At roughly 2:30AM GMT 05/01/2017 Bioware will take to the stage at CES 2017 in Las Vegas. They may do it through a representative, or a trailer, but either way we know that they’ll be there at that nVidea keynote.
The chances are that I am going to be tucked up in my sooty, scone-crumb-covered, British bed dreaming about James Bond and Mary Poppins; and so I won’t be able to watch the trailer for Mass Effect Andromeda that will deploy.
What I can do, however is compile everything we’ve learnt about Mass Effect Andromeda over the previous few days below, and continue doing so until the news stops – at which point I’ll link out from here and over to the trailer post. Until then though, let’s go.
Update 12:14 05/01/2017
Gearnuke have run an excellent little article covering the ‘profiles’ which replace traditional classes in the upcoming title. As you’ll see over on the post however, a lot of those profiles follow traditional ME constraints, meaning this looks much more like Bravely Default/Final Fantasy’s Job systems than a classless one, per se.
The link is here.
Update 11:39 05/01/2017
For those who didn’t catch it on the nVidea stage, Aaryn Flynn, stated the footage showed off the new Asari companion Peebee and her loyalty mission. There was also a brief discussion on a less structured class system (wherein you can switch between profiles on the fly) as well as a new planet.
Update 11:25 05/01/2017
Bit late on this one, as I’m doing this from work. The nVidea showcase featured, as expected, a new trailer for the title, you can find that below.
Added 23:29 04/01/2017
In what is probably the final update for tonight (GMT) Game Informer have just published 10 new screenshots for the upcoming title. They show a mixture of combat, landscape, and well… jumping, in the title, and there’s certainly a couple in there worthy of adding to your desktop background if you’re that way inclined.
You can find the images over on Gameinformer.
Added 23:25 04/01/17
Over on Gamezone.de they’ve done an excellent round-up of the characters that we know about, including the parents of the two protagonist siblings (we choose one to play as for character creation).
It’s a fleeting skim through the 11 characters we know of, but definitely collates the information in a way it’s not been done before.
Danke, Gamezone.de
Added 23:09 04/01/17
Last night Mike Gamble stated that he would be revealing some details at 10AM PST, that’s 18:00 GMT. That news, as it turns out, was the release date for the title.
Mass Effect: Andromeda will launch in North America on Tuesday March 21st for the PS4, Xbox One & PC, it will then launch in Europe on the 23rd of March.
The news came from the Mass Effect official website, you can read the blog post here.
Added 23:05 04/01/17
Aaryn Flynn, the Bioware GM replied to a post over on NeoGAF pertaining to the frame-rate on consoles. He linked off to a Eurogamer post with Mark Cerny (link through the source), as well as stating that “Last I checked, we were like other Frostbite games on PS4 and XBox One – 1080p and 900p respectively. All are at 30 fps.”
He then reiterated what we heard in the Kotaku interview below, that the game was uncapped on PC.
Source: NeoGAF, 3rd Jan.
Added 22:59 04/01/17
The Lead Designer on Mass Effect: Andromeda, Ian S. Frazier, has answered a few questions over on Twitter over the past few days. Specifically questions regarding whether the dialogue wheel would persist, and whether the game would be coming to Steam.
There's a ton of the dialogue wheel, yes, but like the trilogy we also have auto-dialogue at times.
— Ian Spoopy Frazier (@tibermoon) January 3, 2017
No, sorry. PC version will be available via Origin or by disc (physical).
— Ian Spoopy Frazier (@tibermoon) January 2, 2017
As you can see, as expected, the game will be exclusive to Origin on PC.
Added 22:53 04/04/17
In a lengthy telephone conversation with Mike Gamble, producer on ME:A, Kotaku Austrlalia’s Alex Walker discussed the title’s Multiplayer, Mods, and open world setting. (Source)
Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer was an opener for the discussion; specifically the fact that the co-operative mode lent progress towards the war score of the title. Gamble clarified that, while the game would ship with what he called a ‘Strike Team’ system in place, the multiplayer would not be required to progress the game’s story.
That said, the multiplayer would reportedly be ‘packaged around a meta-story of what’s going on in Helios.’ All of which could build a further story around the game’s story if engaged with, however it was not required for game progress.
Further on the multiplayer he stated that it was an easy transition, unlike ME3’s equivalent which required campaign exit to boot into MP.
The producer went on to explain that the game would, on PC, ship with an unlocked frame rate, as well as support for ultra-wide monitors; there’s apparently going to also be day one drivers for certain graphics cards (although brands were not stated) I would like to state here, that the fact they are on the nVidea stand at CES would indicate that one, over the other, might possibly be favoured.
Mods will not be officially supported with game launch, however –as with recent replies, like regarding Scopio and Switch version– Gamble iterated that if that’s what people want, that’s likely what they’ll get.
A final movement in the conversation steered it towards the open-world design of the included planets. Gamble spent some time to explain that unlike previous series entires the worlds were not small room/hub areas, but instead wider, open planets, and that they “have designers going throughout these open worlds and placing small, little adventures” indicating that we may be expecting something a little bit more vast than Dragon Age: Inquisition open environments.
You can read the whole interview over on Kotaku.au, here.
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