Mass Effect remasters and new game confirmed

[red assassin]

I know there's a few other Mass Effect fans about here, so:

https://blog.bioware.com/2020/11/07/happy-n7-day-4/

Spring 2021 release for the remastered original trilogy (which has been rumoured for ages at this point). No further details on the new game yet.

[Ketraar]

Yes I like ME quite a bit. Unsure if I'll get the Remastered tbh, unless it has some major additions. I have gone through that story several times, not sure I'm interested enough to get it again just it looks prettier.

I'm looking forward though to the new one, apparently its suppose to be a (proper) sequel to ME3 even if some characters may not be in it (for death reasons I guess). Some speculation about it being based on Liara's character and her journey after the Events. I dont really care tbh, as long as they get back to make it immersive with interesting locations and characters.

MFG

Ketraar

[mr.WHO]

I'm the opposite - I like the news of remaster, but hate the news about sequel.

This is because how bankrupt the modern AAA game and movie industry is - they milk the established IP, but the new parts adds nothing or even break things up (e.g. Star Wars, Halo, Aliens).

What new things can ME4 add? It will probably canonize only one ending which will make nobody happy (or will they make crappy excuse to make minimal difference between ME3 endings).

I'd rather see new game with new universe of same format (3rd person Sci-Fi combat + spaceship/crew like in ME2) - you have plenty of universe which this would work like The Expanse, Cowboy Bebop, Star Trek, Star Wars and many more.

[Mightysword]

What new things can ME4 add? It will probably canonize only one ending which will make nobody happy (or will they make crappy excuse to make minimal difference between ME3 endings).

Well, while usually that will piss off someone who prefer one ending over another yes. One thing ME has going for it is I believe all the current endings piss off everyone equally, so I doubt there gonna be much love loss regardless there. The only reason we even got 3 different endings is because the writers tried too hard to be "philosophers" instead of just focusing on being good story tellers.

As for what ME4 can offer, plenty? Most universe only offer you one setting, either prosperous one (startrek, starwars) or an apocalyptic one (Fallout). ME would be a rare one that can offer a view on both side of the history after living through the event that causes the fall of the world itself. There are plenty to offers in term of gameplay and story rebuilding the universe. Especially if it's modeled after the destroyed ending, which from the look so far seem to be the one to be used.

Yes I like ME quite a bit. Unsure if I'll get the Remastered tbh, unless it has some major additions. I have gone through that story several times, not sure I'm interested enough to get it again just it looks prettier.

I'm on the same boat.

ME1 gonna need some MAJOR touch up for me to ever play it again. It was already a pain when it first came out, and the standard for the gerne had been raised quite a bit ever since.
ME2 is my favorite but I had played it to death. If the end of ME3 receive the same DLC treatment ME2 had to bridge the story into the new installation, it would be warrant a look. At the very least I think they'll do some major change to the ME3's ending ... or I hope.

Still, all of this seem to indicate they are serious about reviving this beloved franchise, hope good things will come from it.

[Vertigo 7]

There was already an ME4 that offered a completely different story but nooooo, we can't have different! I highly doubt any of you folks are going to be happy with ME5 no matter what they do with it, tbh.

[mr.WHO]

I must be in minority, but I kinda liked ME:Andromeda (albeit I stopped around 30% completed).
The concept of starting fresh in a new galaxy and being some kind of pioneer/ranger was great.
I especially liked that the condition on colonized world improved as you made progress, same with main nexus.

The only 4 things I didn't liked:
- several cringe dialogues (infamous "My face is tired")
- bland main character (comparing to Sheppard they are really bland and Sheppar himself wasn't really very deep character - fortunately the crew was on pair with the trilogy crew)
- The antagonist and his faction was very generic hostile aliens (to balance this, I like main allies of the game - Angarans)
- Our rover was not armed (WTF Bioware, you did Mako right in ME1 and ever since you failed to bring it back )


Now from the time pespective, I think people unjustly trashed Andromeda as with the exception of broken facial animation there was no critical bugs.
Unlike Cyberpunk 2077 the game ran well (my old laptop was below spec, but the game was playable and FPS droped only in the biggest and most intense moments).

