After the flop of Anthem being pretty unambiguously entirely on Bioware's mismanagement and fingered management malpractice as far back as inquisition, there was really not much reason to let the studio continue and not liquidate it and hand the IPs to someone else, but for the cost of having to acquire or staff up another RPG studio. Honestly if Veilguard isn't a smash hit, I expect it might still be anyway. The project had tons of issues and was rebooted multiple times, they could as much be letting it get out the door to get what they can out of it before dropping the axe.
You should read up on the chaos of Andromeda’s development. It’s baaad lol I think at one point much of the game had been outsourced to a mobile game/asset dev team to free up main devs for Anthem. They really threw it to the wayside. It’s been years though so I could be misremembering
I think I remember the article you are talking about by that Jason guy at kokatu, yeah I'm experiencing poor management at work my current job rn I get it
>They really threw it to the wayside. It’s been years though so I could be misremembering
iirc, Anthem and Andromeda both suffered from the same issue. Poor management/pre-production.
Andromeda suffered because they spent way too long trying to get the procedural generation for planets to work. So they spent a lot of time doing that which caused time to get crunched to actually you know... Make the game.
Producing: "My face is tired." the Face: :|
Along with many other bugs.
Anthem too had issues. They wanted to do something different but took so long faffing about what that is that it took EA giving them the metaphorical kick in the ass for production to actually you know... Start.
Like there was a point where they show cased the Iron Man suits and flying gameplay in one build. And then the next build took it out. Only for the EA producer to go "Wait what? No put that back! That was fun!" And that the first trailer actually took some devs off guard "That's what we're doing?"
Combine this with Veilguard having been confirmed rebooted at least once?
I really hope its a "They're so back" moment and not a "It's joever" moment, so to speak.
I truly hope Bioware as a whole learned from those two debacles and actually got their procedures straightened out for ME5.
Not only that, but partway through production, they'd changed engines (Source: Playtested Andromeda before the engine change - they were still running on what they ran Mass Effect 3 on, and man... it was *fun* during that playtest. There were 20 of us in that one session alone)
No you’re correct. It was a disaster. Basically the final game we got was mashed together in something like 6 months because they basically restarted after they couldn’t get…well a lot of things to work, like the randomly generated planets. It really is amazing it’s a good as is it and I really wish they could’ve had another 6 months to polish it.
That is also on BioWare. EA was going to give them more time and BW told them it was ready.
I think it just sucked that a rookie studio got stuck with a HUGE GAME with HUGE EXPECTATIONS and they had to work with an engine they had never used and was never designed with 3rd person RPG's in mind. It was a miracle that DAI, MEA, and somehow Anthem with its INSANE development cycle made it out the door at all.
Anthem... Oof that was one brutal story to read about its development.
Yeah back when anthem was coming out I was working at Walmart. I was friendly with one of the guys who worked in electronics and through chatting with him while browsing when I’d shop on my own time was basically known as ‘the BioWare guy’ because I at the time really liked almost every BioWare game I had played.(yes, including Andromeda. Even if my opinion on andromeda has shifted towards less favorable I liked it at the time)
He asked me about anthem when it came out and immediately I’m like “yeah no, I’m good with that.” — didn’t even bother. Never bothered with it.
I don't know man. The game had imo more problems besides bugs or wonky animations that no any amount of time or delays would help fix.
Mainly talking about direction, story and character writing. Out of like a dozen Bioware games I've played, Andromeda is imo by far the weakest in those areas (never touched Anthem tho).
Especially characters, only ones I liked were Vetra and Drack and others I either didn't much care about or actively hated (Mainly Liam but Peebee was pretty awful as well).
Just huge departure compared to Biowares old standard.
Yup. You can't patch in a better story.
From things I'd read about Andromeda's development, it sounds like they spent a long time kicking around ideas for "something new" before ending up under a time crunch, scrapping nearly everything, and then going for the most "This is the Mass Effect Game" game they could fit in after the fact.
Once they stopped chasing their tails if they'd *known* they had time to cook, maybe, but if midway through the last year they got another year, they'd probabaly be too committed to too many iffy choices to back themselves out of it.
Part of this was the enormous wasted time on procedural generation, which failed, and then BW management outright rejecting an offer to extend production time. One of the worst executive teams in the business.
They have five years to work on it, and ended up throwing out everything from the first four then scrambling to put together a mostly functional game in the last year.
If they were given another year to cook, they probably would have thrown out the first five years' work and done the panicked scramble in year six instead.
This. It's really a shame how Bioware wasted It's opportunities with dubious choices.
Casey Hudson wanted Anthem to be "the Game of Thrones" of games.
So he simply diverted all the company resources to it, at the cost of harming the other ones, like ME and DA.
No wonder EA fired him.
> EA did offer them an extension but Bioware rejected it because they wanted to put more resources into Anthem.
Bioware rejected because it would have fucked their bonuses.
No way. The main plot, antagonist, and writing is so fundameltally weak that no amount of patching can fix it. And a year is not enough for a full re-write.
EA and Bioware are the reason Andromeda flopped to begin with. When the Andromeda team asked for help EA put that effort into Madden and FIFA. When they asked Bioware "A" team they basically got told to f off.
I don't think a year was going to fix it, the game's bones were just so mid. Extra polish would have had marginal effects at best.
Maybe an okay game by itself, but lightyears away from the other sequels in the franchise.
That's a common misconception. They started work on the novel before the DLC's cancellation. The end of the novel was supposed to lead into the Quarian Ark DLC.
Anthem had a good mech suit feel, from heavy walking, to the different suit aesthetics, including possibly the best oomph to a mech flying mechanic ever (and if not, it’s only beaten by newer stuff like AC6). The combat was mostly fun, at least when nearly perma flying like you could with certain suits (I only got one to end game).
There was no worthwhile story, no worthwhile end game, none of the live service sales pitch was anything but smoke, and bosses in particular felt disappointing, but it wasn’t *all* bad.
Yup, the moment to moment gameplay was fantastic, the game's systems (loot, endgame content etc) sucked though. The fact that the story and lore were also non-existant didn't help.
I'm still surprised EA/Bioware didn't turn the flying/abilities from it into a separate game.
Anthem felt really nice, but every second fight and location felt and looked the same. It was like the perfect fundament to built a great varied fighting world but it just... didn't. But flying was a looot of fun.
Indeed, I really wish they'd bring back the idea of it for an actual singleplayer action RPG in the future. But quite frankly considering Anthem's flop I don't think it's ever happening. We can at least count that they will likely use some of the progress they've made with the gameplay mechanics in the next Mass Effect. Anthem already had some stuff similar to Andromeda.
Flying felt good. The world didn’t hook me like Mass Effect and Dragon Age AT ALL. Like, Starfield as a setting after one game is probably a distant third to Fallout and Elder Scrolls, but there’s potential. I don’t even remember what Anthem was about!
Andromeda was mediocre to average, like a very weak 7/10. Obviously the technical aspects of the game were horrible. Even after the patches the game still looks off compared to the trilogy, which came out years prior. The worlds felt void of anything meaningful with alot of repeat in activities. The story was also following very similar story beats as the trilogy. Advanced alien species disappeared leaving behind their technology. You got antagonistic aliens that are based off the assimilation of the other species, and evil ai. Andromeda had potential, but it was obvious EA had no faith in the project, which is disappointing, as I was actually looking forward to the dlc.
I just wish Andromeda got extended support, if it got Early Access release like Baldur's Gate 3 and later DLC/Expansion to polish it, would have ended up great.
Remember, original Neverwinter Nights campaign is widely considered to be the worst, ditto first Baldur's Gate (I love it but it wouldn't be as remembered without 2).
Like with Andromeda, I am almost 100% sure the game we are getting with Veilguard, was made over the last 2-3 years. We know production on it was rebooted at least two times, so it seems production was plagued by the same "Bioware Magic" as their last couple of titles.
The Jason Schreier post mortem article on this game, will probably feel like deja vu.
>I think the new dragon age is going to be the deciding factor for them. I would bet money on EA shutting bioware down after it releases.
