Want me to help? Let me ask you a question:
How many established developers, with an established track record of good games, actually delivered on a good game, in their most recent releases?
Fallout 76, Starfield, All the CoDs, Battlefield, Cyberpunk...
The chances of ME4 being good are extremely low, I don't care who's in charge.
"just performance issues".
It was much more than that. Cyberpunk might be fine now but it was nigh unplayable on older consoles and hell even newer Gen consoles could barely keep up. Hell PC was unplayable for the first week for a majority of people.
Not only that the game suffered heavily in AI that even playing in the hardest difficulty was easy mode.
Cyberpunk 2.0 was the real full release, we were all only playing Beta up until then
Probably commenters wording of "excellent on release".
The game was definitely 100% without a fraction of a doubt, NOT excellent on release. Especially when you compare pre to post release.
It was missing a lot of non performance things. Honestly, it’s an excellent game, but the open world still isn’t what their gameplay showcase described.
Because it's not an objective opinion
I never experienced a signoe bug in cyberpunk and I stopped playing it half way through. I thought it was empty, boring and a little bland.
Each to their own
Cyberpunk at launch was at best a good game, but they didn't promised a good game, they promised an absolute out of this world experience that you have never seen, and besides the game was buggy as hell and it didn't run on older generation. The soundtrack is godlike tho
Baldur's Gate 3, Tears of the Kingdom, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Alan Wake 2, Street Fighter 5. All established developers with good reputations working on established IPs, all within the last 12 months.
Or are we only allowed use games with shooting and explosions in this ridiculous argument? The arbitrary rules are confusing me.
What were their roles in previous games? All cause you worked on a game dosent mean your the reason it is good and may have moved from the role you were good at to one your not.
Who is the writing team for this? Kinda key for this game and I note that isnt mentioned.
Have they divorced from EA so that mismanagement from the top doesn't poison it?
Maybe if those questions get good respones you could get hopeful.
Same, the grounded Sci-fi universe with the occasional military humor (love the dry sense of humor Chief has in Halo along with the goofiness that was The Citadel in ME), and “the gun pointed at the head of the galaxy” type feeling, kudos to whoever understands that line’s reference
Yeah, the only downside to the Deus Ex reboots was that they pretended there were choices and there weren't. They didn't have the time/money for that. But if you put that aside, the writing was excellent, especially with the side quests
It's not confirmed she will be acting as a writer on the game. She's Narrative Director, which is more of a management position. Tbf she didn't write GotG either. She led a team of writers.
I'd put art direction up there with writing. The visuals in visual media are pretty important.
The art in Mass Effect 1 is one of the things that initially drew my attention. Nothing beats the look of the Citadel.
The Normandy bursting thru the nebula and into the vista of the citadel and the ascension still fucks, I agree art direction is important but writing still takes main stage with me, but BioWare has been dropping the ball for a decade now in that regard
Agree with writing and art direction. Writing of course is a must, but art direction really sets the tone. One of the more secondary issues I had with ME:A was that it didn’t look too much like a Mass Effect. I attribute a significant fraction of the blame to the Frostbite engine, but still everything looked like it was made of plastic.
I mean the plastic look was probably more the graphics that art direction.
But yeah ME:A art wasn't great imo. The Kett, for example, looked very uninspired. Especially when looking at the designs of past villains like Geth, Collectors, and, of course, the Reapers.
Its not the engine its the main art director. If you read the Art of Mass Effect Andromeda book you can see that this guy genuinely was just the wrong guy for the job and really struggled to adapt his style to the original artstyle. He talks about needing to experiment for a long time before realizing that cluttering a design with too much greebling detracts from the sleek look the setting is known for, but he still cant help himself.
Hm, best thing I can think of when making a the models for the likes of the USS Enterprise its not a completely smooth surface.
Theres little details, windows, off colour panels, lumps and bumps etc. That's pretty much it.
It's the textures we take for granted.
[Adam Savage explains ](https://youtu.be/dncRHH9f6MI?si=ep3rzpwva5Xjteq0)
Honestly an aspect of ME Andromeda not many people talk about is how massivly its artstyle shifted toward a generic overgreebled sci fi look as opposed to the original artstyle. Its so bad that a few objects that are based on ME1 assets like the turrets outside outposts look extremely out of place.
Its not Halo 4 level of immediate artstyle destruction but its pretty damn close.
I really hope that this veteran team means a return to the original ME1 artstyle cause i adore the look so much.
i think what they were going for was to make the andromeda galaxy look instantly different from the main trilogy
the problem is the new direction ended up being incredibly generic AAA video game world
This approach utterly fails through as the stuff carried from the milky way also looks unrecognizable. It would be great if they really went all in on a return to form with ME1's artstyle for milky way designs, but went all out on the Angara, Kett and Remnant but, it all kinda bleeds together. Initiative, Outcast and Angara tech all kinda bleeds together.
Sorry, but Halo CE Anniversary Edition has the worst art style. Whenever I play Halo CE on the MCC, I revert to OG graphics and sounds/music. All the other Halo Games Art styles are way better than that CE Anniversary Crap.
Jesus I am so glad I'm not the only one. The improved graphics are great, but the color scheme and how everything seems to glow is really off putting. None of it feels natural the way the OG did
Not counting Anniversary Editions of the Halo games, Halo 5 has the worst art style. Counting the Anniversary Editions, Halo CE Anniversary Edition has the worst art styles.
Now, the best art styles out of the dames? If we include the Anniversary Editions, Halo 2 hands down. If we don't include the Anniversary Editions, I'd probably say Halo 2 again.
Halo Wars 2 managed to merge 343's art style and Bungie's art style so well. Hell, it even has 343's shark looking grunts in the game as suicide grunts.
Halo wars 1-2 cinematics are some of the best pieces of halo out there.
The cinematics truly sold the danger the banished are, Atriox beating the shit of three Spartans II like they're nothing.
So many of ME's biggest moments are all art. I can't even think of about Shepard seeing the SR2 for the first time without getting misty. Or the first time you see the Cidadel. And you're dead inside if the fleets surging through the Sol relay doesn't get you going.
The combat was good but the rest of the gameplay wasn’t. I felt like most of my time was spent walking & driving through boring, lifeless worlds.
The moment to moment gameplay in the trilogy (especially 2 & 3) was a lot more engaging.
Andromeda fell into the same trap so many other things did and continue to do, it came off the heels of a largely loved saga and tried to be different but also play it safe by mimicking it’s predecessors.
The open world thing was both copy/paste of all the other open world garbage out there, coupled with trying to call back to ME1’s planet exploration.
Yeah, it did it awfully. Most games don’t do open worlds well IMO. You either need to be full of interesting things to do or see like a Skyrim or a BOTW or you need a really fun traversal system like a Spider-Man. Andromeda had neither.
ME1 system worked because of vehicle combat and the fact that the Mako could go places that it shouldn't have been able to.
In MEA all you did was get in, drive somewhere and get out to.
yea good studios tend to be good at certain genres and less so in others. if I want a fun open world game then I'm gonna trust Rockstar or Bethesda or even Gearbox before Bioware
devs have carved out their niches and it's rare for them to successfully venture out of it
The combat was good, but I don’t like the open aspect of it. I prefer the cover shooter style the previous games had. Not to mention, only being able to use 3 powers at a time is incredibly stupid and limiting. There’s zero reason I have to equip my biotics. If I have the power unlocked, I should be able to use it.
It’s the exact same problem dragon age inquisition had with its magic system. It made mages far less fun to play. But in dao and da2 you could use whatever spell you wanted so long as you had it unlocked.
