BioWare can't afford to let any squadmates die.

it's already confiremd that squadmantes won't die

That's why something like ME2 should be reserved to be an ending to a series, not a middle point. It would be AMAZING if they could write in all the possible scenarios and all that shit, but it takes too much time and too many resources. It's just not reasonable to expect that. Especially not from a publisher like EA.

Mass Effect 2 is fucking amazing, but it hurts ME3. I've been saying that since it was released.

Although it is strange that no one can die in Andromeda. At least have an equivalent to Ashley and Kaiden, with a Wrex in there somewhere.

They can afford to let them die, they just can't afford to provide the option of having 8 different people die or survive.

Having Cora die and that being it, or giving the user the ability to prevent Cora's death, and then them progressing the story of Andromeda with that death is a lot easier than choosing between the survival of 2+ people. Next time there's a squadmember death, they should treat it like Jenkins, or any number of party members from RPGs that get stabbed with 12 foot swords before sinking to the bottom of a natural pool.

That still doesn't resolve the issue if a LI, as an example, dies. If you kill off Cora, then she will be relegated to secondary status for all future games. That is what happened with Miranda and it was absolutely disappointing. Whereas other romances, such as Liara, had the best romance scenes and the most amount of development in the relationship because she couldn't die.

The issue is BioWare is inevitably going to kill off a companion someone likes or is in a relationship with, largely sidelining that character for future installments. As others have indicated in this thread, there are other ways of building suspense and drama without having death. We also know that in MEA the Tempest crew can't die either, but if other characters that aren't part of the main line of companions could die, the same impactful storytelling could still work.

I don't really see any value in killing off any companion, unless BioWare just wants to reset them all and have new companions in the next game. Largely, the biggest problem with the Mass Effect trilogy is BioWare wanted to keep giving us new companions. If they had just stuck with the initial cast and slowly added over time, then the consequences in ME3 would have been very different. We'll have to see ultimately how MEA2 shapes up and is different from this game, but I will not be surprised if BioWare opts to value returning companions over having a mostly new cast of characters.

No, if you kill off Cora, Cora's just dead and your romance storyline ends in Ryder mourning the loss of a loved one in future games. Or at least, that's how I'd do it.

Though you could do it and not make Cora have a secondary status if Cora is the only character with such a heavy variable attached to them. The issue comes into play when you have to write around the death, survival, or disappearance of multiple characters at once, so you reduce all of them in effort to save time and energy. The solution would be to write the next stories as if Cora is there and simply omit her parts out if she isn't and offload things on to Ryder. Ryder would have more lines in the process while Cora isn't diminished at all.

But I'm still all for them just being dead since that was the original intent of the majority of my original post.

Then all you are achieving is punishing certain portions of the fan base by killing their LI, while others get to keep their LI for future games. The idea of tragedy and mourning can be a powerful literary tool, but it shouldn't be forced on some players and not others. It's also incredibly tricky to even make that work, as you are more likely to elicit a response of anger and outrage over the decision than genuine sadness.

BioWare has proven they are capable of doing meaningful deaths, such as Mordin, Thane, and Legion. Other than those infrequent examples, I really don't feel that most characters deaths will have meaningful impact. The particular characters I listed only had more meaning because they were living in the next game (for those who saved them).

As a few others have suggested, I'm not against the idea of death. However, I believe that kind of tool makes far more sense for the end of a series of games rather than the beginning or middle. It's far more compelling to build these characters and develop them through multiple games only to have that climatic and sad end in the finale. I believe many would likely find that more appealing.

Mass Effect Andromeda 2 will be the dark one. So someone will die in that.

It's good if you have a single game. Not when you plan a sequel and you sideline squadmates in minor roles because you don't have resources to do each justice.
It was quite the criticism in legacy BSN around ME3's release. I can understand why they went a different route.

The replay value and flexibility can come from different sources, though.

I agree with this line of reasoning... as long as it's not a companion. Especially in MEA, the only characters I would find this to be remotely appropriate for would be anyone except companions. Alec Ryder would be a worthy contender for an important death.

I will only agree to companions dying if it's at the end of this series of games. That way there is more character development, these characters aren't sidelined halfway through the story, and BioWare can focus on other important elements such as the main plot and the villain.

The death of a character I've known through multiple games will always be more meaningful than the death of a character I only knew for one.