass effect is going back to its roots, more mature story. Company names don’t mean jack shit nowadays, I’d say most of the original BioWare crew is long gone

 

[stn]

Andromeda is okay at best. Its the first ME where I didn't immediately start a second run. Can you do a proper renegade run in this game? If yes, maybe I'll go back to it someday.

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

Developers should ahve to change their name if main people leave. This is not the same Bioware.

Yep, they are now: Bio-where?

 

[Pandawan]

They just looked at what they were doing next (Anthem and Dragon Age The Veilguard) and they were like, "Man, compared to all the shit we've been doing lately, Mass Effect Andromenda wasn't that bad."

I would much, much rather play Mass Effect Andromenda if I had to choose between that and Veilguard.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Bioware should be very lucky they are even still alive. Considering how game studios can get shut down fast and EA is never afraid to shut down studios too (going hand in hand), Bioware has done ME Andromeda, Anthem and now Veilguard. Two of those games got drilled in reviews and sales werent great especially expectations wise.

DA Veilguard got good reviews at 84 on MC, but still has sites, streamers and gamers on forums ragging on it. And unless it's selling way better than anyone expects I dont think this game will hit whatever internal sales expectations they got too. But who knows. Inquisition sold 12M copies after a decade, so if they got long range sales goals maybe Veilguard will do decently well.

The team is still trucking with the next ME game.

So from what I see EA has a soft spot for Bioware to keep them around. Many of their other well known franchises in the past got gutted quickly. Bioware is probably a studio that has a lot of legacy. So if they shut it down it looks bad. But shutting down some of their older studios wouldnt feel the pinch so much from gamers.

 

[M1chl]

No

 

[Trogdor1123]

I didn’t mind andromeda at all but I also never finished it. I was playing through it when they announced that the games dlc wasn’t going to be made and thus the story never completed. I dropped it that day.

I won’t buy the next one till I know the story is self contained.

 

[Lorianus]

It was a regular 7/10 game that got hate as if it was a 1/10

 

[STARSBarry]

As someone who preordered this game, and played it on release.

No just no, yes you can say the combat was Improved overall and I agree with that. HOWEVER a game is not in a vacuume you cant just take the few parts you did well and say this makes the game good overall. Story and characters are incredible important in these games and sorry but it's the worst the series has ever been, by a country mile. I never finished it, I felt no need to and that's says it all, the game is not worth playing, you can argue how more or less not worth playing it is, but it's still a game not worth playing.

The poor reception was fully justified.

 

[dmaul1114]

Yeah, I liked Andromeda quite a bit. It wasn’t on par with the trilogy, but most of that was just the shitty open world with lots of bad side quests (though you can skip most of the worst and just do the story focused ones—both main quests and the non-task side quest ones—and character loyalty quests).

Combat was the best in the series. Main story was ok, characters were solid, if not as good a group as the trilogy games.

But yeah, I’m glad they got away from open world with Veilguard. I’m loving that game so far, with the levels being kind of like God of War (2018) with being pretty linear but with some branches and occasional puzzles to find chests and upgrade mats etc. I’m just not a big open world game person in general, and when I play them mostly just beeline to objective markers anyway. So bland open worlds like Andromeda are especially annoying for me.

 

[Gonzito]

The gameplay was good but coming from the trilogy the quality went downhill in almost every aspect, from music, to dialogue, story, characters etc

Bioware is not the same Bioware anymore and I dont have hopes for the next Mass Effect even tho is one of my favorite franchises

 

[CharmingCharlie]

The software industry has just such a bad case of Principal Skinner Syndrome in that "they are not wrong everyone else is". I am a huge Mass Effect fan. I have thousands of hours in all three mass effect games (different playthrough styles that kind of thing). I barely completed Andromeda. The best thing I can say about Andromeda is that it was an OK "game" but it was a shit "Mass Effect". If this is Biowares current thought processes I cannot wait for the next Mass Effect not because I will play it but because the train wreck will be so fucking hilarious to watch.

 

[graywolf323]

Everyone screamed at how bad it was, then I played it for myself and really enjoyed it despite some tech flaws and huge parts of the story/DLC that never came..

agreed, honestly the early access really screwed the game over because everyone latched onto the stupid technical glitches (the faces, etc.) and then were comparing the story to the ENTIRE original trilogy

I’m still kinda sad we never got the planned DLC telling what happened to the other arks, Andromeda had potential & I truly tink the sequels could have been great

Never played Andromeda since the buzz was so poor, even though I'm a big fan of the ME trilogy. My understanding was that the writing lost its edge and quality, and it became a painting with primary colors in a padded room YA experience. That was my main concern, not the tech. I did pick it up for a few bucks the other day though since I'm curious to find out for myself at some point.

I’d definitely recommend playing it, just go in with an open mind & don’t expect it to be Mass Effect 2

I think what hurt Andromeda at launch the most was the insanely high expectations people had

 

[SkeletonQuays]

It wasn't... i got it for like $7 and it was still a piece of shit i couldn't put more than like 3 hours into.

 

[R3TRODYCE]

Glad they understand that open world is overrated.

 

[RAIDEN1]

Andromeda deserved the negativity thrown at it, the whole thing was trash, re-spawning enemies? Check! Literally there were times in the game where you would see a beast that you just took out literally drop down from the sky and re-appear again, WTF? The main vehicle you would traverse some worlds in had next to no defence on it, unlike the one you drove in the main trilogy... the main antagonist was no Saren, after completing it I was glad to sell my copy and it took the remastered trilogy to remind fans of how good the Mass Effect series was....(just a shame it never got a TV series like Babylon 5)

 

[Thanati]

Let’s not forget the abysmal mini game nonsense! They were beyond dumb.

