Kotaku reporter has some extra bad news

I don't think, given the attitude of the internet, that it will ever be possible to Bioware to produce an ME game that "wows."  It think whatever they try that's even remotely similar to any of the ME games and even any of the DA games will just get pulled apart by an internet "gang" that's determined to pull apart whatever Bioware does.   It may not even be possible for them to "wow" in a different genre, given that people have already started to pull apart the new IP just based on a very short intro vid.  By the time their game will get even close to release, the attitude on the internet will probably already be so negative towards it that it will just snowball into another feeding frenzy.

Of course I remember it, but I also remember them stating that it was going to be last expansion ever made by BW because from that moment they were going to change their politics and so far they have kept that line. In order to make an expansion you need to commit almost as many resources as for a whole game, and often it isn't even worth the effort when looking at sales. With DLC you can commit less resources at a time because they are smaller and therefore less expensive to create. You don't need to keep an entire development team stuck for months after the release but just a smaller group of developers. CDPR was able to give us two whole expansions, but just because they usually work on 1 games at a time. When you are working on more projects together like BW you cannot afford to lock the resources needed for an xp pac. 

Groundbreaking doesn't necessarily mean a new game play mechanic though.  It could just be an existing one refined to a level we haven't seen before.... lets see, making it so that your squad react to situations better, communicate, have some real tactical awareness about them.   On the field the ME:A squad mates are the single worst iteration yet, something that does probably come down to the engine, they are next to fully ineffective in combat and only survive as long as they do because they are buffed to have 8x your main characters hit points. 

I think you are shifting blame here. Other companies can still wow despite the fact that they are putting out the 10th iteration of a franchise that has done extremely well in the past. Look at how AC: Origins is received. I am not sure if it "wows" people but it certainly isn't pulled apart by "the internet" just because AC2 was a brilliant game and they had a couple of bad apples in the franchise afterwards.

I'd say BioWare got pretty much exactly the kinds of reactions to their games that you'd expect and if they were to put out a really high quality product again, I doubt "the internet" would rip it apart out of sheer malice. Single individuals on some forums, sure but it wouldn't become the general consensus. For that to happen, something must be wrong with the product (and as far as Andromeda was concerned, something was, it simply wasn't up to the standard that BW itself set for their titles).

Indeed with our government in complete shambles atm

But you see, that's where I think they actually tried to go and massively failed with ME:A. Now, of course, eventually, I would like to see similar improvements (who wouldn't) and after ME3, I WAS hoping they would be able to go there with ME:A. But they couldn't and there is nothing to suggest, they suddenly could now. Whether they don't have the resources or the talent or the technology or whatever, they just couldn't.
So before we go and set ourselves another lofty set of goals, I would rather see them get back to their old strengths in their core capacities first, which ME:A was not.

IMO, ME:A surpassed the OT in terms of combat gameplay, visuals, driving mechanics, adn exploration (exploration had a lot of issues in ME:A but it did surpass the barren worlds of ME1 and ME2/3 didn't have any).
Now it's time, they find a way to make this work with a story, characters and dialogue that we had in the OT as well as better pacing (not those dragged out repetitive sessions that we had in ME:A). That's what I'd like to see in an ME:A2. Once they are firmly in the saddle with those aspects again, we can talk about a more vibrant world (and btw, ME:A already made advances there. I thought the outposts you could build were a step in the right direction, so I don't see much issue there) or new mechanics.

Trying to do it all at once yet again, I think, especially right now, when confidence is fairly low would be a recipe for disaster. Take it one step at a time, use what you got, concentrate on old strengths, build another basis that actually works and then go ahead from there one step at a time, that would be my strategy for the franchise right now.

Honestly I feel that the character were the most interesting in a BioWare game in a LONG time. They felt more like individuals and not just exposition dumps (except for Jaal) on their races and class. We get to see new and different points of view of the asari from Peebee and Cora the turians from Vetra, the salarians from Kallo and Tann, the  krogan from Drack and Kesh, and etc. While I've ragged on Liam and I still stand by at the start he's annoying dumbass, but after his loyalty mission he grows up and doesn't act like an annoying dumbass anymore and starts acting a logical and reasonable man one that I actually like.

