Mass Effect: Andromeda
Mass Effect: Andromeda is a tragedy wrapped in a train-wreck surrounded by nuclear fallout. I could maybe, MAYBE forgive the glitches, bad quest design, poor facial animation, convoluted gameplay, diminished multiplayer, elimination of several species, and bad voice-acting if the writing was at least good. The writing is woeful. The writing was so bad I had to replay the original series just to see if I was misremembering the quality of those games. I wasn't at all. This game is garbage.
UPDATE for 2025:
I did something I rarely ever do with a game I don't immediately love, I gave Mass Effect: Andromeda a second chance. I'm currently playing through the game on the PS5 with every patch that attempts to fix the game. I will report that the game is still in a very bad state. I have had several crashes relating to: cutscene transitions, the Nomad, and sound (which completely cut out several times without crashing the game and wouldn't come back until I restarted). Facial animations are sometimes so janky that I have to believe it is a glitch. Quests are mostly fixed except quest-specific sound queues still regularly trigger hours after their completion.
Okay, the bad bad stuff is out of the way. Now onto the mediocre stuff (which is most of the rest of the game). Andromeda feels like the design document was drawn-up by Bioware's A-team and handed to their B-team to actually make. Most of the ideas are interesting in concept but so-so in execution. A new galaxy presents many opportunities for interesting storytelling which mostly disappoints. The plot feels very been-there done-that. The new friendly species would easily be the least engaging if they existed in the original trilogy. The Kett, Remnant, and Scourge are marginally interesting but not nearly enough to sustain a 30-hour experience. The squadmates are almost well-realized and there are moments where I felt like I was on ME2's Normandy again but Ryder's teammates are mostly hollow: charismatic on the outside but empty on the inside.
There are some good things at least. First is the gameplay. I have mixed feelings about removing true classes but the ability to freely mix combat, biotics, and tech at least pays dividends from a pure "fun" perspective. Once I got the hang of the jetpack it fits so seamlessly into the gameplay it's a wonder BioWare hasn't implemented it into their other games before 2017. The downside to the new gameplay is the cover system. I like my cover to be sticky and Andromeda is anything but. I never felt like I was under cover and it felt too easy to detach, especially while in the large open areas.
Finally, the thing I felt the best about was exploration. Mass Effect toyed with the idea of a big galaxy full of interesting planets but only a handful of encounters betrays the lack of focused effort in that department. Andromeda finally goes back to the "uncharted worlds" concept and mostly pulls it off, albeit not as well as many other open-world games. The Nomad is a workable Mako, so bravo, something Andromeda undoubtedly does better than the original trilogy. The planets are large and full of things but those things are mostly repeats of other planets. I'm not sure if this is a writing issue or a design issue but every planet having a vault, Kett, Remnant, and some weather issues just got old after a while. It's so easy to imagine how these planets could be slightly reworked so that they are unique and more than just marginally interesting to explore.
The space explorer/colonizer aspect of the game is pulled off, true, it just feels like it's scratching the surface instead of meaningfully implemented. The first time I saw a colony on a planet surface I actually did get more of a sense of accomplishment than I had at any point in the rest of the game. The problem is that this is a one-off moment and from there are no more meaningful ideas at play. Remember when I said A-team ideas with B-team implementation? There are so many slam-dunk ways to make trying to colonize an unknown galaxy while the colonizers themselves are not a unified group interesting. Trying to manage Asari, Salarian, Krogan, and Human interests while dealing with the logistics of a brand new galaxy full of it's own political complexities should automatically lead to interesting developments... except it never does. So while the settlements are better than nothing and the Nexus isn't completely dead they are ultimately a new paint job on a car with no engine.
My final thoughts on Andromeda are less mixed than I ever thought they could be. It's full of good maybe even great ideas but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. I don't hate this game at all. In fact, there is a part of me that was thinking of the later-day second-generation Star Trek the entire time I was playing. Sure, Voyager and even Enterprise are probably better overall products than Andromeda but at least it's better than trying to redo the original trilogy. And while everything feels like bronze extracted from a gold mine, the game in 2025 gets to fail on it's own terms. In 2017 Andromeda was the victim of an extremely compressed development cycle complicated by an engine that is woefully unequipped to handle this level of complexity and programmed by a ramshackle team of EA rejects. Today it's just an interesting yet bland Mass Effect game but one that I happen to enjoy, even in spite of myself.
