Polygon's open-letter to BioWare regarding their open-world-like games.

See, this to me is an issue where people like yourself are downplaying the issues the game have. It's not minor...

Why are they looking into the CC and possibly revamping it? Why have insiders said that Bioware devs themselves were not happy with animations that were passed to another team in Eastern Europe and were not allowed to do work on it when they saw it?

Do you really think that the finished version released that they sat down and said, yep, I'm really happy with this and yet 2 weeks later there's a massive patch?

I have respect for people liking the game and standing by it, but I loose all respect when they try to downplay the obvious flaws that aren't minor and aren't a few. 

Not many people in the industry have said it's an absolute wreck or worst game of the year, they've all said it's meh 6/10. 

These forums have those that do think it's a wreck however the same can be said for those that say it's amazing and best game of the year. 

Minor missteps and 8 out of 10 /sigh.

Well they both were hyped and had people chomping at the bits to play and when they released they both were meh. 

MEA hasn't had anywhere near as much hate and vitriol as NMS so don't even try to put them on the same level of panning. 

Compared to other open world games, such as Assassin's Creed Unity, Watch_Dogs, and Batman Arkham Knight, which were actually unplayable and broken for months, I'd say the outcry over this game is overblown and quite ridiculous. The amount of comparisons I've heard to ACU is absolutely absurd because this game is very much playable and very enjoyable.

Nowhere did BioWare say they are "revamping" the CC. Here's what BioWare actually said instead of your hyperbole:

- More options and variety in the character creator
- Improvements to hair and general appearance for characters

www.masseffect.com/news/the-journey-ahead

I take all rumors and speculation with a grain of salt. We do not know what happened during MEA's development. It's absolutely silly to take any rumor you hear, which likely was started for attention and views, as objective truth. There's always more to the story than we know, and I'm not going to believe some "industry insider" just because he makes a claim. Only the folks at BioWare know the full story, and they aren't going to talk about it publicly for obvious reasons.

Day one patches happen with every massive AAA game. This is nothing new.

Anyone who believes this game deserves a 6/10 is entitled to their opinion, but I believe they are absolutely nuts. MEA is an incredibly fun game that's being dragged down by negative press and lackluster facial animations. Many have had an agenda against BioWare since DAII, SWTOR, and especially ME3's ending. There are just some folks who will never get over the past and move on.

See you've now jumped big style in to fanboyism. Sorry, I hate using the word but you have. 

And you've even decided to bring up the old excuse that the game is getting flack because of an agenda, no many have an agenda because of old history with Bioware games.

Where is the proof that all those reviewers that gave the game 6/10 have issues with Bioware because of previous games? Where is the evidence that the people on here that don't like the game or give it 6/10 have issues with Bioware because of previous games? None. It's just you and the others that need to cling onto anything at all to get some understanding on why people don't like a game that you love. What's next, trashing MET, because that's usually the next thing in the check list. 

Why do you think people are here discussing this, because they wanted MEA to be a great game, not a good one and definitely not a meh one. 

That said, the list of games you mentioned with issues above cements the fact to me that Bioware is a fading company, rudderless and lost it's soul and that is with it's previous devs/ owners too.

I'm a "fanboy" now because I actually believe the game is really good and don't buy into all of the negative press and "fan" hate? Right.

Were you around for DAII, SWTOR, and ME3's ending? There are plenty of "fans" who have an obvious agenda against BioWare. Any misstep BioWare makes, those "fans' immediately point it out and attempt to claim the studio is dead. It literally happens with every new game BioWare releases.

I encourage you to read most of the "reviews" from "critics" on Metacritic. Look and see how many actually dissect the game without constantly referring to TW3 or the original trilogy. Analyze how many of those reviews are actually judging the game based off its own merits, rather than making blanket statements about how "X game is so much better" without any explanation or looking at the original trilogy with a nostalgic lens.

80% of the threads on this fan site are generally troll threads and rarely are serious. BSN also does not make up the majority of gamers who bought MEA (you obviously did not buy it), so to suggest your "opinion" reflects the majority is rather disingenuous. Again, until you have actually invested more than "3 hours" into the experience, your opinion on the game holds little weight or value as you haven't even truly played it.

The obligatory "BioWare is dead" statement. Perhaps you don't realize this, but most of BioWare is still intact. Other than the founders, who hadn't actually developed games since Baldur's Gate, Casey Hudson, who spearheaded KOTOR and ME, and David Gaider, who was the lead writer on Dragon Age, most of BioWare is still together. It's also worth noting that MEA was already in development with Casey Hudson as the initial Creative Director before any of the leadership at BioWare left.

