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

I'd hoped that at least part of the exploration job would involve encountering new life forms, figuring out whether they'd qualify as sapient, learning to communicate with them, etc. - but the reality is that people expect a lot of combat encounters in games such as this. A lot of players are all about the combat, and want to shoot anything that moves, so... yeah, I'm afraid a lot of the new life forms we encounter will immediately go to combat mode.



Were it not for the former Shadow Broker, it'd be pretty easy to say the same things about the Yahg.



Aye - and even now, people still argue about the thought processes and logic brought to bear by the Leviathan/Catalyst/Reapers. Anthropomorphization at its finest.



So much easier to animate that way, and make relatable.  IIRC, we didn't see elcor walk until ME2, the keepers until ME3, a hanar until the Citadel DLC.

The games are very cinematic, and they invest quite a lot in facial animations. They dealt with the elcor's lack of recognizable facial animations by having them preface everything they say with an emotional tone. This was something the elcor learned to do in order to facilitate communication with other species.



I'm not sure that's entirely fair. I mean, the "joke races" part. Blasto is really the only member of either race that I could see as a joke, and I think the joke was more on the film-making process than on Blasto himself.  It can also be taken as self-referential, with all of the things Shepard did in a hugely heroic cinematic way throughout the trilogy.

The difference between the Shadow Broker and the Fiend though is that BioWare actually wrote and explained how the Yahg weren't mindless monsters. The Fiend (from all that we have seen) just looks like someone took the template_bear from DA:I and then just threw aliencreature_texture over it.


As for the animation issues, sure there is extra work involved, but that is no reason to ignore and/or caricaturize the more non-human designs altogether. I sometimes question the difficulty of animation and rigging being too hard to work into the games more often; I mean the animators were able to work in Scions, Rachni, Ravengers, Brutes, and Geth Colossi just fine as frequent opponents despite having non-humoid shapes. But even if a humanoid form has to be utilized for the sake of fluidity, that's still no excuse for turing everything into a rubber fore headed human, being un-relatable or not as easily relatable ≠ beyond your comprehension, eldritch abomination. For all their talk of diversity and trying to understand all walks of life, BioWare sure seems skittish when it comes to dealing with non-human things that are different. Either those depictions are made to be evil creatures deserving of death no questions asked, cheap attempts at comedy, or quasi-life that aren't considered "truly alive" until it drops all that made it different and becomes a human(-like) wannabe.



In regards to the Elcor and Hanar being made into "joke races", I feel that that descriptor is more than fair. Consider how much of what little screen time the Elcor and Hanar do get post ME 1 that is not devoted to them being the butt of a joke, or poked fun of in some way. I can only think of two, very minor depictions, of the Hanar not being regulated to comedic relief in ME 3 and only one for the Elcor. 

•The first one requires the From Ashes DLC and it is when Javik visits the Citadel for the first time. In that scene there is a Hanar, that after being confronted with what Javik is, begins to venerate him as, well an Enkindler. Even with that though, Javik , and the narrative of the scene in question, still can't go by with dismissing the Hanar as being a fanatical idiot; it takes a Paragon response to even get the Prothean to not talk down to it and instead address the rest of the gathered crowd in a hopeful manner.

•The second one is the Hanar diplomat mission, although even with the rather grim subject matter, namely being the fate of the Hanar home world hanging in the balance, the writing still can't help but present the scene as semi-comedic, what with all of Kasumi's shenanigans. To top it off, the mission can end with the entirety of Kahje being compromised and made ripe for Reaper invasion, and the Hanar's extermination, and Shepard can actually say: "they brought this on themselves" as an apparently valid response to not stopping the indoctrinated diplomat from uploading the virus.  

•For the Elcor, they get even less. There is only one instance in ME 3 that does not have the Elcor playing the part of the big dumb idiot or making mention of Hamlet, or being Blasto's "police chief" and that is the evacuation of Dekuna. Even with the severity of the situation the narrative just casually throws this in as a side (eavesdropping) mission. There is no actual dialogue tree presented, just auto-speach, and the player has to go outside of their way to even encounter this basic scanning quest. A measly little side quest, easily missed, that determines the fate of the majority of the Elcor species. Only if Shepard makes an effort does anything get done to help the Elcor; as they are so worthless in the eyes of the rest of the galaxy (apparently) that without our PC's intervention they are all abandoned to die with no one bating an eye.


