So what exactly did Mass Effect Andromeda's huge budget get spent on?

I'm guessing Primus is gonna be the main villain. Nice to have a female one for a change!

I've said this before, but not I think on this forum. I suspect that Andromeda went through development hell, including a complete tear-down and rebuild halfway through that "5 year development cycle," which was why details were not forthcoming throughout the development cycle.

- Casey Hudson left in August 2014. Yes, they had already begun working on Andromeda before he left. At the time of his departure, Andromeda already possessed "stunning assets and playable builds." www.gamespot.com/articles/mass-effect-director-casey-hudson-leaves-bioware/1100-6421578/ I don't doubt he meant playable pre-alphas, but that does point to the progress that had been made at the time.

- Not really an indicator of anything except marketing bait-and-switch, but still curious to me: the E3 Announce Trailer from June, 2015 was entirely designed around Alec Ryder (whose name had not been revealed yet). When pressed, BioWare revealed that the character in the Announce trailer was NOT going to be the playable character. Why create an entire trailer around an npc who and hire a well-known actor (Clancy Brown) to voice him? While not playable, Alec was probably going to have a much larger role.


- Writer Chris Schlerf wore the title of "Lead Writer" for less than six months, before departing for Bungie in February, 2016. www.polygon.com/2016/2/15/11010936/mass-effect-andromeda-lead-writer-bioware-bungie

- The leaked pre-alpha footage had fantastic facial animations - especially compared to the final product.


My point is that, IF Andromeda did in fact go through development hell, $40 million is an even smaller budget than it appears at first glance.

abedsbrother who would have thought that would end up being Drack's loyalty mission? And in another trailer, we first heard Jaal before he was introduced and his "I have a bad feeling" line was also from Drack's LM. Seems that one was one of the first.

abedsbrother

Because, the Memory Quest, which is the Ryder's personal story is voiced and acted by Alec. He may die in the game very fast, but the Memory Quest blends in through the whole length of the game telling us of the Ryders' background in a non invasive way, and not in info dumps. Alec's Memory sequence might have been tightened back, but he is still very much one of the main characters in the story.

And, Memory quest is one example of how well BioWare blends personal stories with the main story with exploration, creating a balanced experience for once when one aspect of the game does NOT overshadow another, and that's the first game where they managed it. Every other one of their games was lopsided. ME 2 delivered far too much of personal companion stories, ME3 put the main plot above all else, even player in the long cutscenes w/o participation, DA2 gave too much of a protagonist to handle and no exploration, Inquisition delivered landscape art and personal relationships with the team, but Andromeda, for once pays attention to everything and makes it all matter, and does not overdo it.

Perhaps that's why it leaves all the different fractions just a touch dissatisfied, and on the Internet, a little dissatisfied turns into an apocalyptic tragedy and a bash fest.

The more people bitched about it, the more I knew I'd love it and I do. If you actually make the effort to do the side quests and learn the story, it's amazing! Speedruns or just doing a few LM's and the main stuff takes away from a lot. That memory quest literally changed everything about the AI and its purpose and it made sense in the end.

Thank you.

Everyone acts like $40 million is a lot for  AAA title now days.

For their relatively low budget they have done quite a good job. There definitely seems to be evidence of change in direction during development. I hope they can patch the issues and get a good successful DLC plan going. Finally fix the skill slots as it looks like gameplay wise MP came first then the SP which in my opinion sucks.

Witcher 3 cost $80 including both expansions. Witcher 3 base game cost $32.

n4g.com/news/1739556/the-witcher-3-cost-32m-to-make-35m-spent-on-marketing

Yup. I miss the days of "buy game, enjoy it talk to friends on phone."

Maybe I am in the minority but I prefered the way the other engine worked. It looked alot better too in my opinion.

See, that's interesting.  My first time was a logical/professional "explore every nook and cranny" 98% playthrough, I did not have much fun...at all. It was tedious as hell to me.

Now for my 2nd, I am playing casual/emotional, which has funnier lines, and only focusing on main story and loyalty.  And I am enjoying it much more this time around because it feels more balanced.

I think it was the  time rather then the story balance that was way out of wack for me. All those fetch quests felt like work.  In a weird way the shards in DAI were more successful to get us to go all over the game board, because it felt like you were working towards something with all the running about (ie, to unlock that final door and solve a mystery).  Then, on subsequent playthroughs, you never need do it again. IN this game, the fetching and random crap is just...there feels like there is way more of it than core gameplay. 

Everyone is different, I reckon!

Also...I have no idea how much money it takes to make a game, nor what it goes to in the game.  I imagine people and their slaries and their health insurance and all that are alot of it.

Oh wait...Canadians don't have to buy health insurance! 

It got spent on salary, that`s always the highest business expense.