There was a good potential for Andromeda 2 and I fail to see any potential for ME4 back in Milky Way.

[Ketraar]

There was already an ME4 that offered a completely different story but nooooo, we can't have different! I highly doubt any of you folks are going to be happy with ME5 no matter what they do with it, tbh.

was it different though? It really wasnt. I liked Andromeda as an openworld type game like Far Cry, it had fun moments, good exploration and some interesting locations. The story though was not good at all, not because of the setting or nostalgia, no, it was not good because of the writing. It was a rehash of older ME story tropes/beats. Dont really want to write an assay for all the major issues it has, but lets just say that its a tad funny that we arrive in a COMPLETELY new galaxy to find that the locals are just either evil or helpless, so good thing we came along to save them.

They tried so hard avoid any mentions of the ME3 ending that the whole premise of having Ark ships of ALL SPECIES to move to a new galaxy is just idiotic. They struggled to gather factions to join forces to fight the Reapers, but somehow long before they managed to build these HUGE ships and Citadel sized Nexus to send off. Why did we need Mass Relays again in Sol if we already had faster than light ships? I mean if we have those why would we bother using them and also in the end of ME3 when the choice is there to blow them up, why would we care?

Anyway, I'll stop here before going down a rather deep rabbit hole, ME:A was an OK game. The Animations were a much bigger issue though as mentioned above, considering conversations are a big chunk of the game when you intereact with characters its important that a face is not grinning/smiling when the character wearing the face is saying something angry or sad. There are plenty of videos on youtube if anyone wants to have a go and see how bad it was. And yes its important, because its hard to listen to your team mate spill her heart while making odd expressions.

So no, its not about having new stuff, I wish we had gotten new stuff, but we didnt, we got rehashed tropes and unpolished animations, which I would argue make 50% of the game, so I just ignored the story and had fun with the rest. Its fine, its just not a good ME game. I would put it on the level of FC New Dawn or AC Origins, mediocre stories with lots of open road.

MFG

Ketraar

[pjknibbs]

Why did we need Mass Relays again in Sol if we already had faster than light ships? I mean if we have those why would we bother using them and also in the end of ME3 when the choice is there to blow them up, why would we care?

It's a difference in speed, mainly. Given it takes the Andromeda ships around 600 years to reach the galaxy, that implies a maximum FTL velocity over that distance of around 3,500C. Which is fast--it's about as fast as Star Trek ships can do at maximum warp, and they can only maintain that for a few hours--but it's still *way* slower than Mass Relays, and means that outposts on opposite sides of the Milky Way are now 20+ years' travel apart rather than a few hours, as they are with Mass Relays. To give a real world example, imagine that every type of engine in existence stops working and we're forced back to using sailing ships to make journeys between continents, and then realise the situation in Mass Effect is a hundred times worse than that.

I agree with every other part of your post, incidentally--Mass Effect: Andromeda had a lot of the same storytelling problems that ME3 did, they were just less obvious because it didn't have an immediately terrible ending to highlight the deficiencies.

[Vertigo 7]

Erm, the Andromeda Initiative was, covertly, a plan B for the fight against the reapers to give the Milky Way races a chance to survive. There was a whole thing about it with the funding to build the arks and even mentioned the reapers directly. Regardless, the expedition was launched before the reapers invaded so they wouldn't have known what happened anyway. No one publicly believed the reapers were coming other than Sheppard so it's not like there was a count down till invasion.

Anywho, I really don't see a rehash of the Milky Way story. Unless you mean at the base level of going to planets and finding things, or the same politics like the ongoing strife between the Salarians and Krogan. If anything, the big bad of the story wasn't even revealed. The Kett were just assholes that showed up after whoever knocked out the remnant tech, that wasn't their doing. We have no idea who the original Angara, or whoever created the Angara, were fighting against or running from.