But if you wish to claim "the sky is falling," by all means, continue. You certainly aren't the first and won't be the last. I'm still waiting for EA to close BioWare down after the "abysmal failure" that was DAII.

Great. "Open world" is the new boogeyman now. Please, on with the groupthink.

LOL what? Now granted I haven't played any of their older series games, but DAO, DA2, ME1, ME2, and ME3 were not open world games. DAI is semi-open world and MEA is probably the "closest" I've ever seen to an open world in their two series I follow heavily. The games I disliked most were DAI and MEA. Yes, it is specifically because its an open world game. Sorry, but I just don't find open world games compelling in 99% of the games that try to do it. It always falls flat. The quests are never connected to the main story or even any sort of interesting story. I mean literally I find WoW's side quests more interesting that's saying something because they have had some dull as fuck side quests. The problem is as always open world doesn't mean anything if you don't fill it with good quality content. A large map is meaningless without good content to back it up. I'd rather have a linear story with small maps that actually is interesting and fun to go through then huge maps with nothing to do or poor/boring content.

I am not a troll.  I have legitimate issues with this game.  It is a fun game, but it has flaws that don't belong in a finished product, and definitely not in a Mass Effect game.  These are objective flaws.  You may not care about the flaw, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a flaw.


1.  Character Creator.  You may or may not care about customizing your character.  But regardless of your opinion, the character creator lacks a lot of options that have been present in previous games.  The lack of ability to rotate the character to different angles means you have limited ability to judge the look you've chosen.  This is the first thing a player will see in this game.  Having it missing so many options leaves a bad first impression.

2.  Unskippable cutscenes.  Far too many of these.  They're great to watch the first time or two, but by time 3 or 4 or 10, it's more than enough.  I don't need to listen to Tann blather on every single time I decide to play (or have to freaking reload to a previous save because of a bug).

3.  Disabling manual save and lack of quicksave.  Seriously.  "I would love to have limited save options!" Said no gamer, EVER.

4.  Animations.  The lip syncing goes from mediocre/acceptable to horrid.  Mostly, it's okay, but geezus sometimes it's so bad you wonder whether they ever watched their own cutscenes.

5.  The thousand yard stare.  Much better after the patch, but it's still like watching puppets try to speak.  The old ones where the lower jaw was hinged and just moved up and down.  With the giant, creepy painted eyes.

6.  Fetch quests.  So many fetch quests.  As Jade Empire has been mentioned, the Imperial City had amazing quests.  Talking to ghosts, participating in a play, meddling in politics.  Awesome.

7.  Bugs.  Bugs bugs bugs bugs bugs.  So far, I have gotten stuck in random crevices 3 times.  Gotten a softlock that required reloading about 20 times before I managed to get past it.  Gotten all of my saves deleted, and had to use Recuva to find one salvagable one.  Had cutscenes or actions fail to trigger about 5 times.  Had quest objectives go un-interactable/disappear a dozen times.  Had quests re-appear 3 times.  Missing the Deluxe edition weapons and armor from 6-10.  The lvl 61-71 drop bug.  Invisi-Ryder.

8.  Auto-dialogue.  No, that's not how the Ryder I want to play would answer that question or statement.

9.  Bad dialogue.  God, some of the dialogue is so bad it feels like it was written by a teenager going through angst phase.  Ryder, stop being a doormat/scapegoat/apologist and grow a spine.

10.  Unfinished storylines.  Two words:  Jien Garson. 

11.  Environmental warnings/damage.  Oh god, who thought this was a good mechanic?  And why of all whys, why would they choose such ridiculous "level 1 hazard" numbers?  50C is a nice hike through the Grand Canyon in July.  -40C is a lovely day in Alaska, Siberia, Northern Canada and Europe.

12.  Cluster/Planet animations.  Tied back to 4--unskippable.  Does it really take THAT long to load the solar system or planet screen?  Thank heavens we can skip part of this now, but who thought it was a good idea?  And moving from system to system is still way too long.

I'm sure there are more that piss me off while I play this game, but these are the ones just off the top of my head.

To re-emphasize--I don't hate MEA.  I do like exploring the worlds.  I just wish the exploration was more interesting (see 6 above).  I like the combat.  I just started my Insanity run.  I liked the abundance of skills.  I like the R&D.  I really like the angara, and I'm interested in the Jardaan, the Quarian Ark, and what develops from that.  I definitely like it better than ME3, which still makes me want to ragequit within the first 10 minutes.

