Kotaku: The Story Behind ME:A's Troubled Five-Year Development

Well, if that's true, a lot of things make more sense now.


Also

Casey Hudson, executive producer on the main trilogy, would start a new team at BioWare Edmonton to work on a brand new type of game, which they gave the code-name Dylan. (Their goal, a source said, was to make the Bob Dylan of video games—one that would be referenced for years to come.)

Gee, didn't they get that with ME3?  

Well they are fake news

Edmonton guys were right.  Andromeda tried to be everything.  The recipe for being nothing.

Too much brainstorming mental masturbation instead of doing.

Interesting. That's not too far off from what I would have expected.

Sounds legit. And if it's legit, I'm surprised they even managed to put out a half decent game. I had fun playing it. Nothing really memorable, but fun nonetheless.

We should always be skeptical of what we read on the internet, even if I take what kotaku is saying with a grain of salt, this story don't seem to be that far from reality and that chaotic production. Its impressive that they actually manged to release a functionnal game in only 18 months of production, imagine what they could have produce if they had a fixed objective from the start and did not try this bullshit procedural planets.

That said the part where jason  says that there won't be an andromeda sequel is purely is interpretation. Dragon age 2 was not received well by the gamers, and 3 years after its release, we saw dragon age inquisition that was much more a sequel to DA 2 than it was to DAO.

Not totally in terms of gameplay but especialy for story, Corypheus was the main villain of inquisition and he came from DA 2 legacy, the red lyrium that came from DA 2 was heavily present in DAI and especially with the red templars. The war against the qunari both introduced with the arishok and tallis dlc came back in the final part of the main story (tresspasser). The first act and introduction of inquisition is to put an end of the mage and templar war which is exactly where DA 2 ended. We get to see hawke during the story and not the warden from DAO. DAI is much more the child of DA 2 storywise

weLl, I've read it. It's the spin one puts on it. from where I sit this is a story of a young team managing impossible expectations and putting out a surprisingly good game despite everything. And the company that despite a barrage of hate and criticism, provided absolutely everything that has ever been asked (and not nicely) and fast in the post-release. Even extra romantic option. I have never seen anything like that before, so much credit given to the fans. I come from the age when Gaider told people it is the way it is, suck it up, buttercup.

And an A team that produced a formulaic mess like Inquisition gets the praise... oh, the world we live in...

Unlike the "OMFG MASS EFFECT IS DEAD GUISE!!!1" article Loltaku put out earlier, this one actually makes sense to read. Of course though, sources go unnamed and I doubt any other publication will corroborate the information therein because apparently Schreier has sources nobody else does (riiight), just like his earlier article.

It definitely puts the missing pieces together and makes some sense as to why the game was launched in the condition that is was, but Loltaku's continuous "the game was nothing but a disappointment" is just blatantly untrue.

I will take this one, once again, with a huge grain of...

First of all, regardless of what people think of Kotaku's regular content Jason Schreier is a good journalist (seemingly rare in this industry). I know him specifically for his in-depth article about Destiny's troubled development. This seems to be his shtick.

For the most part though, this article just tells me things I already suspected or knew. You don't get a game like Andromeda after 5 years of normal game development.

I'm sort of amazed at the hubris though. We'd be calling it "daring" and "incredible vision" if it actually succeeded, but I seriously don't know how anyone could've thought procedural generation would've worked for such a long period of development. For a series that never truly found a perfect balance between all its systems and design and a studio that's never released a full Mass Effect and a game that's on an entirely new engine, who would've thought: "yeah, let's do something absurdly risky that's never been done well before."

Reading that was kind of heartbreaking. Sounds like they had a persistently difficult time.

I know it's kotaku, but this article, unlike the one about ME being shelved, is simply too detailed to just dismiss it as being pulled out of someone's ass. I guess it explains why the game was released in such a state, the amount of technical problems was incredible. This kinda goes to show that, for all the crap the writers and animators have gotten, the problem with BioWare might lie higher in management, and the kind of issues ME:A had support that theory well enough, IMO.