IGN Video: Mass Effect Andromeda: A Tour of the Nexus

It's entirely possible that they didn't have the budget for the characters to look as good as the rest of the game. I don't know, I wasn't there during the 5 years of development. But the facial animations are so far down the list of what I care about the game. Horizon didn't have good facial animations a lot of the time. Did that even mean a damn? People seem to be loving the game, so I guess not.

Writers like it I guess, so it was an easy way to just get something in there, pssh. IDK
They can insert their r/WritingPrompts there maybe if that's the sort of talent working there now.

"[WP]: It's 1956 and the world feels the ramifications of the Cold War... BUT, an inventor has just finished the design of a futuristic refrigerator that can time-travel."

The reason people complain about facial animations.
www.forumfanatics.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wonderful-display-of-emotions.jpg

Whatever is this supposed to mean? Yeah, sure, Drake looks good but it's a fallacy to compare anything Uncharted does to RPGs like Mass Effect. You can compare it to Witcher or Bethesda games and maybe Horizon (which really is more of an action game I'd say) but you're reaching to draw comparisons to UC4.

Also, a guy on NeoGAF brought up a good point in that the lip sync isn't that bad in the latest trailer for Andromeda but the eyes look completely hollow as if BioWare put way more priority into lip-sync than the soulless eyes (which were the problem in the first place with Sara for example) which is the opposite of what good animators would do.

Look at Life is Strange. Lip sync did actually get patched which I never got to see but when i played it was TERRIBLE but I didn't mind it at all because the eyes had a proper connection in them. 


And fuck... am I seriously comparing BioWare , a big AAA division of EA to Dontnod on their animation quality? Life is Strange is a glorified Telltale styled game. Jesus christ. I hope BioWare can patch a complete overhaul of those dead-eye stares into MEA in half a year (I seriously want them to drop an entire story DLC plan just to get this done). If NPCs commonly look as hollow as that gal on the Nexus I'm seriously contemplating on just waiting to play this game entirely. I can't put up with that stuff for an entire game without coming out feeling underwhelmed, and I wanna be impressed.

I'm not comparing Uncharted to Mass Effect, I'm just pointed out how insanely good it's facial animations are. I am starting to get a little concerned about them. Like you said to me the issue is the lifeless eyes and total lack of emotion. It's not a deal breaker but I think in 2017 we should expect better. The Turian they showed looked pretty good but that woman's eyes where borderline scary. In a game where expressing emotion is important I think we should have better facial expression.

And that sets a precedent. DA:I was fucking full of that. It starts out impressive and key scenes retain good animations but then on average the game is just full of expressionless conversations where the face looks neutral while the voice acting goes all over.

Look at Jack when she speaks in ME2. Funny enough one of the guys who animated on this game is now working with Naughty Dog and also on UC4.


Average MET animation
 

Average Andromeda animation:

Disagree. Most of the animations are fine. But gamers, being the reactionary bunch they are, are making it out to be way worse than it actually is.

It's too bad it'll ruin the game for you.

I will say that I have seen instances where the facial animations looked ok. But this trailer made me a little concerned again. 

Agreed, what's sad is the more I look at it the more I realize the detail in her face is actually pretty good. Not Nathan Drake good but still good. Seems like the potential is there for better animations and more lively eyes. I'm just getting skeptical this can be fixed in a patch. 

I feel like if they just had better eye textures it wouldn't stand out as much. I've been playing horizon zero dawn the last few days, and it's animation issues don't stand out nearly as much due to the eyes looking so alive.

Not really a big issue for me overall, but def has room for improvement.