We desperately want Mass Effect: Andromeda to be the game that we’re being promised in Bioware’s gameplay series and based on the latest outing — which focuses on world exploration — we may just get what we’re after.
Players are going to find themselves faced with a scale that hasn’t been seen in the series to date, with more than 100 planets being part of the exploration. Before you get too excited, though, Bioware has confirmed that there will only be a handful of planets fully open and it’s these locations that will see the biggest differences being made to the game at large.
That’s because each location will have a series of challenges that need to be overcome. This could be geographical, as is the case with example planet Elaaden which is largely too hot to exist in without life support. There will also be factional and settlement problems to overcome and the manner which players approach these locations will dictate how the larger Andromeda project plays out. Make one of the larger planets more liveable and upgrades are more possible. Muck up, though, and you might not be able to go quite as far as you might like without helping out a difference location. We’re expecting some of your actions to make other planets less than impressed so diplomacy is probably also going to be a factor.
You’ll see the Nomad in action in the video below, as well as snippets of the hub base upgrade system, combat against very large and scary creatures and Krogan. Lots and lots of sweaty Krogan. Sign us right up.
There is a whole lot of promise here, of the sort that we’ve heard before from BioWare and Electronic Arts. We really, really want to believe that there will be detailed exploration in Andromeda, with ramifications and consequences for the player based on how they go about it. But we’ve been bitten in the past so we’re going to believe it all when we see it. Thankfully it’s not a long wait — Mass Effect: Andromeda launches on 21 March.
Source: BioWare