There's so much of that story that could have been explored but now we'll likely never know.

[mr.WHO]

In Mass Effect terms:

ME - real life

STL - local car road trip
FTL - Highway speed
Mass Relay - Hyperloop - very fast travel, but only between Mass Relays within Milky Way.
Andromeda Ark - it's like one way flight to Mars


Anyway from what I remember the Andromeda Flight was privately sponsored (also with Cerberus money) and launched a few months before Reaper invasion.

To me Andromeda story is consistent with original trillogy story.

[Ketraar]

It's a difference in speed, mainly.

Right had forgotten about that they are basically jump gates.

Erm, the Andromeda Initiative was, covertly, a plan B for the fight against the reapers to give the Milky Way races a chance to survive.

Yes I'm aware of the story, but put that into perspective. You can have all the money you want but to build stuff you need materials, they need mining/gathering, refining, converting into parts, assembled to components and then all put together as ships or whatever. The logistics to build ONE ark alone would be insane, but no, 5 were built and the nexus. The Arks being Reaper sized around 1,5km and the Nexus being about 15km in size. And you are saying while Shepard was running around trying to convince people about the reapers, the Illusive man somehow managed to to have this project put together, involving all species, and keep it secret from Shepard, Miranda, Tali, Liara, the all knowing Shadow Broker and even from Sovereign, as he was indoctrinated? Sorry I have a hard time to accept that. Its a retcon, its what it is. Why not make the new thing then?

Anywho, I really don't see a rehash of the Milky Way story.

So you dont see the resemblance of we "waking up" to the role of the saviour, fighting a devouring "bad guy" with no personality other than being evil, going about activating tech from a lost great unknown civilisation we consider the creators that then turn out to just be as lost? Sounds quite familiar to me.

That alone would not be a major issue though, its just it was not executed well at all. Also the world building was not well thought of. We brought more species from the milky way then there were in Andromeda, and we lost an ark that had most of the ones that SHOULD be there. Also dont get me started on how we came from another galaxy to then explain the natives how their old tech works...

Again rabbit hole alarm.

There's so much of that story that could have been explored but now we'll likely never know.

I agree. But to be fair, it was their own fault (EA/Bioware) to put such a Massive Game in a position for such backlash and the reaction to the backlash was also the worst, since they could just have said, ok yes be borked it, we'll fix it, but nope, they just abandoned ship.

For the new continuation, again it doesnt need to be directly followed by ME3, the ME galaxy is rich enough to tell compelling stories even if it implies to take one ending and make it cannon, that is the least of teh problems, if the continuation of the story is good.

MFG

Ketraar

[mr.WHO]

IMO, I'd rather see ME: Andromeda 2 where you:
- further develop the colonies (and possibly own one directly like some kind of Keep/village from fantasy RPG).
- support war with Kett (some kind of war assets system that is something more than glorifide card collection of ME3).
- explore more ancient ruins (I really like that part of Andromeda).
- Have a ship customization system like in ME2.

I'm kinda tired with epic "galaxy extinction event" cliche of Reapers and I'd be perfectly fine with explorer/ranger/settler with a bit of proper war stories.

[Vertigo 7]

Erm, the Andromeda Initiative was, covertly, a plan B for the fight against the reapers to give the Milky Way races a chance to survive.

Yes I'm aware of the story, but put that into perspective. You can have all the money you want but to build stuff you need materials, they need mining/gathering, refining, converting into parts, assembled to components and then all put together as ships or whatever. The logistics to build ONE ark alone would be insane, but no, 5 were built and the nexus. The Arks being Reaper sized around 1,5km and the Nexus being about 15km in size. And you are saying while Shepard was running around trying to convince people about the reapers, the Illusive man somehow managed to to have this project put together, involving all species, and keep it secret from Shepard, Miranda, Tali, Liara, the all knowing Shadow Broker and even from Sovereign, as he was indoctrinated? Sorry I have a hard time to accept that. Its a retcon, its what it is. Why not make the new thing then?