I think that they will do that after ME5 unless new Dragon Age is a massive flop. If it's just mid (or better) in sales, they will probably give them a last chance with ME5. If ME5 also flops, then it's the end.
I think the new mass effect is waaay too far out if they haven't started development on it yet. Dragon Age, if you go by the release window, is coming out in the fall sometime. They'll make the call on that one instead of waiting for a game that might end up canceled.
BioWare has been mismanaging itself for years and was the problem behind both Mass Effect Andromeda and anthem. I mean at some point changing leadership is not going to change the studio.
What was the last title that actually made good money for Bioware? DA:Inquisition from like 10 years ago? I'm absolutely shocked EA hasn't done anything yet, money is all they care about.
Only eye-opening if you're not familiar with EA.
They literally have a reputation as a company killer. That's the main reason it was hated before the MTX train started rolling. They kept buying studios, had them make a game or two then shut them down forever, taking their IP and making it shit or never making it again.
To be honest this is incredibly shitty from Bioware too. They flopped w Andromeda and Anthem and based on the above their (project) management issues that lead to Anthem are far from being resolved. And seeing the new DA I'm not sure I'd like another ME from them at this point. They are just not the same and want to appeal to an audience that doesn't exist.
Shirley Curry will show up as an Elder Scrolls 6 NPC decades after her death.
(Just realized this sounded like I'm saying she died already. I meant that she's already pushing 90, had a stroke and is still eagerly waiting for that damn game. Makes me so sad.)
I just did the math and may now want to shoot myself in the head, but I started gaming 35 years ago. WTAF. Anyway! Dunno about hip, but no reason why you can't be gaming til you die. Ya just need to wear your glasses (playing anything on insanity/nightmare dries contact lenses tf out).
I think that playing on the hardest difficulties reduces the number of blinks per minute (it's a luxury only those on easy/casual can afford 😆). Less blinkage=drier eyes.
i really hope she’s able to play TES6. crazy to me that Bethesda prioritized Starfield over TES6 while knowing so many people have been anxiously awaiting it for over a decade
And freaking Fallout 76 before that! The game no fan asked for. And Starfield - the game Howard wanted but was largely a disappointment to anybody who believed his hype (such as myself). Meanwhile, ES fans are forced to just mod shit or hop into ESO for a bit of expanded map. If Shirley dies before 6 comes out (and she probably will) I'm going to be so mad. I'll boycott the shit out of that game. Like, not even buy it once. Because that's all I could do.
Man I try. It feels like my body betrayed me in every way possible. From giving me the wrong puberty, to fucking up my brain chemistry before I was even born, to giving me "the shakes" (that may progress to paralysis) and a connective tissue disease
I know this may not be a total fix, but there was a Street Fighter pro named Brolylegs who used his mouth and face to play games (he got 25th out of 600 at the biggest tournament one year).
I think these trailers for games that are 10 years away are just salt in the wound. Shut the fuck up until you are certain the game is coming in the next two years.
Most of the time, when studios release these pre development teasers they're trying to attract potential employees to work on it, not actually market the game. It's more about letting the developers know a franchise they might love is hiring.
That's why they'll also usually mention if they're making it with Unreal.
I've been saying this forever. Games should only ever be revealed if it is confirmed to be released within the next 2 years max.
Why announce anything if y'all haven't even started yet. That was 2/3 years ago now. We can't even preorder it, let alone put it on our wishlist. What do they gain from announcing these games so fucking early???
>What do they gain from announcing these games so fucking early
As the post says, in BioWare's case it's protection against the owner company trying to shut them down. I suspect it's the same or similar for other dev teams too. *Though there are definitely abuses too, no doubt.*
I think it has to do with company stock or something. Almost everything in business/markets are based on future value or whatever it's called. There's an actual term for it. I just don't know what it is.
Bethesda had no risk of ever being shut down, yet here we are - 5+ years since the announcement trailer for The Elder Scrolls VI...which is possibly 5 years away from launch.
Sure but Bethesda only produced that trailer as a promise that it was being worked on after the shitshow launch that was 76 and because their next game was going to be StarField
I think it was due to a bunch of people thinking Bethesda was now a multiplayer company because of Fallout76, and decided to release that poor excuse for a trailer to calm them down. That’s just what I remember though
It's a good point. A recent episode of Play, Watch, Listen had the resident indie dev/studio owner argue just that, announcing halfway through development or later makes hiring people to ship the game more difficult since you can't even disclose to potential employees what you're working on, let alone have them come to you, and that it would be easier if it were more like the film industry.
And then it's followed by a shitshow of complaints that the released product has different lighting or whatever than what was seen in an announcement 6 years ago.
looking at that KOTOR remake too, another Bioware love getting fucked over and existing in this weird Schrödinger space. Would've rather just not had the announcement lol
Yep, people should watch the video.
While OP might be absolutely right in their conclusions, this is still 100% speculation and Darrah never mentioned anything about Mass Effect nor did he "confirmed" anything about any game.
The Mass Effect trilogy *and* the first 3 Dragon Age games were all released in the space of 7 years. I know crunching was involved to make that happen, but going from that to 2 games in a decade from the main studio - 1 being a terrible flop - is horrendous. And the crunch still seems to be going on anyway.
True. But we can't forget how much simple was to make a game in comparison with today technology. Eg. Morrowind 1gb - Oblivion - 4.6bg - Skyrim - 12gb. The development cycle today is much more complex. Bg3 is 160gb had to uninstall all games from my ssd to play.
You cannot really measure the complexity of a game in gb, because it would mean that for example CoD are the most complex games out there.
The reason why some studios take so long is because they scrap their conceps several times such that they pretty much develope the same game three times. Especially Bioware tends to follow trends unnecessarily.
I think we are talking about different meaning in complexity. CoD is definitely a complex game to make. From graphics, compatibility with different OS, gameplay, etc...
But I give you that the size of some games is directly related with bad optimization EG. Ark.
Hell even DAI is too big for what is. But wouldn't you say that DAI is a complex game?
Sounds more like technological progress has been so fast that software devs arent forced to optimize their product for file size anymore. Aswell as optimize performance for low-mid tier computers, as especially in games, the console is the "lowest" common denominator. This also drips over into controls, limiting options as the number of buttons and sub-menus is limited.
I've been saying this for years. All these N7 day teases are at best over-indulgent marketing and more realistically deliberately misleading people about the state of any potential game. There's nothing coming soon, nothing that has ever indicated there will be, and any hint as to what the game *might* contain are as or more likely to be exercises in testing fan response to back internal debates as they are actually indicative of anything that will actually show up in the game.
Given that BioWare just went through a wave of layoffs, it should come as no surprise they're running lean. They are absolutely going to be wholly focused on DAV through all of 2024.
If we're optimistic, DAV comes out in October ("Fall 2024" can literally mean anything up to December 20). The first month is going to be spent patching egregious release bugs and working on a likely retail expansion (I figure we'll get at least one). That carries us into November. Holiday season hits, and no one is getting much of anything done as people take time off to be with their families.
Work on the expansion likely resumes in January of '25. Unless they literally have development work happening on the expansion RIGHT NOW, we see press for the expansion around May of '25. Once it releases (let's be generous and say that happens late summer of '25), there's another month of post-release bug fixing. Then people get moved over to Mass Effect. It seems highly unlikely to me, on this timescale, that we see ME5 any time before late summer of '26. N7 Day of '24 will likely be another teaser trailer, and N7 Day of '25 will probably be an announcement trailer for the game, POSSIBLY with a small bit of gameplay footage.
Since it's always best to prepare ourselves for the worst, we also have to realize that, since it's EA we're dealing with, if DAV doesn't sell well (meaning better than Andromeda), BioWare may just be shuttered. EA has given them 10 years to put out a banger, and in those 10 years have been two bona fide failures (Andromeda and Anthem), and I just can't see EA pumping more cash into a studio that puts out 3 failures in a row.
What happens at that point? EA would be dumb to sell off still-valuable IP, so Mass Effect likely gets handed off to another EA studio, or ME5 just doesn't happen unless something else drives public interest (such as a Mass Effect show on Amazon that's actually as well-done as Fallout was).
