For people interested, there is a follow up to the famous Kotaku article:https://kotaku.com/the-story-behind-mass-effect-andromedas-troubled-five-1795886428

There is a good game there.The memes and some bugs were distracting, but the wailing exceeded justification in my view.

I figured development must have been troubled when I noticed tree separate lead writers in the game's end credits. That's never a good sign. There's definitely a great game in there somewhere, but with the many flaws it ended up being just a good one. The game has some form of personality disorder where it forgets if it's a corridor shooter or an open world game. When it tries to be linear like Mass Effect 3 it does so really well, but the open world design steps in every trap associated with the sub-genre. Backtracking, fetch quests, you name it.

Wow... some turbulent times there O.O2x 👍 to the devs for the continuing support of the game

Now that is a very very sad story of a game that should deliver so many great things, a game that could pave the ground for a much better successor but simply will get abondened...I know how it is working on projects with a lot of ambitions but being stalled by many different issues (usually caused by politics and severe lack of leadership - or too many different leaderships, like with ME: Andromeda).If the Frostbite engine won't be upgraded to do facial animations properly, the next FIFA title will define "shitstorm".EA, don't abondon your own IP. You come so far, just finish what you started!

@Phoenixflieger wrote:Now that is a very very sad story of a game that should deliver so many great things, a game that could pave the ground for a much better successor but simply will get abondened...I know how it is working on projects with a lot of ambitions but being stalled by many different issues (usually caused by politics and severe lack of leadership - or too many different leaderships, like with ME: Andromeda).If the Frostbite engine won't be upgraded to do facial animations properly, the next FIFA title will define "shitstorm".EA, don't abondon your own IP. You come so far, just finish what you started!It is indeed sad... u mentioned all the things i typed down in my initial message, but i ended up deleting all of it... I didn't wanna mess up the mood here on forum. But now that u said it, i agree.Too many bosses wanting 1.000 things done differently. And of course forcing that stupid frostbite engine on them just cause they wanna use "their" engine and want to have "their" frostbite logo on the front page. It's all $$$ and publicity. That's what happens when someone takes over and no matter what, they want to leave their fingerprints on the work at any cost. And in the end who suffers.... those who actually worked and put their heart, talent and effort in it... and then someone else comes smashing down everything they've accomplished. Sad!If i could buy Bioware ... i would let them work however they want... whatever way works best for them, cause they proved they CAN do it 🙂

The Story Behind Mass Effect: Andromeda's Troubled Five-Year Development

53 Replies

draqonin
9 years ago
Thanks for posting this! Good article.
Not sure if this screenshot from the article is real, but nice going on CC in case it is 🙂
V4rdyn
9 years ago
Wow... some turbulent times there O.O
2x 👍 to the devs for the continuing support of the game
Anonymous
9 years ago
Indeed.
Funny thing is, if you pull away the bugs and the obvious flaws there is actually a bloody good game lurking underneath it all. I only hope Bioware about turn and invest in more MEA titles. It has really good potential as its own franchise. It just needs more time and TLC.
Anonymous
9 years ago
Now that is a very very sad story of a game that should deliver so many great things, a game that could pave the ground for a much better successor but simply will get abondened...
I know how it is working on projects with a lot of ambitions but being stalled by many different issues (usually caused by politics and severe lack of leadership - or too many different leaderships, like with ME: Andromeda).

If the Frostbite engine won't be upgraded to do facial animations properly, the next FIFA title will define "shitstorm".
EA, don't abondon your own IP. You come so far, just finish what you started!
draqonin
9 years ago
@Phoenixflieger wrote:
Now that is a very very sad story of a game that should deliver so many great things, a game that could pave the ground for a much better successor but simply will get abondened...
I know how it is working on projects with a lot of ambitions but being stalled by many different issues (usually caused by politics and severe lack of leadership - or too many different leaderships, like with ME: Andromeda).

If the Frostbite engine won't be upgraded to do facial animations properly, the next FIFA title will define "shitstorm".
EA, don't abondon your own IP. You come so far, just finish what you started!
It is indeed sad... u mentioned all the things i typed down in my initial message, but i ended up deleting all of it... I didn't wanna mess up the mood here on forum. But now that u said it, i agree.
Too many bosses wanting 1.000 things done differently. And of course forcing that stupid frostbite engine on them just cause they wanna use "their" engine and want to have "their" frostbite logo on the front page. It's all $$$ and publicity. That's what happens when someone takes over and no matter what, they want to leave their fingerprints on the work at any cost.
And in the end who suffers.... those who actually worked and put their heart, talent and effort in it... and then someone else comes smashing down everything they've accomplished. Sad!
If i could buy Bioware ... i would let them work however they want... whatever way works best for them, cause they proved they CAN do it 🙂
V4rdyn
9 years ago
The DAI team did part of the job already, but like the article says, even that modded Frostbite was missing tools the MEA project required, and had other limitations like insufficient map size and lack of animation rigging. There's also the shift in the tech used mid-production when it should've been decided and locked ages ago in the pre-production phase. I'm talking about when they were told to shift to Maya instead of 3ds Max.
I'm not with/against either software (I learned my way around in Maya, personally; seen the interface, but I haven't had any up close and personal run-ins with 3ds Max so far). True, you don't exactly have to re-learn everything from scratch, but enough to call it a setback. For example tell one person who used MS Office all his life that "starting tomorrow, you'll be using LibreOffice," there will be a change in performance.
And yeah, good points for deciding against the full procedurally generated content... we saw how that turned out (I'm looking at you No Man's Sky).
arthurh3535
9 years ago
Considering that EA is getting a lot more games put out by the Frostfire engine, having it's logo be on a big name property IS important. It might not be the best choice always, but trying to expand what your own tools do to make even more games out there is not inherently wrong.
SofaJockeyUK
Hero+
9 years ago
There is a good game there.
The memes and some bugs were distracting, but the wailing exceeded justification in my view.
DarkLordDashie
9 years ago
@adrest4 wrote:
There is a good game there.
The memes and some bugs were distracting, but the wailing exceeded justification in my view.
I'll have to agree with you. It's hardly a bad game, and it's definitely above average. It's just not "great" which is I guess generally what you get, and what everybody expects from Bioware. So I can also understand, from a Bioware and Mass Effect fans perspective, the massive concerns and disappointments. And from the devs perspective, I can only imagine how hard it is to work with such a high expectation on their shoulders. Especially with all that happened during the development process.

Thanks OP for posting this article though. Was an interesting read. Really good to have insight of what exactly happened with ME:A.
V4rdyn
9 years ago
@adrest4 wrote:
There is a good game there.
The memes and some bugs were distracting, but the wailing exceeded justification in my view.
Agreed. Totally. 👍