In the light of 'No Mans Sky', could and should there be a 'Mass Effect Andromeda Next'?

They did it faster then two years, they did in in four to five months with patch 1.10.  If you want to do a direct comparison is that patch 1.10 for Andromeda is the state the game should have launched in while Next is the state that No Man's Sky should have launched in.

What people are asking for with Andromeda anymore in either overhauling key systems of the game or new content that would require a lot of time and money to create such as a new race.  Which is more along the lines of a paid expansion over a patch to the game.

Yeah, I really hate the situation that BioWare left the Milky Way in at the end of ME 3. Nothing quite like torching the franchise and running, to then have to go back and try and pick through the ashes after the fact, to make something as out of left field like "What if we went to Andromeda?" seem plausible.

Not happening. The speed they ditched it and the strongly suggested Quarian DLC - they don't touch this with a long pole anymore.

EA Is the downfall for Bioware !!

To address the graphical fidelity points first. Oh sure Andromeda looks more bright and colorful; its textures, models, and yes, even animations (after the patches) are all generally better than ME 1. The maps are bigger, and the load times are quicker, that's all true. However, one needs to also remember that ME 1 is ten years older than the most recent title, which benefits from increases in processing power and other hardware improvements. Ten years, a decade of advancement and refinement of game design efficiencies and general technology. To say that Andromeda looks better than the first title is meaningless in this regard since the same can be said when comparing any other modern game to an older release. The Legend of Zelda: The Orciana of Time looks and runs like crap when compared to Breath of the Wild, and it didn't have the benefit of patches either.

In terms of UI and inventory management yes, in general, ME: A did a better job than ME 1. Though that is, again, tied to BioWare refining what was already in place as they have produced more titles. ME 1 was the first game in what would become one of their flagship series, and arguably one of the first 'modern' Action-RPGs they produced; KOTOR and Jade Empire were still too strongly tied to older styles of RPGs (not that that is a bad thing). What's more, I never said that the UI and inventory management was what made ME 1 better than ME:A.

Now on to the meat of your post:

Our tastes obviously differ on the quality of the 'exposition dump' of the various aliens that ME 1 introduced, but in terms of sheer world building ME 1 has Andromeda beat by miles. A brand new IP and BioWare is able to deliver not only on setting up the universe, but also populating it with a myriad of sapient alien races, all created from scratch. The Turians, Asari, Salarians, Quarians, and Volus were the more human-like aliens, and already constituted a sizable investment of creative focus, but then Bioware then goes a step beyond that. In addition to all the human-like species present in the galaxy, they also bring in the distinctly 'alien' aliens (and not just in terms of appearance, though that was also included) in the form of the Elcor, Hanar, Thorian, and Rachni. They then go even a step further and, while not completely fleshed out in ME 1, bring in other races like the Geth, Reapers, and Protheans. These last three were mostly background/antagonists but they were all present in-game along with nods to there being more depth behind them. Rounding all of this out, the Bring Down The Sky DLC introduced us to the Batarians, another human-like species, but one with their own backstory and lore. 

So to sum up: ME 1, which is having to create an entirely new IP, as well as being one of BioWare's first modern Action-RPGs, still manages to populate the setting with 12 original alien species, 13 if you count the Batarians. Each has their own background lore and each, even the more human ones, have a little something that helps distinguish them from entirely being humans in rubber costumes. Even the Asari, the resident space babes of ME, heavily featured their rather 'alien' nature as being mono-genered, and possessing quasi-telephatic powers.

ME:A, on the other hand, despite riding on the foundations laid by games like ME 1, only manages to add in 3 new aliens, 4 if you want to separate the Remnant and Jardaan; though I would contest that since, unlike the Protheans with Vigil or the Reapers with Sovereign, we never actually interact with them, and they are merely a codex entry. This leaves the Remnant, the Khet, and the Angara.


The robotic Remnant are… well robotic. They have zero personality, and act more like highly advanced interstellar roombas than any sapient 'alien' intelligence. Even the Geth in ME 1, while being relegated to antagonists, had little nods like their shrine and act of worshiping Sovereign as a god to distinguish them from being mindless robots. Even the VI terminals Shepard and Co. interact with in ME 1 have more 'life' to them than the Remnant drones do. 

The Khet, are arguably the closest thing Andromeda has to aliens, but all of that potential is squandered in-game. Instead of utilizing the concept of exhalation to explore how a society that, in essence, was a virus would operate BioWare instead just uses it as a magical mind control serum that turns NPCs evil, and offers it as a lousy excuse for the player to be fighting waves of mindless minions throughout the game. Even the Archon, the most "developed" Khet character, fails to incorporate any of that non-human element into his depictions or interactions with the player. Instead he is very human in his approach to things; well that not's not entirely fair. The sheer incompetence his character displayed throughout the game left him lower than your generic Saturday morning cartoon villain. As is, the Khet are a lousy knock-off version of the Collectors, albeit without the foundation of a race like the Reapers to prop them up. 

The Angara are humans. Humans in bright purple/blue body paint, but humans. In fact, I would say that out of all the human-like aliens in the franchise, they have to be the closest to us; so much so, that you could literally replace them with humans and nothing about them or their culture would change, as how they are depicted in Andromeda. Their culture is a perfect mirror to ours, and the only thing that we are told that somehow sets them apart from us humans is that they tend to have big families, occasionally believe in reincarnation, and are "highly emotional". Sounds more like a Hindu teenage girl, than some alien species that evolved in a galaxy two million lightyears away. Any mention of differing biologies is background static, and immediately forgotten once the player finishes with the First Contact scenes. Indeed, the only real focus that BioWare seems to have put into them is making sure that they are just bi-sexual f**kbuddies; seeing as how that was the last piece of content the dev team graced the single player side of the game with, if the whole #makeJaalBi debacle is anything to go by. 



Speaking of trending social topics and the inclusion of politics, ME:A is far more hamfisted and forced in it's approach to things than ME 1 was. Sure, all the nods to things like Terra First and alien racism was present, but it was all interwoven into the narrative and world building of the universe. Andromeda, on the other hand, goes out of it's way to put in characters and conversations solely to bring attention to whatever SJW topic they were soapboxing about. Random NPC that talks about being transgendered, Asari that are lecturing Angara about using their preferred pronouns, and the aforementioned #makeJaalBi. Those are cringe inducing callbacks to the real world, and most assuredly, to human topics. Humans are the most boring part of any science fiction or fantasy setting they are a part of (IMO) and yet, here we are putting this fictional universe, filled with aliens and FTL travel, on hold so that trending social/political talking points can be marked off a checkbox. 


As for the humor. Andromeda was far too derivative of the Citadel DLC (of which I personally disliked), but unlike that DLC it didn't have the foundation of three previous games and in-game relationships to build off of. As it is the campiness and humor is far too light hearted, especially when taken in light of how dire things are with the Arks and the colonists at the start of the game, to feel 'earned' or even in-line with the narrative. 

And besides ME: A had plenty of darkness and seriousness.

The complaints aren't even accurate, like them making the angara all bisexual sexfriends when one of the two Angaran romance options is neither bisexual or even have sex in her romance.

The Initiative was hardly defenseless. Sure the Arks didn't have any guns built into them, but they had several squadrons of fighters each. There was also ground weaponry like turrets and even the ability to make combat mech suits. 

That response was more to Vortex's post than yours. 

We should also note that that was all they had left. For example the Tempest was the only exploratory frigate to survive the Scourge. They could have had frigates stored aboard the Nexus as well, hidden just in case. Plus really from what we've seen and read in both our history and the lore of Mass Effect having a good fighter force is all you need to win a battle.