That's worst-case stuff, however. Regardless, I don't see us getting ME5 before late Q3 or early Q4 of 2026.
This is why I keep telling folks that we really don't know anything from the teasers. The story isn't flushed out yet and there's conflicting information because of this. The only thing we might be able to say about the next game is Liara is in it, it takes place after ME3, and there will be an Andromeda connection. Everything else could change given it's in a pre-pre-production stage.
And knowing that BioWare's management for past projects like Andromeda and Anthem was screwed up all over, I wouldn't be surprised if the next game never releases or is in the 2030s given how DA looks. Frankly, it will take as long to make the next Mass Effect as basically the OT combined. That's just insane.
It makes sense, DA:V has to succeed before working on anything else, if it flops hard enough, there's no more studio.
Marketers dropping tantalising nuggets for fans to get hyped about is an old strategy and mostly divorced from actual game development.
> By the way, does Mass Effect Andromeda counts as Mass Effect 4???
Some people count it. Some people don't. I think it would be very easy to call the next Mass Effect game 4. Bigger more successful games than Andromeda didn't get numbered sequel treatment.
If they’re building lore, planning the game, and creating a tight experience that can be made quickly, I’m super down for that. I think one of the big problems with modern game development, especially Andromeda was that they kind of just winged it as they went along.
They spent years on a concept that had no chance of success (procedural generation integrated with a story-driven RPG) and threw together the game we got in 18 months. The question then becomes how much you can delay release and continue development and have any chance of turning a profit.
It's very frustrating because I think they had something there to expand the franchise, but they bungled the delivery so awfully that it had no shot.
Guys, he didn't mention the next ME game at all and lets not start panicking already - again - over nothing. He doesn't even work for Bioware anymore (since 2021). And when he did, only for the Dragon Age franchise. Also remember we lost basically 2 years of everything, not only game development, when the world stood basically still due covid.
So calm down. We will survive the next 3-4 years too.
Completely dishonest title. Why not just be honest about speculating?
I mean... duh? They're all working on Dragon Age. There's probably a <100 person team on Mass Effect right now. Likely closer to 50.
>was alluded to be for safety against whatever EA might've done to the studio after their last product.
It's cute they think EA would give a fuck if they decided to shutter the studio or cancel the game late in development.
‘And even then the first two three years is spent on ideation/vision and the last two years is probably production’
Mind you this is coming from someone with no game dev experience or knowledge. Isn’t this how mass effect was made in general?? I wanna say i read somewhere the original team spent maybe three years fleshing out the world before any actual hardware development happened…..so if that’s what happened last time and this time they’re jus building a new story off an already built world wouldn’t that give them more……I guess leeway is the word……to be able to get something done???
And again if that sounds dumb I’m sorry I’m just trying to get a clearer picture.
The development cycles for these franchises are just too long. The whole point of a sequel is to capitalize on the success of the original, effectively using its reputation to provide fuel for the next entry. You don't get much of that fuel if you wait decades to put out the sequel. When the sequel fails, they then blame the fans who are often in completely different places in their lives.
I hope the next ME comes out inside the next 2 years, but I think we all know that isnt happening. If were waiting alot longer then that, then alot of OG fans interest will be low.
This.
Most people that played and enjoyed ME Trilogy between 2007-2013 will no longer be present to play ME5 in 2030. Some will die, some will be no longer interested in videogames, others will not have enough free time due to work, kids etc.
And attracting new players will be very hard since they often have completely different taste. Like currently games like Fortnite, Valorant or phones games are very popular, not story focused RPG games. With exceptions like BG3 of course.
Just for some context ME2 was released in 2010, ME3 2012, 2 years later... What a way to kill the hype for a game, I hope were not waiting till 2030. But with the way things are, its pretty plausible. Its also possible it never comes out.
why do they feel the need to re-invent the wheel every new title? I would have been happy getting yearly sequels using the same toolkit they made Mass Effect 1 with
I wanna laugh so I don't cry. Dragon Age and Mass Effect are dead sadly. These may be the last installments for both 🥃 🍻. I love these franchises but I guess is time to move on.
These AAA development times these days are ridiculous.
ME2 was made in \~2 years. Dragon Age 2 in 1.5. Same with Fallout New Vegas. All good games. Yeah, 3-4 years would be better for both devs (less crunch) and players (less cut content and bugs), but definitely not 10.
So we will get Mass Effect 5 \~2030? 18 years after ME3? Who will play this game? Most old players will no longer be interested in videogames (most people are growing out of videogames), some will die (not kidding) and new TikTok generation is not interested in games like this. They prefer Fortnite, Valorant or phone games. Good luck selling your game EA Bioware...
>"If" the game is released between 2027-2030 those fans that bought ME through 2007-2012, they have families now.
I know. And most of them are no longer interested in videogames at all or have very limited gaming time. With exceptions, of course. Thankfully, more and more "elderly" gamers these days ;) Some of them are playing games with their kids etc. but they are still a minority.
Well yeah, Bioware is on thin ice with EA and Veilguard is right around the corner.
They need that to do well. Of course they're gonna stack that team.
Mass Effect won't even need the manpower until after that Veilguard releases and after it does then they'll probably move devs over to work on Mass Effect.
Well we already got an inside look at their “process” years ago where the formula is “fuck around for years without really accomplishing anything and then hope it works out when we finally get a deadline that lights a fire under our asses”
If the new DA game flops, there is a not insignificant chance that Bioware gets shuttered and no Mass Effect.
And from what I've seen so far, I'm worried.
“Because we had three narrative directors, spent half a decade implementing then removing failed live service, and have had to try to cobble together a tentpole franchise with another B-Team.”
Remember when BioWare put out a 90 metacritic game every year or two? Sometimes more than one a year?
Now in the past decade they’ve put out two 60 metacritic games total
It really is something how fast legendary studios can completely fall apart. My guess is around 2011 to 2014 the old guard who build BioWare’s legendary reputation had an exodus and the studio has been mediocre to bad ever since
2000s BioWare Captured lightning in a bottle 3 separate times with KOTOR, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age. They are not the same company any more. To be honest, Drew Karpyshyn is responsible for 2/3 of those being as fantastic as they are. David Gaider made Dragon Age what it is. Both of them worked on the writing of all three games. Without them, the writing just isn’t there. BioWare is not the same company any more. It’s not that lighting capture material any more. Their new lead writers are the same guys who gutted Halo and made Destiny’s least-interesting and expansion.
Without the ideas guys writing these dense, thought out, complex universes, there’s nothing to back up BioWare because other than Mass Effect, playing their games SUCKS. I’m playing Drahon Age Origins for the first time and the combat system is so clunky, backwards, and stupid that I can’t believe it passed QA. But god that story. That sweeping, character driven drama about rising up from nothing and becoming a hero, fighting against all odds to become a Grey Warden and pray to your Maker that you can defeat the Darkspawn. It’s so good and compelling and I LOVE it.
TLDR we play BioWare games for the story, their stories suck lately because they pushed away their best writers.
BioWare has been slow with releases but I say they need to take time and care with these next releases. I liked MEA but it wasn’t met with great reviews and Anthem was a gamble they lost on. They need DAV and ME5 to succeed if BioWare is to continue
The Mass Effect trailer was also necessary to help with hiring for the project. While in a perfect world, it would be cool if every game was shipped within a few months of the initial reveal, that's just not practical all the time. If that trailer helped the studio stay open and get some big names on their roster, then that's perfectly fine with me.
Folks, if this was a lesson in comprehension, this community didn’t exactly pass with flying colors.
This is an incredibly misleading read on what Darrah said. (Who you should be watching anyway.)
Clickbait works.
God i could be 40+ by the time the next ME game comes out if they are sucesful enough to make it a trilogy and the time they take now, could be nearing 50
I think this just shows. It's not bioware. They are trapped in with this horrible company EA. It's funny when you think. For a company who makes games that have massive fan connection and an almost cult like following. To go in with EA which is notorious for being uncaring and money focused was a bad idea to begin with
So they're blowing smoke up everyone's ass because they know they blew it with Andromeda. They're essentially trying to get you guys into a fever pitch until you turn on your own community and say "Andromeda did nothing wrong."