Lol. The Andromeda Initiative wasn't a secret, it's actual objective was. Hell, Liara even had some recordings for the main character's father. And I never said anything about the illusive man. In fact, it was insinuated that the Shadow Broker was the one funding the expedition after the original financers backed out, which was Liara after ME2. Who cares about the logistics of building the things? They obviously didn't go "oh reapers, build ships!" and crank them out in a couple of weeks. I mean, shit, they built the whole damn crucible in the span of a few days. I'm sure they could have gathered the resources to build the arks in whatever time frame it took to do it and since you know the story, you are aware that the expedition had been planned out over years.

Anywho, I really don't see a rehash of the Milky Way story.

So you dont see the resemblance of we "waking up" to the role of the saviour, fighting a devouring "bad guy" with no personality other than being evil, going about activating tech from a lost great unknown civilisation we consider the creators that then turn out to just be as lost? Sounds quite familiar to me.

That alone would not be a major issue though, its just it was not executed well at all. Also the world building was not well thought of. We brought more species from the milky way then there were in Andromeda, and we lost an ark that had most of the ones that SHOULD be there. Also dont get me started on how we came from another galaxy to then explain the natives how their old tech works...

Again rabbit hole alarm.

Well, then, would you have preferred it if you weren't playing the role of the hero and it was just up to some random NPC? What kind of a boring ass game would that be to just be some dude's side kick, if that? Did you complain about being the star of the show for any/all of the X games?

Again, since you know the story, you are aware that the Angara didn't have the AIs that the pathfinders did and only had limited success in activating the remnant tech. And you're also aware that the Angara were only a couple of centuries old, right? And you're also aware that the Kett weren't native to Andromeda, and really, neither were the Angara. As a matter of fact, the Andromeda Initiative had no indication of any intelligent life in Andromeda and all the planets they surveyed using Geth technology indicated uninhabited worlds that could support life. Everything that occurred to bring the Angara and Kett to Andromeda occurred during the trip there and the beings that created the Angara were seemingly wiped out before they could effectively pass on their knowledge.

[Mightysword]

I'm kinda tired with epic "galaxy extinction event" cliche of Reapers and I'd be perfectly fine with explorer/ranger/settler with a bit of proper war stories.

The funny thing is ... all of that could be done after ME3 in the milky way, in fact most of what they wanted to do with Andromeda could fit into milky way. The only reason they had to go another galaxy is because they had to leave the mess of the ME3's endings behind. Had they kept it simple and straight forward - aka the destroyed ending:

- The citadel and the mass relay network were destroyed, so things would become decentralized.
- We have not visited the Turrian homeworld, and many other minor species world.
- We have not really explored the world outside of citidel space barring some very specific mission related instance.
- THe universe is in ruin and would badly need rebuilding.

So pretty much all you asked could have been done because the lore and setting have already everything established for the narrative. In fact, by going to a new universe they kinda had to re-establish everything again. This is why Andromeda feels like a ragtag collection of space opera troupes that slapped together for a passable story, rather than a well thought out and consistent one.

[Ketraar]

The Andromeda Initiative wasn't a secret, it's actual objective was.

When in any of the 3 ME games have you heard of it? I must have missed it. Even in Lair of the Shadow broker when Liara takes over and later when you meet her as the Broker, there is no indication or even slight hint to any such project. And the benefactor is not the Shadow Broker, you get a message from him/her threatening Ryker, where the benefactor was clearly someone WILLING to help the initiative. Its only not a secret in ME:A, which is my point of it being a retcon.

