Mass Effect Andromeda Q&A Panel at Montreal Comic Con, 8th July 2017, "Can not comment on future pro

Well, technically, having a lot of interesting stuff in your open world isn't all that "realistic" in the first place. Skyrim strikes me as a lot more artificial than Morrowind, for instance. If you walk for 20 seconds in any direction you're going to stumble over either a sidequest or a marker leading to one, if not several. Morrowind makes you work for it.

What most of us actually want, I think, are edited experiences. Or maybe curated is the right term. Not an actual simulation of a world, but the simulation with a lot of the dull stuff either cut out completely or made optional. (You can make a living as a miner and/or blacksmith in Skyrim, if you like, for instance .) Bio's problem is that the editing techniques for OW and non-OW games are different, and they don't have the same level of experience with OW.

On a related note, the DAI designers did talk about intent for some areas. It sounded like the general design intent was to make areas difficult to navigate; a large part of the gameplay is mastering the intentionally frustrating terrain. (The Oasis is the far end of that curve.) I guess you could say that the stuff is secondary to getting to the stuff.