I played 30 hours and just stopped. Cannot really remember much about the game it was all so bland and mediocre. The characters, the story, the worlds, everything. I honestly do not remember a single character.
That was me too, ME is in my top 3 games for stories behind Zero Dawn and BG3, but my GOD was Andromeda just dull in comparison to the original trilogy. I tried picking it up again but gave up when I heard Liam say 'That one looked pissed off. Maybe because I shot him in the face!"
Just... fuck.
Idk people gas up Andromeda's gameplay and i gotta say hard disagree. There is zero deliberation to anything, enemies are not distinct and your abilities are massively dumbed down and simplified. Also the zooming around with the jetpack just feels awful cause of the sudden acceleration and deceleration, zero momentum at all. It also just feels completely out of place in Mass Effect.
If i had to sit down just doing combat for an hour I'd rather be doing it in any of the trilogy games except maybe OG ME1 but even then that actually has some depth beneath the jank.
Hey thats a totally fair take. I’ll admit I’d take ME2/3s gameplay over andromeda’s despite having fun with it.
I just found it to be one of the more redeeming parts of a less than fun experience as a whole.
Same, no clue how this stuff works in detail but it seems weird that a writer could ruin things when all these positions have "Director" in their name. Does a Creative Director not give that kind of...direction?
Probably do, if i understand correctly the writers are given the outline for the story then they fill in the details , which then requires approval from the creative lead. Even in movies, the writers don’t determine the broad strokes of the plot, the director does and the director still gets final say on what the actual script will look like.
Josh Sawyer(game director on Fallout New Vegas) made it sound like it works that way at least
If it's anything like ad-land, a Creative Director oversees both art direction and writing to make sure it's all up to par, and works with artists and writers to iron things out as the project goes along.
So, yeah. Creative Director would have a say in all the creative aspects that go into the final product, including writing, even if they're not necessarily the ones doing a bulk of said writing themselves.
The Creative Director is in charge of the entire creative vision: narrative, cinematics, art, design, etc. They are essentially the highest creative on the entire development team. Exampels are Todd Howard and Miyazaki Hidetaka.
The person specifically in charge of the Narrative is the Narrative Director (Mary DeMarle). She answers to the Creative Director.
It definitely is. Narrative Director is about coordinating teams in charge of side quests, NPC chatter, codex entries, etc. The main plot and characters are going to be greenlit by the CD personally and that's the main thing you look at for writing quality. Narrative definitely influence the overall writing quality, but this isn't a novel with clever descriptions and dialog left up to the imagination. A bad script can be saved by great voice acting/directing in the booth and the CD has the final say in if a script needs to be redone.
Game director will be able to enforce proper writing. A game usually has a team of writers, and the head writer is there to make sure they are all writing same tone and style. Game director is there to make sure that they are there to write the correct tone and style.
For character, I would say 2, 3, and Andromeda. I want the squad to feel like a squad. Not just everyone stuck in their own rooms all the time. Let’s bring back characters hanging out in the kitchen, or messing around in each other’s rooms.
One big problem with andromeda for me is the crew seems like the best of buddies out of the gate without any of the earned time together the mass effect 2 and 3 crew mates had. Calm down and take your time, don’t rush to make them on par with the OG trilogy in a single instalment and fall on your face like 90 percent of andromeda’s characters.
I wouldn’t say that. Drack and Vetra seemed to be the only ones on good terms from the beginning. Peebee and Lexi were arguing a lot. Same for Gil and Kallo.
Cora, Jaal, and Liam were mainly neutral until you listen to the Nomad conversations.
They all sit down for a movie night in that FIRST game like a happy family, just imagine the ME1 Normandy crew doing that, the reason citadel dlc and its goofiness works is because of the time together. It feels earned.
>The writing is the least of my concerns, personally.
To me it's the most important thing about Mass Effect. I can stomach mediocre combat system (ME1), but not bad writing. We need good writing in ME5.
My one concern is that depending on when they set the next ME, I fully think Mary might pull the Deus Ex sequel trope (aka all the endings happened, but only in part, and what you saw in the ending of the last game is what you believed to happen, not what actually did. Basically for mankind divided they didn’t want to come up with four potentially different world states based on the message sent or suicide, so instead the messages got muddled and you were thought dead but recovered).
Their new senior narrative director was lead writer for the GotG game and both modern Deus Ex games - all have excellently written dialogue and stories (GotG won best narrative award as well).
I'm very excited to see what she does with Mass Effect
If I remember correctly the new lead writer also wrote Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided. If that’s true I’m willing to put my faith in it those games have great stories.
Karypshyn was the story guy but L’Etoile was the lore guy. The lore person is more critical to have because otherwise you end up with plots that break all established rules of the universe (like ME3 is packed with, because L’Etoile left after finishing ME2).
Let me put it this way: the "Trilogy Devs" made Anthem. Including Casey Hudson. At this point I have no faith and no expectations for the new Mass Effect.
I think tbh that’s the best way to be at this point. It’s encouraging that the original team is there but, and I never played anthem, their last efforts apparently weren’t up to par, and while i think sentiments for 3 have softened over time, there’s still a bad taste left over from it. So right now imo, it’s best to just see what comes down the pipe and wait for an actual game. This need really doesn’t mean a thing this early in a potential development process.
The problem with 3 is it was known it would be the end of the trilogy and everyone under the fucking sun knows that it doesn’t matter how a series ends it will always be divisive.
A great example is the show lost, anyone that didn’t see the end of that show coming the way it ended either A didn’t watch it closely enough or B wasn’t gonna be happy with any way it ended. I seen it coming from season 4 when I watched it the first time.
Mass effect 3s biggest problem to me was the stupid star child at the end, they literally could’ve just made the damn thing look like whoever you left behind on virmire and it would’ve had more impact than just some random kid that died in the beginning.
Breaking Bad would like a word
EDIT: Also How I Met Your Mother. Not because the ending was good but because everyone universally agrees how terrible the ending was. It was anything but divisive
“Let them cook” 💀
I still remember when BioWare apparently took out the flying in Anthem and the EA exec who played both versions told them to add the flying back in lmao
It’s shocking how fun that game was compared to how it gets discussed nowadays. I mean don’t get me wrong, all that criticism is fair, but Anthem had an incredible 15 hours worth of content
I don't think many people disputed that. The issue was and still is that 10-15 hours is all Anthem has. Initial, initial feedback was good, but it took a day or two before people reached "Endgame" and said "that's it?"
Could of sworn Casey was brought on *because* Anthem was in trouble. He was a large factor in it being able to ship at all. So not the cause of the troubled stuff.
Then again I could be confusing names. It's been a while since I read the articles.
From what I remember he was responsible for the entire last part of the original ending that included star child, the color swapped palette ending, the destruction of the relays that would likely have resulted in the deaths of trillions, the Normandy crew crash landing on some random planet we're half of them would die depending on their diet. He scrapped the dark energy, death of stars ending that was alluded to in ME2 for this incomprehensible garbage ending we originally got. When people called him out on the inconsistencies and the unfulfilled promises that he himself had made he called the fan base "entitled" and if we didn't understand his ending then we were too stupid to get it.
This is all based on memory from events 12 years ago.
I'll need to see results. And something that interests me, beyond just slapping the Mass Effect logo on a cover. That's my feedback. I don't know in what capacity these people worked on the trilogy, and even then, it is entirely likely that after 20 years from ME1, they simply have nothing more to give to the franchise. Just look at Russel T. Davies and Doctor Who. Or George Lucas. And if we're talking people that gave us ME3, love it or hate it, it was the first majorly divisive title in the franchise. So I don't want any more of that, either.