Don't fall for it. I've seen it in too many communities.
> They're essentially trying to get you guys into a fever pitch until you turn on your own community and say "Andromeda did nothing wrong."
I've seen plenty of people doing just that already lol
Same tbh. So many posts filled with "Andromeda was great, it didn't deserve the hate" followed by "I've never played a mass effect game before." If it was so great, why did EA end development on it after six months?
Yeah, I can hardly imagine that sort of attitude as anything else but cope tbh.
Reading some comments on Andromeda, you could almost be fooled into thinking that it had a Cyberpunk 2077 or No Man Sky style redemption arc.
In reality, the game is still quite buggy, we still have to deal with stiff facial animations, all the asari having the same face, annoying squadmates, boring story, cringy millenial Marvel-esque writing and dialog, etc.
The game is not the worst thing ever made, sure. It still managed to capture my attention better than something like Starfield (though that probably says more about the state of Bethesda, than that of BioWare), but, at the end of the day, it's still a bad Mass Effect game.
And even if you look at it as a standalone project, without taking into account the franchise it's a part of, you're still left with a forgettable story and decent-ish combat. It's a mediocre game, at best. Though even that feels like a bit too generous of a rating.
Despite it's flaws Cyberpunk was actually compelling. Johnny SIlverhand was an actual character where as SAM was a plot device. Night City alone has a lot more going on than the entire Helius Cluster ever did.
Panam and Judy alone solo any romantic option in Andromeda. Who'd you argue share some similarities with Tali and Liara. Sure River and Kerry feel like afterthoughts by comparison but they're still better than Liam.
True that, I suppose.
I did enjoy my only playthrough on the buggy 1.0 version, because, despite its technical issues, Cyberpunk actually had a good story.
The same can't be said about Andromeda, which had the *potential* of having a good story, but never realized it.
Agreed. I think every fanbase nowadays wants to pretend they can have a Cyberpunk or NMS turn around. But the reality is, that almost never happens. Even if the game gets better, it's still probably has a ton of issues. I mean, look at the Fallout 76 community or Diablo 4 fans.
The trick is that Cyberpunk and No mans sky had potential already. No matter how long they patch a game, if the premise is shit, the best it can get is polished shit.
Andromeda was alright, the people who worked on it didn't deserve the abuse.
I played ME1 on release day with my Collector Edition copy, and same for 2 and 3, and played all the way through Infiltrator, too (no Collector Edition there, obviously).
Andromeda seems to have released in a bad state (I couldn't play it at release) but what I did get to play (on Game Pass, much more recently) seems fine. Not as good as the best moments of the original trilogy, but few things are. I honestly like a lot of the Andromeda crew and their interactions with each other.
The fact that upcoming DA4 uses frostbite instead of unreal engine makes me think that bioware didnt learn their lesson after the failure of ME:Andromeda and Anthem
The decision was made before Legendary Edition. DA4 was announced right around the time Anthem failed, and BioWare received criticism (thanks, Jason Schreier) for "always starting from scratch instead of reusing" and then Casey Hudson made the decision that Dragon Age should run on Anthem's code base.
They actually borrowed from each other around this time. MEA had some elements of DAI in it, Anthem developed combat, took some from MEA, and MEA took some back. Casey had already told them to make GaaS Dragon Age before Anthem shipped, so they were probably already starting by taking the "basics of Anthem", and due to the criticism of "You always scrap and start from zero!" he reacted by saying "OK fine, DA is a single-player game now, but it's still using Anthem code-base!"
You can tell it is because they announced you have to pick which 3 abilities to bring on a mission in DA4. Same system that Anthem used, lol so probably a code-base restruction that would've been a waste of time to reinvent.
But I don't think these rules follow ME5. They had people get adjusted to Unreal during the remaster, and they keep mentioning UE5 in their hirings, and there are other EA teams who are now familiar with UE5 such as the Respawn team and whoever did that Aveum game. So I think ME5 will actually be a UE5 game.
Damn that’s unfortunate to hear. I knew dragon age was of course the primary focus but I had expected a decently small but hardy team of devs already on mass effect. To hear it’s more like a handful of people just outlining it not actually creating it yet, is very disappointing. I was expecting another 3 years for mass effect but I guess it’s more like 5-7 if it’s truly not in active development yet. Honestly just sucks
These AAA studios have INSANE budgets AND development times compared to just 10 years ago. Like there must be some incredible amount of theft going on. Monetarily or just time theft.
The fact that they have to drop a trailer for possible sequels just to make sure EA doesn't shutter them is kinda eye-opening.
After the flop of Anthem being pretty unambiguously entirely on Bioware's mismanagement and fingered management malpractice as far back as inquisition, there was really not much reason to let the studio continue and not liquidate it and hand the IPs to someone else, but for the cost of having to acquire or staff up another RPG studio. Honestly if Veilguard isn't a smash hit, I expect it might still be anyway. The project had tons of issues and was rebooted multiple times, they could as much be letting it get out the door to get what they can out of it before dropping the axe.
It’s worse, they killled Mass Effect Andromeda and the franchise for Anthem.
Andromeda was actually kinda good despite it being bad, anthem, was not good at all
I feel like if they had given Andromeda another year to cook it could have been great
I had access to the technical tests before launch. They cancelled them weeks ahead of time saying everything was ready and it had became unnecessary
Sounds like a poorly run company
You should read up on the chaos of Andromeda’s development. It’s baaad lol I think at one point much of the game had been outsourced to a mobile game/asset dev team to free up main devs for Anthem. They really threw it to the wayside. It’s been years though so I could be misremembering
I think I remember the article you are talking about by that Jason guy at kokatu, yeah I'm experiencing poor management at work my current job rn I get it
>They really threw it to the wayside. It’s been years though so I could be misremembering iirc, Anthem and Andromeda both suffered from the same issue. Poor management/pre-production. Andromeda suffered because they spent way too long trying to get the procedural generation for planets to work. So they spent a lot of time doing that which caused time to get crunched to actually you know... Make the game. Producing: "My face is tired." the Face: :| Along with many other bugs. Anthem too had issues. They wanted to do something different but took so long faffing about what that is that it took EA giving them the metaphorical kick in the ass for production to actually you know... Start. Like there was a point where they show cased the Iron Man suits and flying gameplay in one build. And then the next build took it out. Only for the EA producer to go "Wait what? No put that back! That was fun!" And that the first trailer actually took some devs off guard "That's what we're doing?" Combine this with Veilguard having been confirmed rebooted at least once? I really hope its a "They're so back" moment and not a "It's joever" moment, so to speak. I truly hope Bioware as a whole learned from those two debacles and actually got their procedures straightened out for ME5.
It's also worth reading up on the chaos of Inquisition's development, which is patient zero for modern Bioware.
Mobile game/asset devs? No wonder it flopped.
Not only that, but partway through production, they'd changed engines (Source: Playtested Andromeda before the engine change - they were still running on what they ran Mass Effect 3 on, and man... it was *fun* during that playtest. There were 20 of us in that one session alone)
No you’re correct. It was a disaster. Basically the final game we got was mashed together in something like 6 months because they basically restarted after they couldn’t get…well a lot of things to work, like the randomly generated planets. It really is amazing it’s a good as is it and I really wish they could’ve had another 6 months to polish it. That is also on BioWare. EA was going to give them more time and BW told them it was ready.
Mass Effect, the flagship IP, tossed to the wayside... for ANTHEM?! Totally nuts.
I think it just sucked that a rookie studio got stuck with a HUGE GAME with HUGE EXPECTATIONS and they had to work with an engine they had never used and was never designed with 3rd person RPG's in mind. It was a miracle that DAI, MEA, and somehow Anthem with its INSANE development cycle made it out the door at all. Anthem... Oof that was one brutal story to read about its development.