 

[March Climber]

If the current AAA developers keep on refusing to innovate and build bigger, ambitious worlds then someone else will take their place. that innovation will become the exception, not the norm, for a long time until newer companies earn enough money to innovate on a large scale.

Fixed.

 

[Sept Terrion Of Nothing]

Well, I played it relatively recent (1 year ago) for a second time. My first play was when it was released. So I can comment about it a bit.

I can say that Andromeda cannot compete with the Trilogy. It is really a downgrade from the original trilogy. You can see glimpses of a good game here and there but even after all those patches you can't see beyond glimpses. It tries to give legendary moments but fails. It wants to give interesting companions but fails. It wants to give good gameplay but sometime delivers. It tries to tell a legenday a new origin story but again, you can see glimpses and unfortunately fails on that too for the most of the time.

Therefore ME:A is mediocre game at best unfortunately. I say unfortunately because the potential wasted here big time. Wrong game designs and technical problems (yes, even after the patches) sealed its fate. At best it is 7/10 game and that is when it's peaked. It really is 6/10 game. Playable but forgottable. Not memorable like the first trilogy.

 

[Jack Videogames]

 

[GymWolf]

Played the game when it was already "fixed" and i thought it was ok at best, decent combat and some fun banters between companions but the villains were WEAK.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

I played it well after it was patched up. It was just boring.

 

[Edder1]

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the reason why next ME will be a disaster. The new Bioware haven't a clue on what makes a good game, let alone be able to make one. Even if somehow they managed to make one with competent and engaging gameplay (highly unlikely), you just know their writing is gonna be atrocious and their characters sanitised woke garbage (trans aliens here we come). Bioware is just a name at this point, but really it's just another studio full of woke talentless activists.

 

[TVexperto]

BioWare just isn't the same studio it was back in the day – nearly all the OG devs have moved on, and with recent layoffs gutting even more veterans, it’s tough to say if the 'BioWare magic' is still there or just a memory.

 

[nowhat]

Andromeda deserved the negativity thrown at it, the whole thing was trash, re-spawning enemies? Check! Literally there were times in the game where you would see a beast that you just took out literally drop down from the sky and re-appear again, WTF?

Yeah, this. You have "an open world". That you must traverse using Mako 2.0, otherwise it'd be boring beyond belief. But the world wasn't that open, you couldn't just dry-hump your way over a mountain like in Skyrim. So you have just a corridor shooter with wider corridors on most planets. With the same enemies respawing at always the same locations, often mid-air and falling to the ground, but I guess because of variety, sometimes within the terrain.

 

[Chuck Berry]

That's a hell of an OT and I don't understand it one bit

 

[LordOfChaos]

I actually finished Andromeda. I didn't hate it, I only hated that its reception (and it did launch in a poor buggy state) killed so many years of Mass Effect and any expansion for itself, which now seems to be a forever missing story.

It was the worst Mass Effect game, but an ok game.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Andromeda suffered from lots of filler and an uninteresting campaign. But its gameplay was perhaps the best the series has been. You could do a lot with different builds.

However the game was a slog to get through, and thus my least favourite ME.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

installed it, played it for a couple hours, uninstalled it

hated basically everything about it

edit: ps i beat the trilogy, enjoyed it

 

[Karak]

Holy shit, the revisionist shit from these companies from CDPR to Bioware to Sony, to even smaller devs is fucking frustrating me to no end.
Its ok to have a game that just wasn't good.

 

[simpatico]

I just feel bad for the people who are still hyped for a new Mass Effect.

IDK how anyone got beyond the Krogan with the high pitched teenage girl voice.

 

[nowhat]

Its ok to have a game that just wasn't good.

And like, a completely unreasonable ask, but just putting it out there... a company could, like, learn from their mistakes and feedback, and make a better game afterwards?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Holy shit, the revisionist shit from these companies from CDPR to Bioware to Sony, to even smaller devs is fucking frustrating me to no end.
Its ok to have a game that just wasn't good.

Thats video game companies for ya.

But to be fair, they kind of have to do it. If they dont and internally admit (or externally on social media) they fucked up, then all the clowns working there will get depressed and go ape shit on Twitter. If they get pissed, they'll leak even more confidential memos or games under development to reddit next time, or publicly criticize coworkers or bosses on Twitter. Or worst of all, keep battling customers on social media. So the company is kind of pressured to ease tensions and not get too critical since they cant take it.

If a candy company makes bad batches of lollipops, they'll just launch a new recipe next year. If a car company makes a bad model and has to sit through it for 6 years until the next refresh, they are mature enough to live with it. Nobody goes on reddit or Twitter trying to soften the blow or blame customers for not getting the vision.

Game companies are a different vibe. They seem to have major bravado their products are awesome and customers should inhale the fumes and love it. And why not? "We spent 5 years making the game, so why not give us a break and not bash it?"

Other companies in other industries just chock that up to bad business strategy or products and they'll try something better next time.

 

[Hayabusabruh]

Doesn't every game ever made seem really good after their most recent game? lol. MIght have to give that Gollum game a try.

 

[kiphalfton]

I know I am alone in this. But I did not hate Andromeda. The latest Dragon Age was the death of Bioware. Not Andromeda imo. (I did not play at launch, it was a mess then)

Keep lowering peoples' standards, and the last shitty thing you did doesn't look so bad by comparison.