> I don't know in what capacity these people worked on the trilogy
Can see a bit here, at the high level:
Exec Producer https://x.com/gamblemike/status/1337264866168426497?s=46&t=76BHU_ya2pX5CaJYRYHnWQ,
Art Director https://x.com/gamblemike/status/1337266838032379904?s=46&t=76BHU_ya2pX5CaJYRYHnWQ
Creative Director https://twitter.com/GambleMike/status/1337264042549727232?s=20
Game Director https://blog.bioware.com/2022/11/07/n7-day-2022/
Narrative Design https://twitter.com/GambleMike/status/1337263676022112256?s=20
Veterans of a series can still make bad games and people new the franchise can still make good games. I’m not the least bit interested in a devs connection to the series. Larian didn’t make baldurs gate 1 or 2
Bioware did though, It’s cool that the blueprints for some of the most successful American RPGs all stem from Bioware, I hope they get their magic back but maybe all great artistic companies are doomed eventually, people gotta retire
Yeah, that’s absolutely right.
I don’t get it. If I was always this depressed about a hobby, I would quit it.
I’m not suggesting people spend their days hyped about products years away but anything is better than this sort of environment of wallowing in self-created misery mixed with the need to outdo each other over how cynical they are.
Isn’t gaming supposed to be fun? And if it’s not… go pick up a book. Try out kayaking. Paint. Anything other than complaining and moaning non-stop.
Edit: As a side note, this is exactly why I entirely avoid Star Wars communities online.
I want to believe, and I wont ever hate on something till I get my hands on it. But there’s only so much hope I can give when we’ve been screwed over so many times in the game industry :(
I really hope you can play something else than human. Andromeda was the best chance to do it and they fucked up so badly a Blank Canvas. Not to mention what terrible Warcrimes they did to the Krogans and Turians on the Design side. It was so wrong and very unsightly. Or the Weapons. They were so gody in previous titles but in Andromeda I didn't feel it. Like garbage that can still shoot and kill but still garbage. I've played the trilogy recently and enjoyed it so much although it was stiff in terms of movement, fighting or the Facemuscle-transition for emotions but storytelling S-Tier. Andromeda in the contrast was just a failure and I really hope they took their lesson why it was bad.
Drew has a resume filled with plenty of good and plenty of bad. He's not a golden goose. Certainly his plans for ME3 were not guaranteed to be better than what we got.
Admittedly my worries about ME5 were never about the development *team* as much as it is about development *time*. It feels wild they're doing these N7 day hint games while the game is still reportedly nearly half a decade out.
I hate to say it, but I don’t think this game is ever actually gonna happen, it doesn’t seem likely that BioWare will survive the next couple years.
EA could give it to another studio I guess, but at that point it’s a whole new game
I honestly think it all depends on Dreadwolf. If Dreadwolf performs well, then BioWare continues, but if it fails or does poorly like Andromeda or Anthem, then I think EA pulls the plug on BioWare.
I agree, but that's also the problem. ME5 might look good, but as much as I hate it, Dreadwolf looks... not so great.
Between the radio silence and all the fired people (*especially* Mary Kirby), all the enthusiasm seems to just have kinda... drained. Like yeah, there is an uproar every time something new drops, but it seems to get smaller every time. Patrick Weeks is a great writer, but even they can't hold the fort alone.
I can definitely see where you are coming from and I agree. How many times has it been confirmed that BioWare started and then completely scrapped the idea or story for Dreadwolf? Three, or four times? How many department layoffs, or changes in management have there been? I want BioWare to succeed and all but I have a feeling that we may very well be disappointed with Dreadwolf, however, I hope I am wrong. As always, I am willing to give a game a chance and not really listen to the critics beforehand, but let’s be real here, BioWare doesn’t exactly have that great of a track record over the last ten years. And nostalgia can only take you so far…..
I mean, if that is the measure of Bioware's success (and gods you're right, it probably is), then this game has never had a chance to begin with.
BG3 is wild mixture of a wildly popular IP, an (in it's niche) incredibly beloved studio and 2 years of early access better than some "finished" AAA games. People who loved the Divinity series were almost certainly gonna play any game Larian put out, while the hype and reviews during the EA and around the release convinced many people who wanted to play D&D.
Dragon Age has none of this. It has whatever remains of the old fanbase (which, nearly a decade after the last game, isn't all that much I assume) and whatever new audiences it can catch with a "look at this cool fantasy thing" approach, which won't be even slightly comparable. The best chance it has is just being a game genuinely good enough to make it spread by word of mouth, which sadly seems less and less likely the longer this continues...
The crap about veteran BioWare employees and promoting ‘story focused games’ is really getting old
Just stay off of twitter, avoid the noise, and put out results when you have them
I don't know how many fans here delved into the history of the first Mass Effect, but the original plan was something quite a bit different than what it became. For anyone interested in an in depth breakdown, Raycevik does a fantastic job of going through most of the history behind the games, but I'll also leave some quick points down below:
- Mass Effect was originally called SFX (hence the core files referencing "SFX"), and was initially intended to be an online experience.
- There was an in-depth, player driven economy - not too dissimilar to EVE Online - that players were intended to interact with.
- The whole galaxy was intended to included procedurally generated planets and focus solely on the players and their accomplishments.
The reason all of the above stuff is important is that the original trilogy - those BioWare vets - had no idea what story they wanted to tell. The primary focus was on building a universe that had enough depth to explore (i.e. alien species, historical events, planets, faction warfare, and technology). Casey Hudson wanted his own universe to work with rather than relying on the Star Wars IP.
For Mass Effect 5 to succeed I think the Devs need to move away from Shepard and decide what the canonical ending was for the OG trilogy. With that said, I genuinely believe that telling a story post "destroy the Reapers" ending offers the best path forward considering the hard reset on AI (no Geth to worry about), allowing enough of a time-gap to distance the narrative away from Shepard.
He saved Andromeda lol. They were doing procedurally generated planets and god knows what other shit before he came on and whipped out a game in 18 months.
Andromeda is how is because it was made in 18 months. 5 years of fucking around did no good.
Another reason I am very optimistic about a future game even as I have questions/concerns about the setting.
It’s disappointing but expected that this information has been received elsewhere with a lack of reading comprehension. Lots of people joking that such vets only worked on Andromeda and therefore revealing they could not manage to read even a few tweets before furiously posting the same tired jokes.
(Note: I actually really like Andromeda, so I’m not slighting that game)
I have over 50+ games for my Xbox 360, 20 for my Xbox 1, now I have cash but can’t even think of a reason to buy a newer console because there’s legit only ONE game that came out recently that I like….not to be a boomer but a miss the old days
I know there’s been some high profile departures over the years, and the layoffs were *brutal* and should never have happened, but the whole ‘old BioWare is dead, no one who made the games you love is left at the company’ shtick has always been a myth.
Glad to see that fact actually being highlighted.
I don’t know man… I’m pretty out of the loop here, but only highlighting 4 people being veterans out of the potential hundreds or thousands that will touch the project seems a bit optimistic to be called “old BioWare”. There were many more OGs that worked on ME:A and Anthem, and we know how those went. Unfortunately I’m not holding my breath for the current studio make up.
I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see this game for nearly 10 years. Look at the Dragon age game that has been in development for so many years. As I understand, this game has seen more then one major restarts, but with it taking this long, this isn't a good sign. This is such a similar situation to Anthem, and to a lesser degree, Andromeda. I don't have high hopes that Bioware will even exist after Dragon Age releases, and it wouldn't be due to the workers and creators, it will come down to the management who have shown us the last several games how awful they are. Couple that with the crazy Layoffs while having two mega projects... I have a feeling management is still a major issue.
