ME:A - The Video Game Awards Gameplay Video

Two of the enemies are called "Anointed" (4:28, 4:32) and "Chosen" (4:33), which have religious connotations. They appear to be the Kett (unless my eyes deceive me, as the enemies are very quick and blurry to make out). And thinking back on the previous trailer with a Kett being raised or floating through the air, I wonder what the religious overtones and the Kett connection means. Do they view themselves as the saviors of their galaxy, or is something else going on?

Speculation Ahoy: Could Drack be a Krogan shaman?

The wearing of bones would seem like it could be a shaman thing.

Why no time?  If Peebee is a product of an Asari and a new alien, then A) Peebee was there on the planet long before the Ryders came along, having needed to be born and raised, first, or B ) the new aliens are actually not new (only new to us) and came along for the ride from the Milky Way.  We do know that certain races made the journey.  Is it possible that other aliens we didn't meet from the trilogy made the journey, too?  I'm leaning toward A, but B is entirely possible, too.

I thought about that, too, but then I remembered Mass Effect 2 (2010) and the detective role Shepard plays in helping a woman, Diana, solve her daughter Nef's murder on Omega.  Of course, Samara was with Shepard, and following the clues about the missing daughter leads us to Morinth.  Arkham Asylum came out in 2009, but wasn't it Arkham Origins (2013) that kicked off the follow-the-clues detective stuff?  If so, then Mass Effect 2 did it first.  Otherwise, I'm not sure if ME 2 was trying to imitate Arkham Asylum.  And if so, was ME: A recalling ME 2 or imitating the Arkham series.

Some little things I noticed:
- Ryder has raindrops on her chestplate in the beginning.
- It looked like Ryder could switch between 2 different shotguns during combat (N7 Piranha and Reegar Carbine).
- Ammo looks to be a consumable rather than a power (disruptor ammo only affects the next 3 clips).
- Ryder could equip Level X armor. It also looks like you can add mods to the armor.

A couple of Sara's face animations looked a little clunky, but other than that it looks great. I was interested to hear that a bunch of Milky-wayians were kicked out.

Some more random stuff...

You can create a rather sizeable floating-flame-throwing Assault Turret.

Some kind of spinning knife-attack...

So it seems I've got everything I asked for a gameplay video.
Graphics are nice, enviroments are diverse enough and combat seems polished.
But that cutscene, oh dear. Haven't seen so much cringe for a while. And why the heck former security chief looks like rebellious teenager? She looks like 16.
And default Sara does look like an alcoholic after all. Oh well, face-edit never scared me anyway.

Some kind of Kett boss...?

If the aliens paint a band across their faces, sure, then that would be an admirable thing for her to do.  But if the band is part of their skin, it would be a bit weird, or even insensitive, for her to do something like that.  So I dunno.

The combat looks really fun to play, and I loved the aesthetics and design of the worlds. Went from lukewarm on ME:A to pretty excited after this trailer. Some of Sara's facial animations looked kind of synched wrong or something, and the scene with the Jack wannabe seemed kind of cheesy are my only two complaints at first glance.