How 'alien' is Mass Effect Andromeda going to be?

They have been pretty adamant that aliens in ME:A have to be relatable, so not much. I don't think this is inherently bad, and ME's aliens have always been like this, barring more background species like the hanar. Of course a real alien species would be a welcome surprise, but I just don't expect this to happen.

How alien is ME going to be? As much as human mind will allow...which is not too much tbh.
If the story is good enough and the aliens have an half-decent lore I'm quite happy.

That's …. disappointing. 


I mean, you'd think that the whole exploration theme, the whole "to boldly go where no man has gone before" shtick would preclude at least some investigation into something different from us.

Exactly, I'm not asking for the writers to go out and try and reinvent the wheel with a completely off the wall alien, just that they give us something that is not a human with rubber forehead. I mean aliens like the Rachni, the Thorian, and even the Geth (before they went all Pinocchio bot) were suitably 'alien' without being needlessly esoteric. Heck, even the Hanar and Elcor fit into that little niche prior to being turned into joke races. 

Or is even that too much to hope for?

Very true.

And even when the alien has been designated as the villain in the story there have been numerous films and shows that demonstrate said being as an 'alien' intelligence that just operates on a level incompatible with humans rather than some mindless monster that kills for the sake of it. 

The Xenomorphs



The "Thing"



Etc.

An earlier poster had it right, they can only be as alien as the human mind will allow. Take the pessimistic approach and expect to be disappointed.

I'm not expecting anything never before seen, but it would be cool if majority of the creatures in this game would have fresh designs.

thats a damn lie in the 80's there was V who displayed Aliens as a invading force but Bioware does not have the balls to do something new they would rather kiss the ass of ME 1 and its fans 

I'm sure the wildlife or more monstrous beings we are sure to encounter will be more alien.  As for the more humanoid aliens like the Kett or the unnamed species that we've seen in the trailers, they're following the typical Mass Effect and Old School Sci-Fi logic.  Mass Effect has established in books and other lore, that the humanoid structure (i.e. Bipedal, apposable appendages, forward-facing eyes, etc.) is the ideal form for sentient species, and all alien races require a planet that has the same mix of gasses in their atmosphere and resides in the "Goldilock Zone."  Obviously, the Hanar and Elcor are the exceptions to the rule, but that seems to be the operating procedure for designing alien species in Mass Effect.

I'm still not convinced that bipedal movement, opposable thumbs, and forward-facing eyes is the golden medium by which all sentient life is to be measured.

Outside of animation limitations in video games and films, there really is no evidence besides ourselves that indicates that our build is some definite, empirical evidence of an idealized form conducive to sentience. A control group of one is not anything to base solid facts on after all.

In fact, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, there is lots of things to suggest that octopi are intelligent enough to posses emotions and personalities despite being invertebrates, and that their fine motor control of highly sensitive and responsive limbs could put them on par with us in terms of fine tool use.

orionmagazine.org/article/deep-intellect/





Or what about a several continent spanning supercolony of ants, containing over a trillion individuals? Their penchant for coordination and group tasks makes them incredibly industrious and capable of engineering feats that could easily put them on par with human efforts using nothing but their own bodies.

scribol.com/environment/animals-environment/the-ant-supercolony-that-stretches-6000km/








Now don't misunderstand me, I get why developers use a humanoid form for their aliens, but I disagree with their seeming decree that only beings with near identical builds, and possessing thoughts and emotions on the same level as us are the only ones capable of being "truly alive" or who are some how more commonplace than non-human designs.