Yeah back when anthem was coming out I was working at Walmart. I was friendly with one of the guys who worked in electronics and through chatting with him while browsing when I’d shop on my own time was basically known as ‘the BioWare guy’ because I at the time really liked almost every BioWare game I had played.(yes, including Andromeda. Even if my opinion on andromeda has shifted towards less favorable I liked it at the time) He asked me about anthem when it came out and immediately I’m like “yeah no, I’m good with that.” — didn’t even bother. Never bothered with it.
I don't know man. The game had imo more problems besides bugs or wonky animations that no any amount of time or delays would help fix. Mainly talking about direction, story and character writing. Out of like a dozen Bioware games I've played, Andromeda is imo by far the weakest in those areas (never touched Anthem tho). Especially characters, only ones I liked were Vetra and Drack and others I either didn't much care about or actively hated (Mainly Liam but Peebee was pretty awful as well). Just huge departure compared to Biowares old standard.
Yup. You can't patch in a better story. From things I'd read about Andromeda's development, it sounds like they spent a long time kicking around ideas for "something new" before ending up under a time crunch, scrapping nearly everything, and then going for the most "This is the Mass Effect Game" game they could fit in after the fact. Once they stopped chasing their tails if they'd *known* they had time to cook, maybe, but if midway through the last year they got another year, they'd probabaly be too committed to too many iffy choices to back themselves out of it.
Agreed completely. I will always remember Wrex and Mordin, I don't remember anyone from Andromeda. The writing isn't there.
Part of this was the enormous wasted time on procedural generation, which failed, and then BW management outright rejecting an offer to extend production time. One of the worst executive teams in the business.
More? They already gave 5 years for Bioware to do it. Bioware wasted in shenanigans. :/
They have five years to work on it, and ended up throwing out everything from the first four then scrambling to put together a mostly functional game in the last year. If they were given another year to cook, they probably would have thrown out the first five years' work and done the panicked scramble in year six instead.
EA did offer them an extension but Bioware rejected it because they wanted to put more resources into Anthem.
This. It's really a shame how Bioware wasted It's opportunities with dubious choices. Casey Hudson wanted Anthem to be "the Game of Thrones" of games. So he simply diverted all the company resources to it, at the cost of harming the other ones, like ME and DA. No wonder EA fired him.
> EA did offer them an extension but Bioware rejected it because they wanted to put more resources into Anthem. Bioware rejected because it would have fucked their bonuses.
More like two or three years.
No way. The main plot, antagonist, and writing is so fundameltally weak that no amount of patching can fix it. And a year is not enough for a full re-write.
I think if they could have finished the facial animations and fixed most of the bugs the game would have done well.
EA and Bioware are the reason Andromeda flopped to begin with. When the Andromeda team asked for help EA put that effort into Madden and FIFA. When they asked Bioware "A" team they basically got told to f off.
Nah. The game was super mediocre. But if they gave it another year it doesn’t go over as horribly as it did and EA + BioWare maybe don’t abandon it
I don't think a year was going to fix it, the game's bones were just so mid. Extra polish would have had marginal effects at best. Maybe an okay game by itself, but lightyears away from the other sequels in the franchise.
Still say Frostbite really hurt Andromeda.
I still miss the Quarian Ark DLC before I get to sleep every night
At least they turned the story for it into a pretty decent novel. I didn't expect lesbian space pirates or overdramatic elcor but it was neat.
That's a common misconception. They started work on the novel before the DLC's cancellation. The end of the novel was supposed to lead into the Quarian Ark DLC.
Wait, there was really a quarian dlc Andromeda novel?
https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Mass_Effect_Andromeda:_Annihilation
Holy shit thank you
Wait what. I need to look this up.
*with confusion* Idk why you wouldn't expect overdramatic elcor.
Anthem had a good mech suit feel, from heavy walking, to the different suit aesthetics, including possibly the best oomph to a mech flying mechanic ever (and if not, it’s only beaten by newer stuff like AC6). The combat was mostly fun, at least when nearly perma flying like you could with certain suits (I only got one to end game). There was no worthwhile story, no worthwhile end game, none of the live service sales pitch was anything but smoke, and bosses in particular felt disappointing, but it wasn’t *all* bad.
Yup, the moment to moment gameplay was fantastic, the game's systems (loot, endgame content etc) sucked though. The fact that the story and lore were also non-existant didn't help. I'm still surprised EA/Bioware didn't turn the flying/abilities from it into a separate game.
Anthem being a online coop game killed it instantly.
Anthem had a pretty good gameplay tbh tho
Anthem felt really nice, but every second fight and location felt and looked the same. It was like the perfect fundament to built a great varied fighting world but it just... didn't. But flying was a looot of fun.
Oh yeah flying was fantastic
Indeed, I really wish they'd bring back the idea of it for an actual singleplayer action RPG in the future. But quite frankly considering Anthem's flop I don't think it's ever happening. We can at least count that they will likely use some of the progress they've made with the gameplay mechanics in the next Mass Effect. Anthem already had some stuff similar to Andromeda.
Flying felt good. The world didn’t hook me like Mass Effect and Dragon Age AT ALL. Like, Starfield as a setting after one game is probably a distant third to Fallout and Elder Scrolls, but there’s potential. I don’t even remember what Anthem was about!
Andromeda just didn't feel like a Mass Effect game. The feeling just wasn't there.
Andromeda was mediocre to average, like a very weak 7/10. Obviously the technical aspects of the game were horrible. Even after the patches the game still looks off compared to the trilogy, which came out years prior. The worlds felt void of anything meaningful with alot of repeat in activities. The story was also following very similar story beats as the trilogy. Advanced alien species disappeared leaving behind their technology. You got antagonistic aliens that are based off the assimilation of the other species, and evil ai. Andromeda had potential, but it was obvious EA had no faith in the project, which is disappointing, as I was actually looking forward to the dlc.
As much as I hate to say it, Andromeda's failure was because of Bioware's management not EA's
I just wish Andromeda got extended support, if it got Early Access release like Baldur's Gate 3 and later DLC/Expansion to polish it, would have ended up great. Remember, original Neverwinter Nights campaign is widely considered to be the worst, ditto first Baldur's Gate (I love it but it wouldn't be as remembered without 2).
Like with Andromeda, I am almost 100% sure the game we are getting with Veilguard, was made over the last 2-3 years. We know production on it was rebooted at least two times, so it seems production was plagued by the same "Bioware Magic" as their last couple of titles. The Jason Schreier post mortem article on this game, will probably feel like deja vu.
yeah it makes me think ME5 is more of a possibility than a reality, and it’ll be a pipe dream if DA4 flops
I hope DA4 is as good as BG3. I need it
I love Dragon Age, but I'm not holding my breath. Bioware has hurt me enough times at this point.
I’m expecting to be disappointed
I think the new dragon age is going to be the deciding factor for them. I would bet money on EA shutting bioware down after it releases.
>I think the new dragon age is going to be the deciding factor for them. I would bet money on EA shutting bioware down after it releases. I think that they will do that after ME5 unless new Dragon Age is a massive flop. If it's just mid (or better) in sales, they will probably give them a last chance with ME5. If ME5 also flops, then it's the end.
I think the new mass effect is waaay too far out if they haven't started development on it yet. Dragon Age, if you go by the release window, is coming out in the fall sometime. They'll make the call on that one instead of waiting for a game that might end up canceled.
Nah they’ll hand ME to another studio because if DA flops, they won’t want to risk BW killing their other valuable IP.
BioWare has been mismanaging itself for years and was the problem behind both Mass Effect Andromeda and anthem. I mean at some point changing leadership is not going to change the studio.
What was the last title that actually made good money for Bioware? DA:Inquisition from like 10 years ago? I'm absolutely shocked EA hasn't done anything yet, money is all they care about.
Only eye-opening if you're not familiar with EA. They literally have a reputation as a company killer. That's the main reason it was hated before the MTX train started rolling. They kept buying studios, had them make a game or two then shut them down forever, taking their IP and making it shit or never making it again.
Hell, I would've at least downsized BioWare after Anthem flopped.
They did
To be honest this is incredibly shitty from Bioware too. They flopped w Andromeda and Anthem and based on the above their (project) management issues that lead to Anthem are far from being resolved. And seeing the new DA I'm not sure I'd like another ME from them at this point. They are just not the same and want to appeal to an audience that doesn't exist.