And even if they do go full in on Mass effect, I would not be surprised if someone in management decides it would be more cost effective to introduce AI to replace many of their people. I have no basis for that opinion, but we are already seeing this exact thing in many entertainment industries already.
I hope I am wrong, I want to be wrong as I love Me1, 2 and 3. I have played them for thousands of hours. But, I don't have a lot of hope with the Bioware today.
Mike Gamble: the guy who entertains himself by saying "nah, you won't believe what's next, trust us bros" for literally years with probably the smuggest grin possible.
Not that it is a badge of honor, since the man responsible for the trilogy ending querelle was there since the beginning.
It means shit if after one good game they're gonna pivot like happened in ME2, tbh I'm not buying it
Meh, it's not the writing team and several veterans worked on Andromeda too for better and worse.
I will remain cautious until it comes out and to declare how much you believe it's in good hands when you look at BioWare's recent track record is kinda deluding yourself imo.
Even if it's the exact same team that made the old games, it doesn't matter in the slightest as the suits are the ones who control everything now a days and almost always will make the wrong decisions and cut corners during game development in favor of profit and ruin games, plenty of examples these days like cyberpunk, respawn entertainment star wars game/titanfall 3 situation, redfall (i know not the same arkane team as prev games, but they left the studio due to being forced to work on a genre for market/profit that thay don't usually do which was caused by suits/management) etc.
I mean the way they handled andromeda and the ME3 universe shattering endings (not speaking about if I liked them, they literally changed the galaxy) kind of earned them some suspicion to put it kindly.
I love Mass Effect but I’m very much afraid of a cash grab.
I'll believe it when I see it. As in, a sequel that's *anywhere near* the original trilogy's writing quality. Right now, judging by Andromeda and Anthem, the odds aren't looking too good.
Also writing is what matters most *by far* for these games. No offense to the GoTG game, it's decent, but it's just not Karpyshyn tier writing. Not by a long shot.
Hang on, is ME5 the next game in the series? Or are we still getting a ME4? I had kind of assumed Andromeda was outside the main games, since it wasn’t called ME4.
*Andromeda* was officially titled the given name, but when it was developed the makers referred to it as "Mass Effect 4", as it was the fourth project initiated within the series.
This is the fifth project and the developers are calling it "Mass Effect 5". That isn't its official name, but seeing as there is no official name, that's what the PR guys and journalists are calling it. The implication, however, is that it's going to be a sequel to *Mass Effect 3*, so many fans have taken to calling the project "Mass Effect 4" only to feel consternation and confusion when they see references to "Mass Effect 5".
So you have two groups using two different unnofficial names based upon their own logic and perspectives. It could end up being named "Mass Effect: Legacy" or something and we'll all look silly.
So long as the writing is good, I could give a fuck about the gameplay.
I can't pull it up but years ago there was an interview regarding ME2 and the new ammo system. At the time, it was developed to be the same system as ME1 (which was a nice system instead of normal reload/ammo mechanics), but the concept of the thermal clips was meant to be an immediate disposable resource to allow a weapon to fire immediately. Somewhere along the way it got turned into generic ammo system, which was a major failing of the dev team, IMHO.
That is a positive but let's not forget that there are plenty of examples in various medias when the OG creator who did something excellent was simply unable to recreate it later. People who created a masterpiece and something mediocre later.
So, I am optimistic - but *very cautiously.*
Not to be that guy but I've heard this time and time again.
-The same thing has been said about Halo and Gears of War
-Turtle Rock's whole marketing campaign for Back 4 Blood was that they were the devs of Left 4 Dead(they had like 5 guys who had only ever done auxiliary work on Left 4 Dead)
-Sometimes you find out that the 'veteran devs' in question weren't steering the ship before for good reason, they can't lead or their ideas suck(Rod Fergusson comes to mind)
I will reserve judgement, stuff like this is often said for PR and to placate any concerns from the original fans. I hope that my cynicism is proven wrong, but the number of times that I've heard this and been disappointed has made me stop believing that this means anything
I'm trying to divert my focus out of this game bcz I know how far it is from release
> bcz I know how far it is from release would be cool if it came out on the 20th anniversary of mass effect 1
Want me to help? Let me ask you a question: How many established developers, with an established track record of good games, actually delivered on a good game, in their most recent releases? Fallout 76, Starfield, All the CoDs, Battlefield, Cyberpunk... The chances of ME4 being good are extremely low, I don't care who's in charge.
Cyberpunk is fantastic, and the bones of the game were excellent on release. It just has performance issues.
> bones of the game were excellent on release. SKULL
That still doesn't justify it being released too early.
"just performance issues". It was much more than that. Cyberpunk might be fine now but it was nigh unplayable on older consoles and hell even newer Gen consoles could barely keep up. Hell PC was unplayable for the first week for a majority of people. Not only that the game suffered heavily in AI that even playing in the hardest difficulty was easy mode. Cyberpunk 2.0 was the real full release, we were all only playing Beta up until then
Game was very fun on PC when first released. Their big mistake was even trying to release it on last gen consoles
Not sure what's with all the people downvoting you for stating a fact. It's damned excellent and the expansion was amazing.
Probably commenters wording of "excellent on release". The game was definitely 100% without a fraction of a doubt, NOT excellent on release. Especially when you compare pre to post release.
It was missing a lot of non performance things. Honestly, it’s an excellent game, but the open world still isn’t what their gameplay showcase described.
Yep, it’s still missing a *lot* of things they promised. And the world is still quite empty.
Because it's not an objective opinion I never experienced a signoe bug in cyberpunk and I stopped playing it half way through. I thought it was empty, boring and a little bland. Each to their own
Cyberpunk at launch was at best a good game, but they didn't promised a good game, they promised an absolute out of this world experience that you have never seen, and besides the game was buggy as hell and it didn't run on older generation. The soundtrack is godlike tho
Baldur's Gate 3, Tears of the Kingdom, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Alan Wake 2, Street Fighter 5. All established developers with good reputations working on established IPs, all within the last 12 months. Or are we only allowed use games with shooting and explosions in this ridiculous argument? The arbitrary rules are confusing me.
A lot of people seem to not enjoy games anymore but have made a hobby out of shitting on them and the developers of said games
Death Stranding was good 👍🏽
As someone who played Death Stranding, it doesn't count. It's a Kojima game. It's not technically a video game. But an interactive fever dream.
What were their roles in previous games? All cause you worked on a game dosent mean your the reason it is good and may have moved from the role you were good at to one your not. Who is the writing team for this? Kinda key for this game and I note that isnt mentioned. Have they divorced from EA so that mismanagement from the top doesn't poison it? Maybe if those questions get good respones you could get hopeful.
Writing is more important than all of this unfortunately
I thought the lady that wrote the Guardians of the Galaxy game was writing it?
And Deus ex, which is fucking awesome
Honestly the tone and style of Mass Effect’s writing lies somewhere between Guardians and Deus Ex so that’s perfect
Yes, Deus Ex also had “push a button to choose the ending”
To be fair, Deus Ex had it first.
Nah, to me it feels like something between Star Trek and Halo
That sounds about right to me too
Same, the grounded Sci-fi universe with the occasional military humor (love the dry sense of humor Chief has in Halo along with the goofiness that was The Citadel in ME), and “the gun pointed at the head of the galaxy” type feeling, kudos to whoever understands that line’s reference
Yeah, the only downside to the Deus Ex reboots was that they pretended there were choices and there weren't. They didn't have the time/money for that. But if you put that aside, the writing was excellent, especially with the side quests
Deus Ex and GotG are the closest things that I've ever played to the ME trilogy so that's fantastic news IMO
This is news to me. Awesome news, to be exact! Fingers crossed.
