After the controversial and divisive ending to the otherwise very well received “Mass Effect 3,” Bioware got to work on the spin-off video game “Mass Effect: Andromeda” which had a famously troubled gestation that resulted in a title rushed through development and lacking in quality control.
Shortly after release, it was revealed mismanagement and the problematic Frostbite Engine were allegedly the key causes of those woes, along with a complete retooling of the project less than two years out from release.
Now, former developers on the game have revealed that severe budget constraints were also behind some of the issues with the game – most notably the lack of galactic travel and the very limited number of new alien species.
Speaking with The Gamer, several who worked on the game indicated writer Chris Hepler proposed five or six new races whilst former BioWare scribe Jo Berry pitched a number of other promising alien types.
In all it’s estimated ten new alien races were seriously designed for the project, only two of which (Angara and Kett) ended up shipping with the game and were chosen for being in what they considered “cosplay-safe” territory.
Neil Pollner, a senior writer on “Mass Effect 3” who worked on parts of “Andromeda” spoke about the perceived problems with the game:
“The scope of [the first] Mass Effect was so incredibly massive, there was an inherent promise that you’d be getting a massive new experience with a ton of new things in [what was supposed to be the first] Mass Effect Andromeda – new species, new lore, an entire new galaxy at your fingertips.
But we were only given the budget for two new species, plus the Remnant. Not to mention that we couldn’t even include all the Milky Way species. And we weren’t going to be able to let you travel throughout the galaxy.
This meant that we had to develop the story around some pretty glaring inorganic limitations. So, not only did you get something that felt (and was) much smaller than what you got before, almost everyone playing the game probably had something that they really liked about Mass Effect that just wasn’t there.”
Pollner says “some very basic pillars just weren’t lining up” right from the get-go, like Ryder the explorer almost immediately killing Kett in the game. The writers were developing ideas and storylines for the game months ahead of the budget and scope being decided:
“We were working on a process for the Milky Way species to learn how to even communicate with the new alien species. We were developing several additional species for the new galaxy, as well as several different storylines for why the expedition had been undertaken. Most of that pre-development work ended up not being used.”
Pollner also says part of the reason ‘Andromeda’ was perceived so differently from the original trilogy was that the original was almost an anomaly in AAA game development: “The team worked their asses off non-stop for so many years, on back-to-back-to-back games. The prospect of doing the same thing again was not only exhausting to imagine, but totally impractical.”
Pollner says he’s still a fan of ‘Andromeda’ and the team still worked hard on delivering an ambitious title within the constraints of what they were given and he finds the game “to actually be pretty darn fun… there’s some really good stuff in there.”
