After Senior Development Director Chris Wynn left the project recently, Mass Effect Andromeda has again popped up in the news. This might not spell trouble for the game in any manner and it simply seems like his role is complete and the other members of the team are just moving on.
Chris Wynn announced through his Twitter account that he will no longer be a part of the team and has returned to the US. He further declared that Andromeda is the most talented team that he was ever worked with. He will be joining the N7 team instead and will be one of the fans waiting for the release of Mass Effect Andromeda.
A BioWare representative declared that Chris was a great member of the team and they thanked him for his contributions while wishing him the best for the new adventures that lay ahead.
Meanwhile, PC Mag Asia reported that the game’s original lead writer Drew Karpyshyn will return after a 3-year break from BioWare. iDigitalTimes reported that a leaked video was released and it gave us an idea of what’s coming in the future. According to the video, Mass Effect will retain its core experience like traveling with a party and focusing on gameplay.
Thankfully, this doesn’t look like any Unchartered 4 drama where the entire team of project lead/writers suddenly decides to abandon ship for unknown reasons. Meanwhile, BioWare hasn’t given us a lot of info or details regarding Andromeda.
What we know so far is that exploration is a big focus in this upcoming title. According to the earlier leaks this year, Mass Effect Andromeda is a game where you will upgrade your ship and crew while exploring numerous solar systems in the Andromeda galaxy. While doing that, you will be collecting resources and establishing colonies.
To some, this sounds a lot like a space simulation title. Ages ago, they started to get really popular but it seems like their popularity has finally made a comeback. For years, EVE Online was the biggest name in this genre. It was one of the few existing MMOs which came with a large player-base along with a subscription fee.
Meanwhile, Elite: Dangerous was successful on both PC and consoles. Right now, Star Citizen is the most impressive title and it raked in $100 million in crowd-funding so that Chris Roberts of Wing Commander can craft a space-based game.
At this point, it is too big to even comprehend. The details which were so far revealed about Mass Effect Andromeda, indicates that it is more like one of these titles rather than a proper Mass Effect game. It sounds pretty dangerous but this might end up being reality. Fans love Mass Effect and they do not want this game to change so drastically and therein, lays the risk.
Although gamers will be free from a few more Commander Shepherd stories, players will still not appreciate the fact that they need to go through several hundred planets in order to collect resource nodes! So far, we have seen that Mass Effect isn’t really an exploration game at all. The games in this franchise feature a complex story and come with very little explorations.
Mostly, it is simply travelling to pre-determined locations in order to start or continue pre-determined missions. Sure, we shot a lot of mine-probes at planets but that doesn’t really count as exploration. However, Mass Effect Andromeda could feature both the storyline and exploration aspects and make a hell of a title!
Bioware doesn’t have to make a game their fans like. They will make whatever game they want, and people can choose whether or not to buy it.
Bioware doesn’t have to make a game their fans like. They will make whatever game they want, and people can choose whether or not to buy it.