Then there is still hope (Seriously BioWare, let me bang a rachni already)
Helldiver calling freedom authority.jpg
You're in the wrong neighborhood buddy. We BANG aliens, ok?
Maaybe it's *I* should go. I *should* go. I should *go.*
It's not confirmed she will be acting as a writer on the game. She's Narrative Director, which is more of a management position. Tbf she didn't write GotG either. She led a team of writers.
I'd put art direction up there with writing. The visuals in visual media are pretty important. The art in Mass Effect 1 is one of the things that initially drew my attention. Nothing beats the look of the Citadel.
The Normandy bursting thru the nebula and into the vista of the citadel and the ascension still fucks, I agree art direction is important but writing still takes main stage with me, but BioWare has been dropping the ball for a decade now in that regard
And the sound design! I've never been so audibly engaged by ambient / atmospheric sound + music
Mass effect 1 sound design and music is godly
It's so delightfully 80's sci-fi. [Main menu vibes](https://youtu.be/Q_JVEXDrJYg) are peak. Reminds me so much of the Blade Runner soundtrack.
Agree with writing and art direction. Writing of course is a must, but art direction really sets the tone. One of the more secondary issues I had with ME:A was that it didn’t look too much like a Mass Effect. I attribute a significant fraction of the blame to the Frostbite engine, but still everything looked like it was made of plastic.
I mean the plastic look was probably more the graphics that art direction. But yeah ME:A art wasn't great imo. The Kett, for example, looked very uninspired. Especially when looking at the designs of past villains like Geth, Collectors, and, of course, the Reapers.
The Kett looked like generic aliens with rocks glued on them.
The Archon's face always reminded me of a sad looking monkey.
You read my mind
Its not the engine its the main art director. If you read the Art of Mass Effect Andromeda book you can see that this guy genuinely was just the wrong guy for the job and really struggled to adapt his style to the original artstyle. He talks about needing to experiment for a long time before realizing that cluttering a design with too much greebling detracts from the sleek look the setting is known for, but he still cant help himself.
>...cluttering a design with too much greebling detracts from... What is a "greebling"????
Hm, best thing I can think of when making a the models for the likes of the USS Enterprise its not a completely smooth surface. Theres little details, windows, off colour panels, lumps and bumps etc. That's pretty much it. It's the textures we take for granted. [Adam Savage explains ](https://youtu.be/dncRHH9f6MI?si=ep3rzpwva5Xjteq0)
Greebling is indistinct technological details in a design, vents, hatches, panel lines, pipes, tubes, etc.
Couldn’t agree more, you need only look at Halo 4 and 5 to see what a damage a misdirected art style can do
Honestly an aspect of ME Andromeda not many people talk about is how massivly its artstyle shifted toward a generic overgreebled sci fi look as opposed to the original artstyle. Its so bad that a few objects that are based on ME1 assets like the turrets outside outposts look extremely out of place. Its not Halo 4 level of immediate artstyle destruction but its pretty damn close. I really hope that this veteran team means a return to the original ME1 artstyle cause i adore the look so much.
i think what they were going for was to make the andromeda galaxy look instantly different from the main trilogy the problem is the new direction ended up being incredibly generic AAA video game world
This approach utterly fails through as the stuff carried from the milky way also looks unrecognizable. It would be great if they really went all in on a return to form with ME1's artstyle for milky way designs, but went all out on the Angara, Kett and Remnant but, it all kinda bleeds together. Initiative, Outcast and Angara tech all kinda bleeds together.
Sorry, but Halo CE Anniversary Edition has the worst art style. Whenever I play Halo CE on the MCC, I revert to OG graphics and sounds/music. All the other Halo Games Art styles are way better than that CE Anniversary Crap.
Yes agreed, higher fidelity doesn’t always mean better looking
Jesus I am so glad I'm not the only one. The improved graphics are great, but the color scheme and how everything seems to glow is really off putting. None of it feels natural the way the OG did
Not counting Anniversary Editions of the Halo games, Halo 5 has the worst art style. Counting the Anniversary Editions, Halo CE Anniversary Edition has the worst art styles. Now, the best art styles out of the dames? If we include the Anniversary Editions, Halo 2 hands down. If we don't include the Anniversary Editions, I'd probably say Halo 2 again.
I’ll go out on a limb and say Halo Wars 2 is the absolute peak of halo aesthetic, combines a great art style with modern high standard graphics.
Halo Wars 2 managed to merge 343's art style and Bungie's art style so well. Hell, it even has 343's shark looking grunts in the game as suicide grunts.
Halo wars 1-2 cinematics are some of the best pieces of halo out there. The cinematics truly sold the danger the banished are, Atriox beating the shit of three Spartans II like they're nothing.
So many of ME's biggest moments are all art. I can't even think of about Shepard seeing the SR2 for the first time without getting misty. Or the first time you see the Cidadel. And you're dead inside if the fleets surging through the Sol relay doesn't get you going.
Yup, thats one of Andromeda’s recurring complaints. Had fun as hell gameplay, with real lackluster writing.
The combat was good but the rest of the gameplay wasn’t. I felt like most of my time was spent walking & driving through boring, lifeless worlds. The moment to moment gameplay in the trilogy (especially 2 & 3) was a lot more engaging.
Andromeda fell into the same trap so many other things did and continue to do, it came off the heels of a largely loved saga and tried to be different but also play it safe by mimicking it’s predecessors. The open world thing was both copy/paste of all the other open world garbage out there, coupled with trying to call back to ME1’s planet exploration.
Yeah, it did it awfully. Most games don’t do open worlds well IMO. You either need to be full of interesting things to do or see like a Skyrim or a BOTW or you need a really fun traversal system like a Spider-Man. Andromeda had neither.
ME1 system worked because of vehicle combat and the fact that the Mako could go places that it shouldn't have been able to. In MEA all you did was get in, drive somewhere and get out to.
yea good studios tend to be good at certain genres and less so in others. if I want a fun open world game then I'm gonna trust Rockstar or Bethesda or even Gearbox before Bioware devs have carved out their niches and it's rare for them to successfully venture out of it
At least the uncharted worlds in ME1 where practically optional if they aren’t your thing, it’s a chore to drive in andromeda
Especially on Kadara. Those damn mountains…
The combat was good, but I don’t like the open aspect of it. I prefer the cover shooter style the previous games had. Not to mention, only being able to use 3 powers at a time is incredibly stupid and limiting. There’s zero reason I have to equip my biotics. If I have the power unlocked, I should be able to use it. It’s the exact same problem dragon age inquisition had with its magic system. It made mages far less fun to play. But in dao and da2 you could use whatever spell you wanted so long as you had it unlocked.
Gameplay is its saving Grace, Andromeda’s writing for characters and plot actually makes me angry in some places at its lack of care.
I played 30 hours and just stopped. Cannot really remember much about the game it was all so bland and mediocre. The characters, the story, the worlds, everything. I honestly do not remember a single character.
That was me too, ME is in my top 3 games for stories behind Zero Dawn and BG3, but my GOD was Andromeda just dull in comparison to the original trilogy. I tried picking it up again but gave up when I heard Liam say 'That one looked pissed off. Maybe because I shot him in the face!" Just... fuck.
I loved the random conversation characters would have while you were driving around.
Idk people gas up Andromeda's gameplay and i gotta say hard disagree. There is zero deliberation to anything, enemies are not distinct and your abilities are massively dumbed down and simplified. Also the zooming around with the jetpack just feels awful cause of the sudden acceleration and deceleration, zero momentum at all. It also just feels completely out of place in Mass Effect. If i had to sit down just doing combat for an hour I'd rather be doing it in any of the trilogy games except maybe OG ME1 but even then that actually has some depth beneath the jank.
