MASS EFFECT ANDROMEDA: The Life and Death of BioWare Montreal (UPDATE: Part IV, Final Part Up)

I was wrong...the comments were from Jonathan Cooper's Twitter Page from 08/02/2017 (I knew I read them somewhere):

"Very Sad to hear about the demise of the BioWare Montreal - a studio ostensibly started in 2009...

...but in fact began with myself in 2008 within EA Montreal studio.  Our plucky team created around 75% of Mass Effect 2 cinematics

The studio only had a few founding goals - to remain separate from EA and one day release a full game...

Back then most of us had shipped Mass effect 1 in Edmonton so it was important to keep the culture and work ethic as we grew

Since leaving I've always kept in touch, keen to know how the studio was progressing.  Happy to hear about transfers instead of layoffs."

It sure is active. Not anymore the pinnacle of player bases, but people still play it.

That first video was pretty enlightening. If It wasn't for a fortunate PSN glitch that day, I never would have gotten the Omega DLC. I only played it once and saw every single problem with it that the first video covered. I mean it wasn't bad, but it was the weaker of the 3 DLC for Mass Effect 3. Seeing most of Omega's problems become Andromeda's own is really hard to get out of my mind, even if I still like Andromeda.

I watched both parts today. I got to say they were very well done and interesting. Good job!!

Looking forward to part three.

Make it one video, I love sitting through long vids without interruption.

Combine all 3 videos in the end.

id probably watch the whole thing then, despite not particularly enjoying the tact. 

WHEW, Holy Hell! Editing this behemoth of a video took longer than I thought. Any way I've just finished PART III of my series which finally tries to take a detailed look at Andromeda itself. This third part is the LONGEST video I've ever done and I'm still not done talking about the game. I focus mainly on the critical story and characters in this video analyzing why they fail or fall apart on any close analysis. I plan to focus on things like the high level themes, failure of the side quests, game design, and soundtrack in my last video. Enjoy.

I agree with the Laughing Man. I can't agree enough with your assessment of the characters and Andromeda's protagonist (Ryder) in comparison to other Bioware games. That is (imo) a nice piece of analysis

hey Boss currently in the middle of watching part three and felt the need to comment about youre take on the Salarian ark mission bit.

1. Yes Drak mentioned the scouts quite a few times so yes you missed the mention.
2. The Kett were in fact on the cusp of exalting the Krogan. Recall the boss battle.
so for the krogan side of the choice you can save them or leave them to the kett to let them finish up and work out the 'bugs' of exalting them giving them a new heavy infantry.

so there was a moral consequence actually. Its also why you were stuck fighting exalted krogan on meridian. if you save the krogan the exalted ones dont show up.

Otherwise solid work i agreed with everything else and found the first two videos really informative so well done that.

Watched all 3 vids...very nicely done and i agree with everything you stated. It really is incredible how many loopholes the plot has once you break it down.......i mean you can run a train through it.....when playing it tho you never really pay attention to it like that. 

The only aspect that always just stood out for me casually was Sloane running the Kett off and keeping them off and wondering how they was able to build these massive thriving structures on Kadara. For the most part i don't really question such things since they are trying to tell a story, but yeah watching your vid, there are massive plotholes in the story. While the Nexus was in the dark, Kadara was thriving and living it up....again Sloane was the badass....why did we need Ryder again?...







That tidbit about Drack was true too concerning those scouts and the salarian pathfinder......that came outta nowhere..lol!.... .....i was also confused with the whole Jardaan and builders concept tho that might be forgiven since maybe they was setting that up to be explained in the sequel.....overall tho your vids was informative, and broke down nearly every aspect of the game's issues...

bossattack this is a superb video series, so far. Thank you for summarizing and analyzing all this information. I was especially intrigued by the internal BioWare politics part. No one from Edmonton jumped at the chance to lead a new ME4 and instead Leihany, an outsider, was hired to lead the Montreal development team.

I believe that was because the decision for a new ME was all EA's. The senior Edmonton guys probably wanted to move on after 10yrs working on the same project and jumped at the chance to work on Hudson's Dylan Anthem or anything else. Burnout is common in many fields and lots people want a fresh start.

Again, thanks for the hard work. I can't wait for the final video.