And Blasto might have been an attempt at self-depricating humor for the the series, but he's still the poster child of the Hanar for the vast majority of the fan base; a joke character. Likewise, the Elcor's manner of speech was turned from a compelling attempt at addressing at how an alien species; very different from us, seeing as how the Elcor mostly communicate via subtle body language and pheromones; would try and communicate into a running gag about how slow-witted and boring they all are.

That's a fair point. They put forth a significant amount of effort to design and animate a variety of enemy types. That they don't do as much for friendly species is likely due to the focus on combat.



That's more about Javik than the hanar, imho. Javik referred to all of this cycle's species as primitives and talked down to/about them. Salarians used to eat flies. Both Javik and Wrex made jokes about salarian liver. Etc.



Players are given quite a few opportunities to diss other species, are they not? I could certainly have done without the big stupid jellyfish remarks, but there are a number of places where the writers allow Shepard to be an ass.

The only joke I saw in that scene was about religion in general, not the hanar specifically. If you save Kahje, hanar and drell forces are contributed to the galactic war effort.



That you viewed the elcor representation as big dumb idiots is unfortunate.

The first comments about elcor actors were made in elevator announcements in ME1, iirc. I found that thought-provoking in considering the ways that humans express emotions - via tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures, etc. - and for the elcor to communicate with us, all of that must be expressed by prefacing the message with a statement of tone. Their natural way of communicating with one another is very alien to us, and I thought we wanted alien aliens here.

But at least we had the opportunity to help rescue hanar, drell, and elcor. The vorcha were on their own, the volus had an arrangement with the turians, and the batarians were sacrificed to buy time for the rest of the galaxy.



Well, I certainly don't view Blasto as a poster child for the hanar. I see him as a James Bondian sort of action hero actor.

During that scene with Javik and Blasto in the Citadel DLC, I found Shepard's behavior to be the joke.  That DLC was filled with quite a few self-referential jokes.

I understand that some of these species had diminished roles, but I don't agree with the assertion that they were entirely made into jokes.

The Kett seem rather alien to me, and is it just me or do their ships look like the dark elves ships in Thor?

The Angaran are also a new species we will learn more about probably and can be seen on the Nexus too.

I have the Corypheus vibe too, and Harbinger as well. While both fell flat with having something about them we could have connected with, it would be nice if The Archon has legit reasons and actions that makes us realize as stated in an earlier trailer that we are the aliens and not welcome there.

I think they'll be the Turian equivalent for Andromeda. Maybe with a mix of Quarian and Drell. Not all are good either and everyone seems to be fighting each other.

It looks like a mix of all 3 imo. Since there are no Drell or Quarian, the Angaran kind of make up for it supposedly, while also being a completely new race, but with parts of them that remind people of their fav races from ME that are gone.

I think they will do a good job, it's difficult to imagine how different a species from another galaxy would be. They had to think so many things in this game like language, culture, procreation, genders, just everything. We have to keep in mind that even though it's a different galaxy we still live in the same universe, don't go too crazy thinking that the aliens must be more weird or something. As long as they're different then it's fine.

I'd love to see an Elcor production of Hamlet. Would they be doing it in English, or in their own language? If in English, would it include the 'commentary'?

Elcor Polonius - Suspicious Inquiry: What are you reading my Lord?
Elcor Hamlet - Sarcastic Response: Words, words, words.

I would expect to hear it in English, with everything prefaced.

And as someone who doesn't always 'get' things like tone, motives, intent in dialogue (I'm usually more focused on the actual words themselves rather than the delivery), I think it could be pretty darned interesting.

I hope there is a new insectoid race of aliens. Those have always been one of my favorite types of aliens in movies, tv, etc.

Would love to see something less familiar than what we've got, but I'm expecting them to play it safe, at this point.

What I really need is more cosmic horror elements. Reapers were fucking great, before they were explained. I honestly think that's what ruined the Reapers. It wasn't that the explanation was bad, so much as it was the fact that they were explained at all.

These incomprehensible universe trotting space squid things that harvested other species for reasoning beyond our understanding. THAT'S the good stuff. Gimme some more Lovecraft, please.