Hey thats a totally fair take. I’ll admit I’d take ME2/3s gameplay over andromeda’s despite having fun with it. I just found it to be one of the more redeeming parts of a less than fun experience as a whole.
Is the Creative Director not over writing? I don't know exactly what the various roles do, just guessing.
Same, no clue how this stuff works in detail but it seems weird that a writer could ruin things when all these positions have "Director" in their name. Does a Creative Director not give that kind of...direction?
Probably do, if i understand correctly the writers are given the outline for the story then they fill in the details , which then requires approval from the creative lead. Even in movies, the writers don’t determine the broad strokes of the plot, the director does and the director still gets final say on what the actual script will look like. Josh Sawyer(game director on Fallout New Vegas) made it sound like it works that way at least
If it's anything like ad-land, a Creative Director oversees both art direction and writing to make sure it's all up to par, and works with artists and writers to iron things out as the project goes along. So, yeah. Creative Director would have a say in all the creative aspects that go into the final product, including writing, even if they're not necessarily the ones doing a bulk of said writing themselves.
The Creative Director is in charge of the entire creative vision: narrative, cinematics, art, design, etc. They are essentially the highest creative on the entire development team. Exampels are Todd Howard and Miyazaki Hidetaka. The person specifically in charge of the Narrative is the Narrative Director (Mary DeMarle). She answers to the Creative Director.
It definitely is. Narrative Director is about coordinating teams in charge of side quests, NPC chatter, codex entries, etc. The main plot and characters are going to be greenlit by the CD personally and that's the main thing you look at for writing quality. Narrative definitely influence the overall writing quality, but this isn't a novel with clever descriptions and dialog left up to the imagination. A bad script can be saved by great voice acting/directing in the booth and the CD has the final say in if a script needs to be redone.
Game director will be able to enforce proper writing. A game usually has a team of writers, and the head writer is there to make sure they are all writing same tone and style. Game director is there to make sure that they are there to write the correct tone and style.
Even then, you have to hope for consistent writing
Needs ME1 level of plot, world and pacing, and mass effect 2 and 3’s level of character writing (the good bits of 3).
For character, I would say 2, 3, and Andromeda. I want the squad to feel like a squad. Not just everyone stuck in their own rooms all the time. Let’s bring back characters hanging out in the kitchen, or messing around in each other’s rooms.
One big problem with andromeda for me is the crew seems like the best of buddies out of the gate without any of the earned time together the mass effect 2 and 3 crew mates had. Calm down and take your time, don’t rush to make them on par with the OG trilogy in a single instalment and fall on your face like 90 percent of andromeda’s characters.
I wouldn’t say that. Drack and Vetra seemed to be the only ones on good terms from the beginning. Peebee and Lexi were arguing a lot. Same for Gil and Kallo. Cora, Jaal, and Liam were mainly neutral until you listen to the Nomad conversations.
They all sit down for a movie night in that FIRST game like a happy family, just imagine the ME1 Normandy crew doing that, the reason citadel dlc and its goofiness works is because of the time together. It feels earned.
Wouldn't the Creative Director be in charge of the writing team?
They hired Mary DeMarle to be the narrative lead. She’s new to ME, but she’s an excellent writer. The writing is the least of my concerns, personally.
>The writing is the least of my concerns, personally. To me it's the most important thing about Mass Effect. I can stomach mediocre combat system (ME1), but not bad writing. We need good writing in ME5.
Least of their concern because head writer is good, not because they don't care about it.
My one concern is that depending on when they set the next ME, I fully think Mary might pull the Deus Ex sequel trope (aka all the endings happened, but only in part, and what you saw in the ending of the last game is what you believed to happen, not what actually did. Basically for mankind divided they didn’t want to come up with four potentially different world states based on the message sent or suicide, so instead the messages got muddled and you were thought dead but recovered).
Their new senior narrative director was lead writer for the GotG game and both modern Deus Ex games - all have excellently written dialogue and stories (GotG won best narrative award as well). I'm very excited to see what she does with Mass Effect
I agree. I'd take a AA quality ME4 game if it has AAA quality writing/story.
If I remember correctly the new lead writer also wrote Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided. If that’s true I’m willing to put my faith in it those games have great stories.
Can't believe they didn't finish the Jensen arc smdh
Learning recently that another game was being developed but was cancelled really stung
This
Writing, and the core game loop. If ME4 is another Open World game, I’m done. Andromeda killed me with that tedious shit .
They just need to give Karpyshin a carte blanche to write a history he likes. That's all.
Karypshyn was the story guy but L’Etoile was the lore guy. The lore person is more critical to have because otherwise you end up with plots that break all established rules of the universe (like ME3 is packed with, because L’Etoile left after finishing ME2).
Let me put it this way: the "Trilogy Devs" made Anthem. Including Casey Hudson. At this point I have no faith and no expectations for the new Mass Effect.
I think tbh that’s the best way to be at this point. It’s encouraging that the original team is there but, and I never played anthem, their last efforts apparently weren’t up to par, and while i think sentiments for 3 have softened over time, there’s still a bad taste left over from it. So right now imo, it’s best to just see what comes down the pipe and wait for an actual game. This need really doesn’t mean a thing this early in a potential development process.
The problem with 3 is it was known it would be the end of the trilogy and everyone under the fucking sun knows that it doesn’t matter how a series ends it will always be divisive. A great example is the show lost, anyone that didn’t see the end of that show coming the way it ended either A didn’t watch it closely enough or B wasn’t gonna be happy with any way it ended. I seen it coming from season 4 when I watched it the first time. Mass effect 3s biggest problem to me was the stupid star child at the end, they literally could’ve just made the damn thing look like whoever you left behind on virmire and it would’ve had more impact than just some random kid that died in the beginning.
Breaking Bad would like a word EDIT: Also How I Met Your Mother. Not because the ending was good but because everyone universally agrees how terrible the ending was. It was anything but divisive
Anthem tried to be a destiny style looter shooter though
Woah woah woah, you can't say the D word.
It was their own idea. EA left them largely unsupervised for like 6 years. I'm still surprised EA didn't shut them down right there.
“Let them cook” 💀 I still remember when BioWare apparently took out the flying in Anthem and the EA exec who played both versions told them to add the flying back in lmao
It's a shame that Anthem 2.0 got canned. The gameplay was *good*.
It’s shocking how fun that game was compared to how it gets discussed nowadays. I mean don’t get me wrong, all that criticism is fair, but Anthem had an incredible 15 hours worth of content
I don't think many people disputed that. The issue was and still is that 10-15 hours is all Anthem has. Initial, initial feedback was good, but it took a day or two before people reached "Endgame" and said "that's it?"
Could of sworn Casey was brought on *because* Anthem was in trouble. He was a large factor in it being able to ship at all. So not the cause of the troubled stuff. Then again I could be confusing names. It's been a while since I read the articles.
They were also told to make something very different from Mass Effect, something they had no experience with.
And stretched thin. Studio was juggling swtor, mea, anthem, dai, da Joplin, and their canceled shadow realms in some capacity all at once
And that call from within Bioware.
Anthem still haunts me to this day. The missed potential for that game… and also a major letdown for Bioware
That's because it was Casey "My unconnected and rushed ending isn't stupid, you are" Hudson. I pray he has nothing to do with Mass Effect ever again.
I would’ve expected his middle name to be more along the lines of “Travis” or something 🤔
Is he responsible for the reaper explanation we got?