Mass Effect Trilogy all the characters in ME1 are just giant exposition dumps of lore, the cast of ME2 outside of Garrus and Tali the rest are basically doing the same thing, and by the time you get to ME3 there are so many characters (and with the added fact that some can die in ME2) that outside of Liara and Garrus are probably the best written because they're LIs. Honestly it's a miracle that characters work at all given that the overall arc in MET is a extremely thin story that only holds together if don't think too hard about it through all 3 games.

The villains aren't much better. What is told about Saren in-game is generic and thin, plus Saren is barely even in the first game, hell the Archon probably has more screen time than Saren does, and in-game he's just barely above the Archon as a rather 2D villain (and yes the Archon is a 2D villain that is basically evil for the sake of evil) and if you didn't have the option to convince to blow his brains out he would be a forgettable villain. It's novel Mass Effect: Revelation and the comic book mini-series Mass Effect: Evolution that is where and how he becomes a slightly more interesting character. Liara's mother was just even an evil henchwoman.

Harbinger is basically an annoying internet troll in ME2.

By the time we get to ME3 TIM might as well be Cobra Commander for the 80s cartoon show G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero with the difference between them is that Cobra Commander was occasionally smarter than TIM was in ME3 and Leviathan makes the Reapers go from scary a cosmic force of nature to bunch of idiots following an equally stupid AI. IMHO BioWare never should have told the origins of the Reapers it robs them of menace and makes them just stupid.
   

I assumed his article was broadly true - I mean, he might have spiced it up a bit but I figured there was at least a kernel of truth to it. It certainly fit the situation.

Ironically, I have to admit that I'm starting to doubt this guy's impartiality with this kind of non-response.

I mean, it doesn't even make sense. If the studio really had been downsized due to MEA's reception then I'm not sure why the article would need to be revised three times. If he had some information about future DLC then that would interesting but he immediately covers himself with wiggle room, so effectively he's not saying anything. And the only evidence he appears to have for claiming Montreal was expecting to immediately work on MEA2 is simply that he insists his secret sources told him so. Then he even throws off some weird passive-aggressive point about what does and doesn't constitute clickbait... then invites people to click on his link straight after. This isn't journalism.

I was genuinely unsure as to what angle he could have here until someone mentioned his book coming out. It makes a bit more sense now.

We should admit Andromeda was ill conceived from the start. The whole point of even going there was to escape the endings.



Not sure if people know this, but that pass is intentional.



In case people share it as a "lol fail" type of thing.

The issue with ME:A is that it was DAI in space in terms of map exploration.

And DAI maps sucked shit. They were just as large, barren, and filled with pointless fetch waypoints/collection quests. Enemy variety also sucked shit, just like in ME:A.

What saved DAI from the same reception as MEA are 2 things:

1- It had way stronger writing. Cassandra, Varric, Vivienne, and Dorian (when it wasn't about his daddy rejection issues) were all really solid companions.

Josephine, Cullen, and Leliana were also strong supporting characters. The story missions had enough charm to distract from the steaming pile of shit that was their open world system.

2- The Witcher 3 hadn't come out to embarrass DAI in terms of how open world should be done in a game. Witcher 3 open world did recycle assets, but it did so with enough difference in the instances of their use that it camouflaged itself really well and didn't dampen the exploration.

In terms of how open world is done, Bethesda managed that trick all by itself since Oblivion at the very least. That's their strength. I'm sure, and after having looked at some vids, the witcher also manages to do that. But the open world in DAI weren't nearly as barren as the ones of MEA. The desert themed approach takes care of that. Snowy desert, sandy desert, stony desert and some small lush place called Hawarl, which is more of a mace than a world.

Huh. I wouldn't necessarily say Oblivion was that great but I certainly felt it was more of a dip than a downward spiral. I know it's the fashionable thing to hate Bethesda games but Skyrim and Fallout 4 were definitely enjoyable titles.

But hell, I'm one of those weirdos who enjoyed DAI's maps.