To Open-World or Not

I personally enjoy traversing the open world of MEA. I enjoy much of the side content, but some of it can be too fetchy. Finding bodies of the original colonists on Eos was fine, but I felt it could have led to a bigger payout and perhaps more content stemming off from it.

I hope for more open world in the next title, but with some more meaningful content, bigger variety of enemies, and a photo mode!

I think they are progressing in the right direction. Mass effect doesn't need to be entirely open world but having the open world elements certainly enhances the overall experience.

MEA2 should have more of the the loyalty missions that MEA has. The fetch quests aren't terrible. I think what they lack and the side quests in general lack is satisfying closure and rewards.

The concepts are really cool but they need to be modified and perfected. The colonies are an awesome additon but it's sad to not see them as integrated into the story after you establish them besides Eos but I guess the rest are optional.

I also think the open world aspect suffers a bit from not having very diverse gameplay when traversing the world. Horizon Zero Dawn had very generic side quests but getting from point A to B could turn into an hour of fun because of the diverse combat and constant encounters. I really think adding in more random events (resistance battles, surprise attacks from mechs, more diverse wild life threats, vehicle combat with enemy land vehicles or escorting colony vehicles) would help out the open world aspect a ton.


I am still a big advocate for open world elements in Mass Effect because the exploration is such an awesome part of any space media. MEA has done a really good job at capturing the role playing aspect of a pathfinder. Just being able to run loose on the worlds and engage in combat is fun as is. It just needs to have more of it.

Open world, but why not let us fly a bit?
Why are we on wheels still? Might argue development issues, honestly don't think that is legitimate. Cut down the explorable worlds (3 deserts?!), filler quests, etc.
Why do I have to manually "tap" a mining nodes? No excuse. NOMAD should be able to perform this function without me leaving the vehicle and performing a "gotcha"

Overall, I like the open world. Some quality of life changes need to happen though.

A few of the fetch quests actually amount to something - which is neat! After ~25 hours, most of the fetch quests I have experienced do not amount to much.


Seems like a future stuck with contemporary thinking.

no open world, no boring fetch qusts

ME dosn't need open world, maybe bigger maps, bigger "corridors", but please more content in them and better side quests

most of us love the the trilogy and it does not have open world!

I agree, I think the world could be more stunning. It's very pretty in it's own way, but it's nothing compared to the environments of HZD and TW3. Those environments are absolutely stunning. MEA's look very good, but just not as diverse and not quite as good looking.

What's wrong with the nomad? It's inclusion is a design choice, not development issues. Flying or on wheels, they'd still serve the same purpose, the nomad makes more sense anyways as your not parking a shuttle on a steep mountainside nor is it an exploration vehicle like the nomad, they're transportational at best.

@op: I prefer the open world aspect Andromeda has, there can still be improvements but I prefer it over the corridor style 2 and 3 used. It helps when the worlds look gorgeous (which makes me question the one dude saying most weren't).

My favorite missions in the game were the linear corridors. The fetch quests are a problem for sure, but the outposts on open world don't allow for engaging combat encounters either, so I think it's best to just get rid of open world entirely. I much prefer ME2 style sidemissions that take you to unique areas, not copy/pasted outposts.

The planet hopping is also a problem. Once I'm done with a world, I don't want sidemissions that bring me back there just to talk to an NPC. Yesterday I did the sidemission Truth and Trespass, which sends you to Havarl, then the Nexus, then Elaaden, then Kadara. None of the content in that mission was engaging, but it still took half an hour because I had to waste time traveling to those locations. Feros in ME1 had decent sidemissions that happened to be on your path. You can do these alongside the main mission and after doing all that you never had to return to Feros again. That works much better I think.

What about a happy medium? Gives us some big maps we can explore but not get carried away with it?

The loyalty missions were far better designed than those in open worlds, so I'd say go back to that

The uncharted worlds were the best part of ME.

I think the first"zone" on Eos was fine, before you get rid of the radiation barrier. If all the Eos content was in that space instead of the much larger space it becomes after activating the monolith I think people would be happier.

I think ME 1 had the right idea with the UNC planets but not the best execution. Still ME1 made their important main quest stuff more linear and the optional stuff was land in the mako and explore. Now with their hardware they should be able to do what ME 1 did without the copy/pate and make the main quest stuff linear but big linear.