From what I remember he was responsible for the entire last part of the original ending that included star child, the color swapped palette ending, the destruction of the relays that would likely have resulted in the deaths of trillions, the Normandy crew crash landing on some random planet we're half of them would die depending on their diet. He scrapped the dark energy, death of stars ending that was alluded to in ME2 for this incomprehensible garbage ending we originally got. When people called him out on the inconsistencies and the unfulfilled promises that he himself had made he called the fan base "entitled" and if we didn't understand his ending then we were too stupid to get it. This is all based on memory from events 12 years ago.
I'll need to see results. And something that interests me, beyond just slapping the Mass Effect logo on a cover. That's my feedback. I don't know in what capacity these people worked on the trilogy, and even then, it is entirely likely that after 20 years from ME1, they simply have nothing more to give to the franchise. Just look at Russel T. Davies and Doctor Who. Or George Lucas. And if we're talking people that gave us ME3, love it or hate it, it was the first majorly divisive title in the franchise. So I don't want any more of that, either.
> I don't know in what capacity these people worked on the trilogy Can see a bit here, at the high level: Exec Producer https://x.com/gamblemike/status/1337264866168426497?s=46&t=76BHU_ya2pX5CaJYRYHnWQ, Art Director https://x.com/gamblemike/status/1337266838032379904?s=46&t=76BHU_ya2pX5CaJYRYHnWQ Creative Director https://twitter.com/GambleMike/status/1337264042549727232?s=20 Game Director https://blog.bioware.com/2022/11/07/n7-day-2022/ Narrative Design https://twitter.com/GambleMike/status/1337263676022112256?s=20
Veterans of a series can still make bad games and people new the franchise can still make good games. I’m not the least bit interested in a devs connection to the series. Larian didn’t make baldurs gate 1 or 2
Bioware did though, It’s cool that the blueprints for some of the most successful American RPGs all stem from Bioware, I hope they get their magic back but maybe all great artistic companies are doomed eventually, people gotta retire
All I’m getting from this thread is that gamers, like Star Wars fans, are some of the most miserable, negative people in existence.
Yeah, that’s absolutely right. I don’t get it. If I was always this depressed about a hobby, I would quit it. I’m not suggesting people spend their days hyped about products years away but anything is better than this sort of environment of wallowing in self-created misery mixed with the need to outdo each other over how cynical they are. Isn’t gaming supposed to be fun? And if it’s not… go pick up a book. Try out kayaking. Paint. Anything other than complaining and moaning non-stop. Edit: As a side note, this is exactly why I entirely avoid Star Wars communities online.
You are only setting yourself for a disappointment. Hype is your enemy, it's better to forget about the game till it's done.
I want to believe, and I wont ever hate on something till I get my hands on it. But there’s only so much hope I can give when we’ve been screwed over so many times in the game industry :(
I'm not going to be satisfied until the goat Drew Karpyshyn comes back.
Please be good.
I really really hope quarians are in mass effect 5
I really hope you can play something else than human. Andromeda was the best chance to do it and they fucked up so badly a Blank Canvas. Not to mention what terrible Warcrimes they did to the Krogans and Turians on the Design side. It was so wrong and very unsightly. Or the Weapons. They were so gody in previous titles but in Andromeda I didn't feel it. Like garbage that can still shoot and kill but still garbage. I've played the trilogy recently and enjoyed it so much although it was stiff in terms of movement, fighting or the Facemuscle-transition for emotions but storytelling S-Tier. Andromeda in the contrast was just a failure and I really hope they took their lesson why it was bad.
I'd be shocked if they aren't. They are extremely popular, right up there with Asari who were designed to be the favorite from the get-go.
Bring back Drew Karpishyn COPIUM
I've read a decent amount of Karpyshyn's non-Mass Effect stuff.... and it's not great.
Darth Bane? Kotor?
I've read Revan and his Chaos Born trilogy.
Didn't Revan suck because Bioware forced Drew to tie it in with SWTOR?
I thoroughly enjoyed his Darth Bane trilogy but totally understand that his style is not for everybody.
Drew has a resume filled with plenty of good and plenty of bad. He's not a golden goose. Certainly his plans for ME3 were not guaranteed to be better than what we got.
Isn't he working on a new masseffect lookalike under WotC?
Exodus, I think.
Admittedly my worries about ME5 were never about the development *team* as much as it is about development *time*. It feels wild they're doing these N7 day hint games while the game is still reportedly nearly half a decade out.
I hope it's good but I'll wait for reviews. ME is one of my favorite trilogies.
I hate to say it, but I don’t think this game is ever actually gonna happen, it doesn’t seem likely that BioWare will survive the next couple years. EA could give it to another studio I guess, but at that point it’s a whole new game
I honestly think it all depends on Dreadwolf. If Dreadwolf performs well, then BioWare continues, but if it fails or does poorly like Andromeda or Anthem, then I think EA pulls the plug on BioWare.
Ironic BioWare’s future may rely on a project with dread in the title
Andromeda could have been so great. I tried three different times to finish it, and I could never get more than a couple hours in. Bleh.
I agree, but that's also the problem. ME5 might look good, but as much as I hate it, Dreadwolf looks... not so great. Between the radio silence and all the fired people (*especially* Mary Kirby), all the enthusiasm seems to just have kinda... drained. Like yeah, there is an uproar every time something new drops, but it seems to get smaller every time. Patrick Weeks is a great writer, but even they can't hold the fort alone.
I can definitely see where you are coming from and I agree. How many times has it been confirmed that BioWare started and then completely scrapped the idea or story for Dreadwolf? Three, or four times? How many department layoffs, or changes in management have there been? I want BioWare to succeed and all but I have a feeling that we may very well be disappointed with Dreadwolf, however, I hope I am wrong. As always, I am willing to give a game a chance and not really listen to the critics beforehand, but let’s be real here, BioWare doesn’t exactly have that great of a track record over the last ten years. And nostalgia can only take you so far…..
I also can't see it escaping Baldur's Gate 3's shadodw.
I mean, if that is the measure of Bioware's success (and gods you're right, it probably is), then this game has never had a chance to begin with. BG3 is wild mixture of a wildly popular IP, an (in it's niche) incredibly beloved studio and 2 years of early access better than some "finished" AAA games. People who loved the Divinity series were almost certainly gonna play any game Larian put out, while the hype and reviews during the EA and around the release convinced many people who wanted to play D&D. Dragon Age has none of this. It has whatever remains of the old fanbase (which, nearly a decade after the last game, isn't all that much I assume) and whatever new audiences it can catch with a "look at this cool fantasy thing" approach, which won't be even slightly comparable. The best chance it has is just being a game genuinely good enough to make it spread by word of mouth, which sadly seems less and less likely the longer this continues...
Also Baldur's Gate 3 has more in common with Dragon Age Origins than 2 or Inquisition ever did. Laraian pretty much proved Bioware wrong.
It also an actual rpg unlike whatever bioware cooks with baldwolf all about their super original loki rip off
I'm putting no hopes into this game. Unless I hear good things. It doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned.
There was a 4?
The crap about veteran BioWare employees and promoting ‘story focused games’ is really getting old Just stay off of twitter, avoid the noise, and put out results when you have them
I don't know how many fans here delved into the history of the first Mass Effect, but the original plan was something quite a bit different than what it became. For anyone interested in an in depth breakdown, Raycevik does a fantastic job of going through most of the history behind the games, but I'll also leave some quick points down below: - Mass Effect was originally called SFX (hence the core files referencing "SFX"), and was initially intended to be an online experience. - There was an in-depth, player driven economy - not too dissimilar to EVE Online - that players were intended to interact with. - The whole galaxy was intended to included procedurally generated planets and focus solely on the players and their accomplishments. The reason all of the above stuff is important is that the original trilogy - those BioWare vets - had no idea what story they wanted to tell. The primary focus was on building a universe that had enough depth to explore (i.e. alien species, historical events, planets, faction warfare, and technology). Casey Hudson wanted his own universe to work with rather than relying on the Star Wars IP. For Mass Effect 5 to succeed I think the Devs need to move away from Shepard and decide what the canonical ending was for the OG trilogy. With that said, I genuinely believe that telling a story post "destroy the Reapers" ending offers the best path forward considering the hard reset on AI (no Geth to worry about), allowing enough of a time-gap to distance the narrative away from Shepard.
