One year on, it’s safe to say that Mass Effect Andromeda was one of 2017’s worst gaming failures, which destroyed the hopes of any future for the science fiction RPG franchise. There were many reasons why the highly-anticipated follow-up to the much-beloved Mass Effect trilogy was regarded as a failure. In a moment of honesty, a Bioware developer recently shared his opinions on why the game tanked.
Anthem executive producer Mark Darrah posted his frank opinions on Twitter earlier today. He began by admitting that the game was “deeply flawed.” He further acknowledged that this was especially so at launch when the game was in its worst state. However, he added that the “review environment was crowded.” He cited Nier Automata, Nioh, Horizon Zero Dawn and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as games that launched in the same release window as Mass Effect Andromeda.
He continued by saying that each of those games did “something better,” and that made “even systems that are pretty decent get scrutinized against superiorly implemented ones.” He further clarified that launching in another release window could have turned a “72 into 77/78.” The crowded launch was only part of the equation.
Mass Effect Andromeda: Better Games And Bad Rep Killed It
Darrah added that “word of mouth matters so much these days.” What ultimately brought the ax down on Mass Effect Andromeda was the negative reception to the game, even before it officially released. Gamers criticized its bad animations and facial expressions, which were somehow worse than its predecessor Mass Effect 3, which was originally released back in 2012 in an older generation of gaming. He ended the thread by tweeting: You launch the best game you can. MEA has a lot of problems and got lapped by genuinely better games.”
What’s done is done, and what’s in the past stays in the past. Here’s hoping that Bioware and EA learned from their mistakes with Mass Effect Andromeda and that the Mass Effect franchise survives through this setback. Bioware’s next game is Anthem, which will release for the PS4, Xbox One and PC on February 22nd, 2019.