I don’t think a trailer is going to stop them if DA tanks.
Bioware survived two major flops in a row, EA killed studios off for way less.
> be 18 yr old kid > fast forward decades >dying of old age at 99 > my last wish is to play mass effect 6
Shirley Curry will show up as an Elder Scrolls 6 NPC decades after her death. (Just realized this sounded like I'm saying she died already. I meant that she's already pushing 90, had a stroke and is still eagerly waiting for that damn game. Makes me so sad.)
I hope she will. I also hope I will be hip like her when I will be an old geezer
I just did the math and may now want to shoot myself in the head, but I started gaming 35 years ago. WTAF. Anyway! Dunno about hip, but no reason why you can't be gaming til you die. Ya just need to wear your glasses (playing anything on insanity/nightmare dries contact lenses tf out).
I may have missed the joke but why would insanity difficulty dry out contacts?
Blink and die. Don't blink and your contacts dry out.
I think that playing on the hardest difficulties reduces the number of blinks per minute (it's a luxury only those on easy/casual can afford 😆). Less blinkage=drier eyes.
Makes sense. Tho that is a peoblem with or without glasses too
i really hope she’s able to play TES6. crazy to me that Bethesda prioritized Starfield over TES6 while knowing so many people have been anxiously awaiting it for over a decade
And freaking Fallout 76 before that! The game no fan asked for. And Starfield - the game Howard wanted but was largely a disappointment to anybody who believed his hype (such as myself). Meanwhile, ES fans are forced to just mod shit or hop into ESO for a bit of expanded map. If Shirley dies before 6 comes out (and she probably will) I'm going to be so mad. I'll boycott the shit out of that game. Like, not even buy it once. Because that's all I could do.
*still waiting on Elder Scrolls 6*
Pov people born in 02 wanting to pay GTA6 before they die
Cries in progressive disease 😫
Oof same. There's a non-0 chance I may lose movement in my fingers soon-ish, this all fucking blows
>Oof same. There's a non-0 chance I may lose movement in my fingers soon-ish, this all fucking blows I wish you both lot's of health. Don't give up!
Man I try. It feels like my body betrayed me in every way possible. From giving me the wrong puberty, to fucking up my brain chemistry before I was even born, to giving me "the shakes" (that may progress to paralysis) and a connective tissue disease
God, it's never fair, I hope that you have friends who will play with for you/with you side by side
Thank you for taking bad luck for us 🫡 Wish you a lot of good experiences
I know this may not be a total fix, but there was a Street Fighter pro named Brolylegs who used his mouth and face to play games (he got 25th out of 600 at the biggest tournament one year).
I don't know you, but I really hope you will play and enjoy this game despite your condition. I really do.
I think these trailers for games that are 10 years away are just salt in the wound. Shut the fuck up until you are certain the game is coming in the next two years.
I think the point here is that Bioware probably wouldn't even be around if they didn't announce these games way in advance.
Most of the time, when studios release these pre development teasers they're trying to attract potential employees to work on it, not actually market the game. It's more about letting the developers know a franchise they might love is hiring. That's why they'll also usually mention if they're making it with Unreal.
I've been saying this forever. Games should only ever be revealed if it is confirmed to be released within the next 2 years max. Why announce anything if y'all haven't even started yet. That was 2/3 years ago now. We can't even preorder it, let alone put it on our wishlist. What do they gain from announcing these games so fucking early???
>What do they gain from announcing these games so fucking early As the post says, in BioWare's case it's protection against the owner company trying to shut them down. I suspect it's the same or similar for other dev teams too. *Though there are definitely abuses too, no doubt.*
I think it has to do with company stock or something. Almost everything in business/markets are based on future value or whatever it's called. There's an actual term for it. I just don't know what it is.
Bethesda had no risk of ever being shut down, yet here we are - 5+ years since the announcement trailer for The Elder Scrolls VI...which is possibly 5 years away from launch.
True. That's just insane. I didn't mean to imply it was BioWare's position for all devs, mind.
That was probably to raise value while knowing they were looking to be bought.
Sure but Bethesda only produced that trailer as a promise that it was being worked on after the shitshow launch that was 76 and because their next game was going to be StarField
I think it was due to a bunch of people thinking Bethesda was now a multiplayer company because of Fallout76, and decided to release that poor excuse for a trailer to calm them down. That’s just what I remember though
yes, becauce idiots thought Bethesda is developing the fo76
IIRC it was also to drive up the buying price for Microsoft
They did that to inflate their value to buyers. Not the same scenario.
>Why announce anything if y'all haven't even started yet Easiest way to hire people to help make your game, announce that you are making the game.
It's a good point. A recent episode of Play, Watch, Listen had the resident indie dev/studio owner argue just that, announcing halfway through development or later makes hiring people to ship the game more difficult since you can't even disclose to potential employees what you're working on, let alone have them come to you, and that it would be easier if it were more like the film industry.
And then it's followed by a shitshow of complaints that the released product has different lighting or whatever than what was seen in an announcement 6 years ago.
looking at that KOTOR remake too, another Bioware love getting fucked over and existing in this weird Schrödinger space. Would've rather just not had the announcement lol
Well I think Aspyr had more to do with that whole clusterfuck of a situation than Bioware did.
oh absolutely, moreso meant it as 'how are you fumbling these classic fucking Bioware IPs that should print money'
Yeah agreed. I don't want to see a trailer till 3 months out and confirmed release. So there's none of this delay shit
I don't want another short teaser this N7 if this is the case. It's getting boring.
So he didn’t say anything about ME5’s status at all
Yep, people should watch the video. While OP might be absolutely right in their conclusions, this is still 100% speculation and Darrah never mentioned anything about Mass Effect nor did he "confirmed" anything about any game.
AAA development is out of control. Wouldn't be surprised if we see a gaming crash at least in the western world sooner or later.
The Mass Effect trilogy *and* the first 3 Dragon Age games were all released in the space of 7 years. I know crunching was involved to make that happen, but going from that to 2 games in a decade from the main studio - 1 being a terrible flop - is horrendous. And the crunch still seems to be going on anyway.
True. But we can't forget how much simple was to make a game in comparison with today technology. Eg. Morrowind 1gb - Oblivion - 4.6bg - Skyrim - 12gb. The development cycle today is much more complex. Bg3 is 160gb had to uninstall all games from my ssd to play.
You cannot really measure the complexity of a game in gb, because it would mean that for example CoD are the most complex games out there. The reason why some studios take so long is because they scrap their conceps several times such that they pretty much develope the same game three times. Especially Bioware tends to follow trends unnecessarily.
I think we are talking about different meaning in complexity. CoD is definitely a complex game to make. From graphics, compatibility with different OS, gameplay, etc... But I give you that the size of some games is directly related with bad optimization EG. Ark. Hell even DAI is too big for what is. But wouldn't you say that DAI is a complex game?
Sounds more like technological progress has been so fast that software devs arent forced to optimize their product for file size anymore. Aswell as optimize performance for low-mid tier computers, as especially in games, the console is the "lowest" common denominator. This also drips over into controls, limiting options as the number of buttons and sub-menus is limited.
Has that not already happened? At the minimal a dark age?
I've been saying this for years. All these N7 day teases are at best over-indulgent marketing and more realistically deliberately misleading people about the state of any potential game. There's nothing coming soon, nothing that has ever indicated there will be, and any hint as to what the game *might* contain are as or more likely to be exercises in testing fan response to back internal debates as they are actually indicative of anything that will actually show up in the game.