Well, then, would you have preferred it if you weren't playing the role of the hero

You asked for the resemblance in story beats, my preferences to role play have nothing to do with the story concept. Also there are many flavours to be the hero, you can be Luke and fire the crucial shot to blow up a Death Star and open up the path for OTHER character to actually shape their worlds, or in ME if we ignore the bad ending in 3, you can be the captain of a ship that has other heroes that actually have the solutions and you are just hired muscle and get some options to define a path but rely on much more capable characters to get stuff done. Shepard is rather incompetent if you really think about it, but I digress.

Btw in X games you are mostly a Luke type hero and less a Shepard one.

Again, since you know the story, you are aware that the Angara didn't have the AIs that the pathfinders did and only had limited success in activating the remnant tech

Yes I'm aware, as you say I know the story and its not a particularly good one. Yes Agrarians are again a engineered species that were created by a mystical creator that has long gone and left behind tech that the one created cant understand but humans from different galaxy can because they have HAL9000? Its neither interesting nor plausible, especially since the Angarans seem to have rather unique way of retaining memories and have clearly special "spiritual" abilities. I wonder who they are trying to mimic here?

And you're also aware that the Kett weren't native to Andromeda

Think you misunderstood the story here, the Kett are native to Andromeda just not the Heleus Cluster, though its not references where exactly their home world (Sarhesen) is located. They have a ruling structure and seem to be somewhat inspired by mixing the Wraith from Stargate and the Collectors from ME2. Indications that they require other species to "evolve" is not new, but still interesting, sadly we never go really deep into this and the Archon is just made out to be a Kett rogue (so double the villainy ).

Who cares about the logistics of building the things?

Well I do. Having "lived" through that period I find it to be important for the credibility of the story as otherwise it loses impact.

I mean, shit, they built the whole damn crucible in the span of a few days.

Well days is a tad short, yes it takes us days to do it playing the game, but in ingame time its more like weeks if not months. We have to travel most of the galaxy to just get the info on how to make it and then its told it was designed to be simple in constructions and you had ALL THE GALAXY working on it, so it would be feasible to assume a project that involved building ships that had 80 TIMES faster FTL drives (~50c vs 3900c) then current MW ships it would have been known at least by SOME of the most knowledgeable people during that period, Shepard being one of them!!!!

I'm kinda tired with epic "galaxy extinction event" cliche of Reapers and I'd be perfectly fine with explorer/ranger/settler with a bit of proper war stories.

I agree, I much rather also have smaller scope stories of adventures with good character interaction then god like save the universe by a single person trope. It gives the wrong impression, considering no one can ever do anything on their own, we always need others and even if its just past experiences and advancements, one would need to invent the universe first for that.

The base building and exploration are fine and I like those games too, but its not Mass Effect imho. ME is about the characters, choices and (hopefully) consequences, that core should work first imho, later you can have rovers and scanning or what not, because otherwise it will just be another Ubisoft game trying to clone GTA.

MFG

Ketraar

PS.: Ninja'd by Mightysword and agree with all he said, plenty of lore to tell good stories in Milky Way

[Vertigo 7]

The Andromeda Initiative wasn't a secret, it's actual objective was.

When in any of the 3 ME games have you heard of it? I must have missed it. Even in Lair of the Shadow broker when Liara takes over and later when you meet her as the Broker, there is no indication or even slight hint to any such project. And the benefactor is not the Shadow Broker, you get a message from him/her threatening Ryker, where the benefactor was clearly someone WILLING to help the initiative. Its only not a secret in ME:A, which is my point of it being a retcon.

Well, yeah, in that sense, of course it's a retcon. The writers of the game didn't predict they were going to be writing another game in the same universe. That doesn't mean that it was hidden during the events of ME1-3. You're reaching.

Well, then, would you have preferred it if you weren't playing the role of the hero

You asked for the resemblance in story beats, my preferences to role play have nothing to do with the story concept. Also there are many flavours to be the hero, you can be Luke and fire the crucial shot to blow up a Death Star and open up the path for OTHER character to actually shape their worlds, or in ME if we ignore the bad ending in 3, you can be the captain of a ship that has other heroes that actually have the solutions and you are just hired muscle and get some options to define a path but rely on much more capable characters to get stuff done. Shepard is rather incompetent if you really think about it, but I digress.