UPDATE for 2025:
I did something I rarely ever do with a game I don't immediately love, I gave Mass Effect: Andromeda a second chance. I'm currently playing through the game on the PS5 with every patch that attempts to fix the game. I will report that the game is still in a very bad state. I have had several crashes relating to: cutscene transitions, the Nomad, and sound (which completely cut out several times without crashing the game and wouldn't come back until I restarted). Facial animations are sometimes so janky that I have to believe it is a glitch. Quests are mostly fixed except quest-specific sound queues still regularly trigger hours after their completion.
Okay, the bad bad stuff is out of the way. Now onto the mediocre stuff (which is most of the rest of the game). Andromeda feels like the design document was drawn-up by Bioware's A-team and handed to their B-team to actually make. Most of the ideas are interesting in concept but so-so in execution. A new galaxy presents many opportunities for interesting storytelling which mostly disappoints. The plot feels very been-there done-that. The new friendly species would easily be the least engaging if they existed in the original trilogy. The Kett, Remnant, and Scourge are marginally interesting but not nearly enough to sustain a 30-hour experience. The squadmates are almost well-realized and there are moments where I felt like I was on ME2's Normandy again but Ryder's teammates are mostly hollow: charismatic on the outside but empty on the inside.
There are some good things at least. First is the gameplay. I have mixed feelings about removing true classes but the ability to freely mix combat, biotics, and tech at least pays dividends from a pure "fun" perspective. Once I got the hang of the jetpack it fits so seamlessly into the gameplay it's a wonder BioWare hasn't implemented it into their other games before 2017. The downside to the new gameplay is the cover system. I like my cover to be sticky and Andromeda is anything but. I never felt like I was under cover and it felt too easy to detach, especially while in the large open areas.
Finally, the thing I felt the best about was exploration. Mass Effect toyed with the idea of a big galaxy full of interesting planets but only a handful of encounters betrays the lack of focused effort in that department. Andromeda finally goes back to the "uncharted worlds" concept and mostly pulls it off, albeit not as well as many other open-world games. The Nomad is a workable Mako, so bravo, something Andromeda undoubtedly does better than the original trilogy. The planets are large and full of things but those things are mostly repeats of other planets. I'm not sure if this is a writing issue or a design issue but every planet having a vault, Kett, Remnant, and some weather issues just got old after a while. It's so easy to imagine how these planets could be slightly reworked so that they are unique and more than just marginally interesting to explore.
The space explorer/colonizer aspect of the game is pulled off, true, it just feels like it's scratching the surface instead of meaningfully implemented. The first time I saw a colony on a planet surface I actually did get more of a sense of accomplishment than I had at any point in the rest of the game. The problem is that this is a one-off moment and from there are no more meaningful ideas at play. Remember when I said A-team ideas with B-team implementation? There are so many slam-dunk ways to make trying to colonize an unknown galaxy while the colonizers themselves are not a unified group interesting. Trying to manage Asari, Salarian, Krogan, and Human interests while dealing with the logistics of a brand new galaxy full of it's own political complexities should automatically lead to interesting developments... except it never does. So while the settlements are better than nothing and the Nexus isn't completely dead they are ultimately a new paint job on a car with no engine.
My final thoughts on Andromeda are less mixed than I ever thought they could be. It's full of good maybe even great ideas but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. I don't hate this game at all. In fact, there is a part of me that was thinking of the later-day second-generation Star Trek the entire time I was playing. Sure, Voyager and even Enterprise are probably better overall products than Andromeda but at least it's better than trying to redo the original trilogy. And while everything feels like bronze extracted from a gold mine, the game in 2025 gets to fail on it's own terms. In 2017 Andromeda was the victim of an extremely compressed development cycle complicated by an engine that is woefully unequipped to handle this level of complexity and programmed by a ramshackle team of EA rejects. Today it's just an interesting yet bland Mass Effect game but one that I happen to enjoy, even in spite of myself.
Mini Review: Mass Effect: Andromeda is a tragedy wrapped in a train-wreck surrounded by fallout. I could maybe forgive the glitches, bad quest design, poor facial animation, convoluted gameplay, diminished multiplayer, elimination of several species, and bad voice-acting if the writing was good. The writing is woeful. The writing was so bad I had to replay the original series just to see if I was misremembering those games. I wasn't at all. This game is garbage. NOTE: See full review for update.
Watch the Trailer