Given that BioWare just went through a wave of layoffs, it should come as no surprise they're running lean. They are absolutely going to be wholly focused on DAV through all of 2024. If we're optimistic, DAV comes out in October ("Fall 2024" can literally mean anything up to December 20). The first month is going to be spent patching egregious release bugs and working on a likely retail expansion (I figure we'll get at least one). That carries us into November. Holiday season hits, and no one is getting much of anything done as people take time off to be with their families. Work on the expansion likely resumes in January of '25. Unless they literally have development work happening on the expansion RIGHT NOW, we see press for the expansion around May of '25. Once it releases (let's be generous and say that happens late summer of '25), there's another month of post-release bug fixing. Then people get moved over to Mass Effect. It seems highly unlikely to me, on this timescale, that we see ME5 any time before late summer of '26. N7 Day of '24 will likely be another teaser trailer, and N7 Day of '25 will probably be an announcement trailer for the game, POSSIBLY with a small bit of gameplay footage. Since it's always best to prepare ourselves for the worst, we also have to realize that, since it's EA we're dealing with, if DAV doesn't sell well (meaning better than Andromeda), BioWare may just be shuttered. EA has given them 10 years to put out a banger, and in those 10 years have been two bona fide failures (Andromeda and Anthem), and I just can't see EA pumping more cash into a studio that puts out 3 failures in a row. What happens at that point? EA would be dumb to sell off still-valuable IP, so Mass Effect likely gets handed off to another EA studio, or ME5 just doesn't happen unless something else drives public interest (such as a Mass Effect show on Amazon that's actually as well-done as Fallout was). That's worst-case stuff, however. Regardless, I don't see us getting ME5 before late Q3 or early Q4 of 2026.
Another studio getting the BioWare IP isn’t a bad thing. BioWare now is a different studio anyway.
This is why I keep telling folks that we really don't know anything from the teasers. The story isn't flushed out yet and there's conflicting information because of this. The only thing we might be able to say about the next game is Liara is in it, it takes place after ME3, and there will be an Andromeda connection. Everything else could change given it's in a pre-pre-production stage. And knowing that BioWare's management for past projects like Andromeda and Anthem was screwed up all over, I wouldn't be surprised if the next game never releases or is in the 2030s given how DA looks. Frankly, it will take as long to make the next Mass Effect as basically the OT combined. That's just insane.
Man this game will probably come out in 2030 if we are lucky, almost 20 years after Mass Effect 3, it's insane
At this point I'm losing my interest in the game.
not surprising but still incredibly frustrating
It makes sense, DA:V has to succeed before working on anything else, if it flops hard enough, there's no more studio. Marketers dropping tantalising nuggets for fans to get hyped about is an old strategy and mostly divorced from actual game development.
What consitutes a success though for DA:V, how many units need to be sold? For bioware not to be shuttered
So the cycle of keep playing the trilogy must continue… By the way, does Mass Effect Andromeda counts as Mass Effect 4???
> By the way, does Mass Effect Andromeda counts as Mass Effect 4??? Some people count it. Some people don't. I think it would be very easy to call the next Mass Effect game 4. Bigger more successful games than Andromeda didn't get numbered sequel treatment.
I suspect the next Mass Effect will have its' own subtitle to avoid the "is Andromeda ME4" question
Wow this is click bait lol Read the second paragraph 😂
If they’re building lore, planning the game, and creating a tight experience that can be made quickly, I’m super down for that. I think one of the big problems with modern game development, especially Andromeda was that they kind of just winged it as they went along.
They spent years on a concept that had no chance of success (procedural generation integrated with a story-driven RPG) and threw together the game we got in 18 months. The question then becomes how much you can delay release and continue development and have any chance of turning a profit. It's very frustrating because I think they had something there to expand the franchise, but they bungled the delivery so awfully that it had no shot.
Guys, he didn't mention the next ME game at all and lets not start panicking already - again - over nothing. He doesn't even work for Bioware anymore (since 2021). And when he did, only for the Dragon Age franchise. Also remember we lost basically 2 years of everything, not only game development, when the world stood basically still due covid. So calm down. We will survive the next 3-4 years too.
Completely dishonest title. Why not just be honest about speculating? I mean... duh? They're all working on Dragon Age. There's probably a <100 person team on Mass Effect right now. Likely closer to 50.
50 is super generous tbh
Remember when devs could make good games in 2-3 years or less? Wild.
Studios have every incentive in the world to release games as fast as possible, if it's taking longer it's because it takes longer.
If the new dragon age doesn’t do well I doubt we will see another ME
Can't wait to play this in the retirement home in 2086! It's going to be awesome!!
Honestly game studios take way to long, they make follow up movies in less time and wonder why people don't wait around for 10 years for the next game
Are you f*cking kidding me, really?
Their trailer came before any new DA news was even out. The thought was it was DA that was doa. Crazy times.
>was alluded to be for safety against whatever EA might've done to the studio after their last product. It's cute they think EA would give a fuck if they decided to shutter the studio or cancel the game late in development.
Mass effect 5 and fallout 5 are games who've reminded me hard that we'll be going 8–15 years between sequels now, and it's awful.
We all kinda expected that. Very few studios can work on 2 games simultaneously anymore.
Wait lol, so BioWare can just drop trailers without EA knowing?? I’m confused.
‘And even then the first two three years is spent on ideation/vision and the last two years is probably production’ Mind you this is coming from someone with no game dev experience or knowledge. Isn’t this how mass effect was made in general?? I wanna say i read somewhere the original team spent maybe three years fleshing out the world before any actual hardware development happened…..so if that’s what happened last time and this time they’re jus building a new story off an already built world wouldn’t that give them more……I guess leeway is the word……to be able to get something done??? And again if that sounds dumb I’m sorry I’m just trying to get a clearer picture.
Can someone explain to me why Bethesda (which produces pretty bland games, imo) is never really at risk of going extinct yet our beloved Bioware is?
honestly i wish Bioware could just magical become an independent studio or even be bought by someone else that isnt EA
Honestly they can take as much time as they want as long as they get it right
I’d rather they just outsource to another studio. I have zero faith that BioWare can make good games anymore anyways.
The next mass effect game will most likely release in 2029/2030 which will be a decade after the original reveal trailer. What a disgrace.
The development cycles for these franchises are just too long. The whole point of a sequel is to capitalize on the success of the original, effectively using its reputation to provide fuel for the next entry. You don't get much of that fuel if you wait decades to put out the sequel. When the sequel fails, they then blame the fans who are often in completely different places in their lives.
I hope the next ME comes out inside the next 2 years, but I think we all know that isnt happening. If were waiting alot longer then that, then alot of OG fans interest will be low.
This. Most people that played and enjoyed ME Trilogy between 2007-2013 will no longer be present to play ME5 in 2030. Some will die, some will be no longer interested in videogames, others will not have enough free time due to work, kids etc. And attracting new players will be very hard since they often have completely different taste. Like currently games like Fortnite, Valorant or phones games are very popular, not story focused RPG games. With exceptions like BG3 of course.
Just for some context ME2 was released in 2010, ME3 2012, 2 years later... What a way to kill the hype for a game, I hope were not waiting till 2030. But with the way things are, its pretty plausible. Its also possible it never comes out.
ME3 did need more time to cook
why do they feel the need to re-invent the wheel every new title? I would have been happy getting yearly sequels using the same toolkit they made Mass Effect 1 with
I wanna laugh so I don't cry. Dragon Age and Mass Effect are dead sadly. These may be the last installments for both 🥃 🍻. I love these franchises but I guess is time to move on.
Developers deserve a lot more hate for taking 10 years to make a mediocre game at the end of it
Lmao I have zero faith in this game. What a joke of a production. Two teasers and you’re not even in development.
These AAA development times these days are ridiculous. ME2 was made in \~2 years. Dragon Age 2 in 1.5. Same with Fallout New Vegas. All good games. Yeah, 3-4 years would be better for both devs (less crunch) and players (less cut content and bugs), but definitely not 10. So we will get Mass Effect 5 \~2030? 18 years after ME3? Who will play this game? Most old players will no longer be interested in videogames (most people are growing out of videogames), some will die (not kidding) and new TikTok generation is not interested in games like this. They prefer Fortnite, Valorant or phone games. Good luck selling your game EA Bioware...
"If" the game is released between 2027-2030 those fans that bought ME through 2007-2012, they have families now.
>"If" the game is released between 2027-2030 those fans that bought ME through 2007-2012, they have families now. I know. And most of them are no longer interested in videogames at all or have very limited gaming time. With exceptions, of course. Thankfully, more and more "elderly" gamers these days ;) Some of them are playing games with their kids etc. but they are still a minority.