But I'm very glad I waited to get it at 30% off, and don't plan on buying any DLC unless these things are addressed.

Edit:  Adding point 13.  The asari clone army.  No, every asari doesn't have to have a unique face.  But your crew and important NPCs should be unique, with maybe two or three other heads for everyone else.  Ditto with all angara, salarians, turians, and krogans in this game.

I love Andromeda and DAI but I wish Bio would step away from open world. Having a big map with a bunch of shit isnt going to make me want to play the game over and over.

Having a good game with different choices for multiple playtroughs will make me play it over and over like the original trilogy. I miss those times.

1. Character Creator is definitely a valid criticism and something I've been critical of as well. It's far too limited and the presets are far from attractive.

2. Cutscenes aren't skippable or dialogue? I've never had an issue skipping anything to my knowledge, besides the opening cinematic for the game.

3. Manual saving is only disabled on priority missions. That being said, I do see it as a nuisance, although it hardly kills my experience. Quick save is a nonissue, in my eyes, as long as the auto save function works well.

4. Yep. I believe we've all established the animations are far from perfect.

5. I'd bundle this with wonky facial animations. In general, BioWare seemed to have a breakdown in their conversation system and how characters emote.

6. All BioWare games have fetch quests. I honestly can't remember any of the fetch quests in Jade Empire, and it's one of my favorite BioWare games. As long as you aren't a completionist, that content is entirely optional. I certainly prefer all of the fetch quests in MEA over the "requisitions" in DAI.

7. What platform are you playing on? I barely had any issues on PC. It seems problems are more likely to occur on consoles. Other than that one Nomad quest bug and some enemies clipping in the environment, my experience was  smooth.

8. Auto-dialogue has been an issue since ME3. That's more of an issue with BioWare design and not something specific to MEA.

9. Quality of dialogue is subjective. For an inexperienced group of young explorers, I didn't find most of the dialogue to be that jarring. Only a few minor exceptions where BioWare probably could have toned it down a bit.

10. I'll just assume you obtained all of the memory fragments. I also believe a lot of her character's background is explained in the Uprising novel. It's still possible we could learn more about her in DLC, but I also would have liked to have seen a bit more of her.

11. The system more or less seems to be a holdover from ME1 with how it handled "hazards." I don't particularly have an issue with it as it largely gets the point across of "don't go there."

12. As you indicated, you can skip most of the travel time now. This galaxy map was originally supposed to be in ME1 but was cut due to a lack of ram on the Xbox 360. I don't mind BioWare showcasing the beautiful galaxy they created, but it should have been skippable from the start.

Many of your criticisms are more so complaints about BioWare, in general, and not necessarily specific to MEA. I also wouldn't say any of your criticisms are downright devastating towards the game. Aside from wonky facial animations and a limited CC, I think most of your complaints are either subjective or relatively minor. I didn't have your bug issues, so that's really something that differs between every gamer.

I found DAI's environments to be an absolute chore not worth exploring. I did them because of the completionist in me, but I definitely did not enjoy myself. I found MEA to be a vast improvement over DAI's design, personally. Not sure I'll even ask what your problem with ME3 is, but I suppose it's a positive you like MEA more?

While I definitely understand your hesitation, DLC is more or less a requirement to experience in BioWare games these days. With DLC like Arrival, Legacy, Leviathan, and Trespasser, you miss crucial story beats if you don't buy the DLC. You are ultimately free to do what you'd like, but I can almost guarantee you BioWare will tie MEA2 to one of these DLCs and move the story forward. It's inevitable given the last four games and the DLC they produced.

That being said, I think a lot of your issues with the game will be resolved by BioWare as they improve the game with the upcoming patches that are planned.

Quality writing is not subjective, at least not entirely. Unless anyone really thinks we can't tell the difference in quality between a story about pink unicorn written by a 7 year-old and eg. J.R.R. Tolkien's "Hobbit"- Tolkien simply is a better writer, even if I prefer the unicorn story above any of his books.

Facial animations in MEA are bad, but they are just a small part of the problem which is subpar narrative comparing to MET or even DAI.

This is completely missing the point of the article. The author, and I, rate Skyrim and Witcher 3 among the best games of all time and could love them equally alongside Bioware's original games. What we're saying is that..... That's NOT Bioware. Bioware is not Bethesda. And we needed Bioware.