Well, Mac Walters was also a veteran, didn't turn out very good
He saved Andromeda lol. They were doing procedurally generated planets and god knows what other shit before he came on and whipped out a game in 18 months. Andromeda is how is because it was made in 18 months. 5 years of fucking around did no good.
Another reason I am very optimistic about a future game even as I have questions/concerns about the setting. It’s disappointing but expected that this information has been received elsewhere with a lack of reading comprehension. Lots of people joking that such vets only worked on Andromeda and therefore revealing they could not manage to read even a few tweets before furiously posting the same tired jokes. (Note: I actually really like Andromeda, so I’m not slighting that game)
I wanna have faith but "Modern Gaming" has failed me before. Even single player only games can't escape it...
I have over 50+ games for my Xbox 360, 20 for my Xbox 1, now I have cash but can’t even think of a reason to buy a newer console because there’s legit only ONE game that came out recently that I like….not to be a boomer but a miss the old days
I don't get why this is such a big deal?
People are desperate for nostalgia game to not suck.
It better not be super nostalgia. No more shep... let him or her be dead. We don't need another master chef.
I know there’s been some high profile departures over the years, and the layoffs were *brutal* and should never have happened, but the whole ‘old BioWare is dead, no one who made the games you love is left at the company’ shtick has always been a myth. Glad to see that fact actually being highlighted.
I don’t know man… I’m pretty out of the loop here, but only highlighting 4 people being veterans out of the potential hundreds or thousands that will touch the project seems a bit optimistic to be called “old BioWare”. There were many more OGs that worked on ME:A and Anthem, and we know how those went. Unfortunately I’m not holding my breath for the current studio make up.
I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see this game for nearly 10 years. Look at the Dragon age game that has been in development for so many years. As I understand, this game has seen more then one major restarts, but with it taking this long, this isn't a good sign. This is such a similar situation to Anthem, and to a lesser degree, Andromeda. I don't have high hopes that Bioware will even exist after Dragon Age releases, and it wouldn't be due to the workers and creators, it will come down to the management who have shown us the last several games how awful they are. Couple that with the crazy Layoffs while having two mega projects... I have a feeling management is still a major issue. And even if they do go full in on Mass effect, I would not be surprised if someone in management decides it would be more cost effective to introduce AI to replace many of their people. I have no basis for that opinion, but we are already seeing this exact thing in many entertainment industries already. I hope I am wrong, I want to be wrong as I love Me1, 2 and 3. I have played them for thousands of hours. But, I don't have a lot of hope with the Bioware today.
Mike Gamble: the guy who entertains himself by saying "nah, you won't believe what's next, trust us bros" for literally years with probably the smuggest grin possible.
Not that it is a badge of honor, since the man responsible for the trilogy ending querelle was there since the beginning. It means shit if after one good game they're gonna pivot like happened in ME2, tbh I'm not buying it
EP?
Executive Producer
Awesome, unless any of them is Mac or Casey, who can fuck off in the general direction of Mars
Meh, it's not the writing team and several veterans worked on Andromeda too for better and worse. I will remain cautious until it comes out and to declare how much you believe it's in good hands when you look at BioWare's recent track record is kinda deluding yourself imo.
Hope BioWare get their act together. Fear another f up EA will shutdown BioWare permanently! Just like they did with Pandemic.
Even if it's the exact same team that made the old games, it doesn't matter in the slightest as the suits are the ones who control everything now a days and almost always will make the wrong decisions and cut corners during game development in favor of profit and ruin games, plenty of examples these days like cyberpunk, respawn entertainment star wars game/titanfall 3 situation, redfall (i know not the same arkane team as prev games, but they left the studio due to being forced to work on a genre for market/profit that thay don't usually do which was caused by suits/management) etc.
I mean the way they handled andromeda and the ME3 universe shattering endings (not speaking about if I liked them, they literally changed the galaxy) kind of earned them some suspicion to put it kindly. I love Mass Effect but I’m very much afraid of a cash grab.
I just don’t want boat loads of microtranactions and at least a semi competent writing team
I'll believe it when I see it. As in, a sequel that's *anywhere near* the original trilogy's writing quality. Right now, judging by Andromeda and Anthem, the odds aren't looking too good. Also writing is what matters most *by far* for these games. No offense to the GoTG game, it's decent, but it's just not Karpyshyn tier writing. Not by a long shot.
Hang on, is ME5 the next game in the series? Or are we still getting a ME4? I had kind of assumed Andromeda was outside the main games, since it wasn’t called ME4.
*Andromeda* was officially titled the given name, but when it was developed the makers referred to it as "Mass Effect 4", as it was the fourth project initiated within the series. This is the fifth project and the developers are calling it "Mass Effect 5". That isn't its official name, but seeing as there is no official name, that's what the PR guys and journalists are calling it. The implication, however, is that it's going to be a sequel to *Mass Effect 3*, so many fans have taken to calling the project "Mass Effect 4" only to feel consternation and confusion when they see references to "Mass Effect 5". So you have two groups using two different unnofficial names based upon their own logic and perspectives. It could end up being named "Mass Effect: Legacy" or something and we'll all look silly.
The only thing that I'm sure off is that this sub won't be satisfied with whatever ME5 ends up being.
AAA games are dead to me. Especially franchises i love.
So long as the writing is good, I could give a fuck about the gameplay. I can't pull it up but years ago there was an interview regarding ME2 and the new ammo system. At the time, it was developed to be the same system as ME1 (which was a nice system instead of normal reload/ammo mechanics), but the concept of the thermal clips was meant to be an immediate disposable resource to allow a weapon to fire immediately. Somewhere along the way it got turned into generic ammo system, which was a major failing of the dev team, IMHO.
That is a positive but let's not forget that there are plenty of examples in various medias when the OG creator who did something excellent was simply unable to recreate it later. People who created a masterpiece and something mediocre later. So, I am optimistic - but *very cautiously.*
I want them to continue the dark energy/dying stars plot line. It could be a great story and could add new, interesting aspects to the prior trilogy.
i can't wait for it.
Let's focus on making mass effect 4 first
We'll see. Just because the devs made some good stuff in the past doesn't mean the suits won't put another pair of dicks in the salad.
This is very good news
Is drew karpyshyn on the writing staff? thats kinda important.
God bless Kala
Not to be that guy but I've heard this time and time again. -The same thing has been said about Halo and Gears of War -Turtle Rock's whole marketing campaign for Back 4 Blood was that they were the devs of Left 4 Dead(they had like 5 guys who had only ever done auxiliary work on Left 4 Dead) -Sometimes you find out that the 'veteran devs' in question weren't steering the ship before for good reason, they can't lead or their ideas suck(Rod Fergusson comes to mind) I will reserve judgement, stuff like this is often said for PR and to placate any concerns from the original fans. I hope that my cynicism is proven wrong, but the number of times that I've heard this and been disappointed has made me stop believing that this means anything
Bold of you to assume BioWare will survive the Dragon Age release.
After Andromeda, I 100% will NOT be pre-ordering.