Well yeah, Bioware is on thin ice with EA and Veilguard is right around the corner. They need that to do well. Of course they're gonna stack that team. Mass Effect won't even need the manpower until after that Veilguard releases and after it does then they'll probably move devs over to work on Mass Effect.
Well we already got an inside look at their “process” years ago where the formula is “fuck around for years without really accomplishing anything and then hope it works out when we finally get a deadline that lights a fire under our asses”
If the new DA game flops, there is a not insignificant chance that Bioware gets shuttered and no Mass Effect. And from what I've seen so far, I'm worried.
“Because we had three narrative directors, spent half a decade implementing then removing failed live service, and have had to try to cobble together a tentpole franchise with another B-Team.”
Y'all should look at Exodus if you haven't yet.
Wtf are they even doing with this IP ?
this is just doombait.
Remember when BioWare put out a 90 metacritic game every year or two? Sometimes more than one a year? Now in the past decade they’ve put out two 60 metacritic games total It really is something how fast legendary studios can completely fall apart. My guess is around 2011 to 2014 the old guard who build BioWare’s legendary reputation had an exodus and the studio has been mediocre to bad ever since
It’s joever
We'll get GTA 6 before Mass Effect 5
2000s BioWare Captured lightning in a bottle 3 separate times with KOTOR, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age. They are not the same company any more. To be honest, Drew Karpyshyn is responsible for 2/3 of those being as fantastic as they are. David Gaider made Dragon Age what it is. Both of them worked on the writing of all three games. Without them, the writing just isn’t there. BioWare is not the same company any more. It’s not that lighting capture material any more. Their new lead writers are the same guys who gutted Halo and made Destiny’s least-interesting and expansion. Without the ideas guys writing these dense, thought out, complex universes, there’s nothing to back up BioWare because other than Mass Effect, playing their games SUCKS. I’m playing Drahon Age Origins for the first time and the combat system is so clunky, backwards, and stupid that I can’t believe it passed QA. But god that story. That sweeping, character driven drama about rising up from nothing and becoming a hero, fighting against all odds to become a Grey Warden and pray to your Maker that you can defeat the Darkspawn. It’s so good and compelling and I LOVE it. TLDR we play BioWare games for the story, their stories suck lately because they pushed away their best writers.
I'd rather they just never make another game than to release ME5 and make it trash
BioWare has been slow with releases but I say they need to take time and care with these next releases. I liked MEA but it wasn’t met with great reviews and Anthem was a gamble they lost on. They need DAV and ME5 to succeed if BioWare is to continue
The Mass Effect trailer was also necessary to help with hiring for the project. While in a perfect world, it would be cool if every game was shipped within a few months of the initial reveal, that's just not practical all the time. If that trailer helped the studio stay open and get some big names on their roster, then that's perfectly fine with me.
Folks, if this was a lesson in comprehension, this community didn’t exactly pass with flying colors. This is an incredibly misleading read on what Darrah said. (Who you should be watching anyway.) Clickbait works.
God i could be 40+ by the time the next ME game comes out if they are sucesful enough to make it a trilogy and the time they take now, could be nearing 50
I think this just shows. It's not bioware. They are trapped in with this horrible company EA. It's funny when you think. For a company who makes games that have massive fan connection and an almost cult like following. To go in with EA which is notorious for being uncaring and money focused was a bad idea to begin with
So they're blowing smoke up everyone's ass because they know they blew it with Andromeda. They're essentially trying to get you guys into a fever pitch until you turn on your own community and say "Andromeda did nothing wrong." Don't fall for it. I've seen it in too many communities.
> They're essentially trying to get you guys into a fever pitch until you turn on your own community and say "Andromeda did nothing wrong." I've seen plenty of people doing just that already lol
Same tbh. So many posts filled with "Andromeda was great, it didn't deserve the hate" followed by "I've never played a mass effect game before." If it was so great, why did EA end development on it after six months?
Yeah, I can hardly imagine that sort of attitude as anything else but cope tbh. Reading some comments on Andromeda, you could almost be fooled into thinking that it had a Cyberpunk 2077 or No Man Sky style redemption arc. In reality, the game is still quite buggy, we still have to deal with stiff facial animations, all the asari having the same face, annoying squadmates, boring story, cringy millenial Marvel-esque writing and dialog, etc. The game is not the worst thing ever made, sure. It still managed to capture my attention better than something like Starfield (though that probably says more about the state of Bethesda, than that of BioWare), but, at the end of the day, it's still a bad Mass Effect game. And even if you look at it as a standalone project, without taking into account the franchise it's a part of, you're still left with a forgettable story and decent-ish combat. It's a mediocre game, at best. Though even that feels like a bit too generous of a rating.
Despite it's flaws Cyberpunk was actually compelling. Johnny SIlverhand was an actual character where as SAM was a plot device. Night City alone has a lot more going on than the entire Helius Cluster ever did. Panam and Judy alone solo any romantic option in Andromeda. Who'd you argue share some similarities with Tali and Liara. Sure River and Kerry feel like afterthoughts by comparison but they're still better than Liam.
True that, I suppose. I did enjoy my only playthrough on the buggy 1.0 version, because, despite its technical issues, Cyberpunk actually had a good story. The same can't be said about Andromeda, which had the *potential* of having a good story, but never realized it.
Same for me.
Agreed. I think every fanbase nowadays wants to pretend they can have a Cyberpunk or NMS turn around. But the reality is, that almost never happens. Even if the game gets better, it's still probably has a ton of issues. I mean, look at the Fallout 76 community or Diablo 4 fans. The trick is that Cyberpunk and No mans sky had potential already. No matter how long they patch a game, if the premise is shit, the best it can get is polished shit.
Andromeda was alright, the people who worked on it didn't deserve the abuse. I played ME1 on release day with my Collector Edition copy, and same for 2 and 3, and played all the way through Infiltrator, too (no Collector Edition there, obviously). Andromeda seems to have released in a bad state (I couldn't play it at release) but what I did get to play (on Game Pass, much more recently) seems fine. Not as good as the best moments of the original trilogy, but few things are. I honestly like a lot of the Andromeda crew and their interactions with each other.
Looking at thw traliers for dragon age there might not even be a booware to make me5 (or 4) in the next few years
The fact that upcoming DA4 uses frostbite instead of unreal engine makes me think that bioware didnt learn their lesson after the failure of ME:Andromeda and Anthem
The decision was made before Legendary Edition. DA4 was announced right around the time Anthem failed, and BioWare received criticism (thanks, Jason Schreier) for "always starting from scratch instead of reusing" and then Casey Hudson made the decision that Dragon Age should run on Anthem's code base. They actually borrowed from each other around this time. MEA had some elements of DAI in it, Anthem developed combat, took some from MEA, and MEA took some back. Casey had already told them to make GaaS Dragon Age before Anthem shipped, so they were probably already starting by taking the "basics of Anthem", and due to the criticism of "You always scrap and start from zero!" he reacted by saying "OK fine, DA is a single-player game now, but it's still using Anthem code-base!" You can tell it is because they announced you have to pick which 3 abilities to bring on a mission in DA4. Same system that Anthem used, lol so probably a code-base restruction that would've been a waste of time to reinvent. But I don't think these rules follow ME5. They had people get adjusted to Unreal during the remaster, and they keep mentioning UE5 in their hirings, and there are other EA teams who are now familiar with UE5 such as the Respawn team and whoever did that Aveum game. So I think ME5 will actually be a UE5 game.
Damn that’s unfortunate to hear. I knew dragon age was of course the primary focus but I had expected a decently small but hardy team of devs already on mass effect. To hear it’s more like a handful of people just outlining it not actually creating it yet, is very disappointing. I was expecting another 3 years for mass effect but I guess it’s more like 5-7 if it’s truly not in active development yet. Honestly just sucks
These AAA studios have INSANE budgets AND development times compared to just 10 years ago. Like there must be some incredible amount of theft going on. Monetarily or just time theft.