Btw in X games you are mostly a Luke type hero and less a Shepard one.

Oh dear god. Again reaching. You're playing the part of the pivotal character either way. Every first person story driven game is a copy of the ME story by your analogy. Let's go further back and say the game had words, it copied everything but chess and pong!

Again, since you know the story, you are aware that the Angara didn't have the AIs that the pathfinders did and only had limited success in activating the remnant tech

Yes I'm aware, as you say I know the story and its not a particularly good one. Yes Agrarians are again a engineered species that were created by a mystical creator that has long gone and left behind tech that the one created cant understand but humans from different galaxy can because they have HAL9000? Its neither interesting nor plausible, especially since the Angarans seem to have rather unique way of retaining memories and have clearly special "spiritual" abilities. I wonder who they are trying to mimic here?

If by flipping the on/off switch is tantamount to understanding something, then I'm a rocket scientist! Who knew?! Jeez dude. They repeatedly told you over and over again they didn't understand the tech. They were only able to interface with it because of the AI. Hell Peebee knew more about the tech than Ryder did, and she didn't have direct use of SAM, and she was only scratching the surface. Maybe it's convenient? But so what? If you want every minute detail explained then the game might as well be an encyclopedia and I couldn't imagine anything more boring.

And you're also aware that the Kett weren't native to Andromeda

Think you misunderstood the story here, the Kett are native to Andromeda just not the Heleus Cluster, though its not references where exactly their home world (Sarhesen) is located. They have a ruling structure and seem to be somewhat inspired by mixing the Wraith from Stargate and the Collectors from ME2. Indications that they require other species to "evolve" is not new, but still interesting, sadly we never go really deep into this and the Archon is just made out to be a Kett rogue (so double the villainy ).

Fine, forgive me. I'm not an astrologist despite my ability to turn a planetarium off and on. So they didn't come from the Helios cluster where the Andromeda story takes place. It still doesn't change my point. They weren't there when the initiative looked and arrived there before the initiative arrived in Andromeda.

Who cares about the logistics of building the things?

Well I do. Having "lived" through that period I find it to be important for the credibility of the story as otherwise it loses impact.

Well then go play Minecraft and pretend its resource gathering for the arks in the future fictional timeline you "lived" through. You can even make a mod for it and change the title to "Ketraar's Boring Mass Effect Resource Gathering Operations".

I mean, shit, they built the whole damn crucible in the span of a few days.

Well days is a tad short, yes it takes us days to do it playing the game, but in ingame time its more like weeks if not months. We have to travel most of the galaxy to just get the info on how to make it and then its told it was designed to be simple in constructions and you had ALL THE GALAXY working on it, so it would be feasible to assume a project that involved building ships that had 80 TIMES faster FTL drives (~50c vs 3900c) then current MW ships it would have been known at least by SOME of the most knowledgeable people during that period, Shepard being one of them!!!!

okay, and? You think that it couldn't therefor take years for SOME OF THE GALAXY to build the arks?

Just because something isn't mentioned, that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Bears do shit in the woods whether or not you're around to see it.

*edit
Ya know, there's probably a very simple and reasonable explanation. If you recall, the mass relays were used as jump points to sectors of space and ships would travel at FTL from there to their final destinations. There probably wasn't a need for FTL being that fast for such short trips. I would also imagine that the FTL drives on the arks are massive and have a huge power requirement and thusly probably aren't feasible to mount on anything much smaller than the arks.

ME is about the characters, choices and (hopefully) consequences

Lol so why all the nitpicking over logistics of building the arks and beating up other minor details of the Andromeda story?

[red assassin]

Collected on Reddit:
https://i.redd.it/tpw8w4dg0k861.png