The Story Behind Mass Effect: Andromeda's Troubled Five-Year Development
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
Forum Discussion
Wow... some turbulent times there O.O
2x 👍 to the devs for the continuing support of the game
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.
There is a good game there.
The memes and some bugs were distracting, but the wailing exceeded justification in my view.
@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.It was a really insightful article. I still think that MEA is a good game. Looks like it could have been an amazing game if a few things happened differently during the development period.
I'm so glad they abandoned the procedurally-generated worlds thing. That doesn't sound fun at all.
@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. 👍
@adrest4 wrote:There is a good game there.
The memes and some bugs were distracting, but the wailing exceeded justification in my view.
A lot jumped on that bandwagon, based off those few vids and screenshots without even playing the game. Andromeda was wrongly smeared - a lot who would very much enjoy the game are avoiding it now because of that smearing.
If you were more MP-oriented, the MEA experience was much poorer. Campaign is fun, but it just feels like a 10 year old game in many ways. It does not even compare well to Mass Effect 2. Your are correct to be amazed and maybe happy that they put anything out.
See my other posts. I did not have the details, but I pretty much outlined the kinds of problem BioWare had. They are classic "software project gone wrong" problems that lead to a "Death March Project" (Google it). The really sad thing is that there is a ton of published information on how to avoid all of those problems and quite a few consultants who would have helped them turn it around -- if they would have been willing to listen. Would they have release the game on time? No, but sanity would have returned to the process and when the game eventually was released it would have been much better.
So sad. The Devs were heroic and everything fell apart around them because of poor leadership.
