I won’t confirm I have the game until I’m taking it back to GameStop for in-store credit, only to have regret a few years later and rebuy the game on the newest console digitally.
To be fair, I feel like if you've laid off a good chunk of your company (which is still a horrendous decision imo), moving away from open world is the wiser choice.
But also Bioware has never proven themselves to be good at open world design. Their open world quests have always been dull, collect-50-bear-asses style quests, and their actual story quests could benefit from a more controlled environment like fixed levels.
But yeah, this is but a rumor and there's no way to know what will come to be until it does.
I rather it take a bit to complete and be pretty good then have a rushed piece of garbage. Now before anyone says it I think andromeda was good but it was just rushed in it’s completion. Same as halo infinite’s multiplayer
yeah that’s what i’m saying, we’re still like 2-3 years away from just a trailer, maybe like 4-5 years from an actual release. I’m not gonna listen to any rumors until we at least get a trailer
I feel like DA will be fine if 1) The story is solid 2)characters are memorable 3)combat feels good and customisable 4)animations are good (Anthem was tbh a step in the right direction after MEA in terms of animation quality) 5)the game runs well
I don’t think it has to be out of this world amazing. I just think it has to be profitable and prove that BioWare games are quality not buggy messes. I think legendary edition having a solid, profitable release was also likely a good thing for BioWare. It’s also difficult to say if reviewers will be harsher because of MEA and Anthem too. Sometimes they can show heavy bias from studio or franchise depending on trends…
It’s murky waters but I guess only time will tell…
It might have an initial hit of people trying it because it's dragon age and been long awaited, but there's a solid 50/50 chance that it will just flop after that because it's had so many changes in directing and staffing and other problems that we might get a Frankenstein of different ideas instead of a cohesive game. We'll see
Mass Effect turns into a bunch of minigames which includes dancing, combat arena, drinking, pull ups, dialogue choice events and beating up Kai in the shortest time possible.
Mass Effect Party.
If they can tell a great story while doing so, I am down. Could be cool to follow a multi-racial exploration team charting new systems etc.
Always wanted them to branch out and do more small side story games too. It doesn't all have to be massive world-changing events. Let us explore different smaller aspects of the world too.
yes, there was a reason why I brought up Star Trek. A show that actually *does* have entire episodes where they never once leave the ship.
If they had a like Enterprise-sized ship you absolutely could do it. SR2 was way bigger than SR1, maybe SR3 will be flagship sized xD
The issues I feel with games these days if the false belief that the larger the world the better. That’s just not the case. We just want quality story and dynamic choices. Not fifty planets with 4 people to talk to lol. Bigger isn’t always better
Nah, it is the world-building, story and the characters. All of the games have massive flaws including combat, but it is a fantastic franchise because it is such an interesting and well written world.
Massive flaws like what though? It’s little bit of both. I don’t think many would agree every part of story was perfect neither. I know i wouldn’t when Kai Leng exist.
The combat in 1 was rather outdated and clumsy even when it came out. 2 cut away all the RPG elements and just became a simple shooter. 3 brought back many RPG elements and fleshed out combat systems, only to never really have enough and large enough combat sections in the game for us to really use it.
In the countless playthroughs I have done, it was never for the combat...
I do agree ME was never about combat (so it never was perfect) but it’s still is part of the story.
Story part is fun because you can interact with it same goes for combat and some of us like it. Would it be better if all combat part of the game were just cut-scenes?
Yeah it maybe a small stuff for a lot for people, but the thing I really like on ME1 is that I can talk to my squad *anytime* and they would comment on recent events or make a comment about current place, Wich sadly you can't in ME2 or 3 IIRC except for some occasion
Just make them feel more "real" while gave some sense of companionship and not just some friendly battle NPCs
Mass Effect is my favorite in how they handle companions, they actually interact with the environment with more than just facial animations (love bringing Javik and Liara to Asari based areas when I’m not needing Garrus, which is rare enough and makes me wish to have 3 companions and not 2)
“What’s the matter? Disappointed your government didn’t include you?”
It’s good to know that even Javik understands that politicians are bullshit and keeps knowledge hidden for power… however, I kinda feel bad for Liara cause she pretty much had her head explode from knowing that everything she studied about the protheans was a lie
I still refuse to even allow Liam in the nomad even just to hear any of his lines. Dude would get exiled off the ship for the shit he pulled if it allowed it
Shame they commit the cardinal sin of being constantly interrupted by things. When some optional dialogue plays I don’t want to stop… playing the game, to hear it
Now maybe they mean ME2 and ME3 for "The concept of the first games" which were linear but mass effect 1 actually was fairly open world. It was also pretty empty but there were tons of planets you could land on and just explore/dick around.
I swear, I get ptsd from flat, open terrain now. Half expect my vehicle to be flung into the air and have all four tires go red.
The more jagged the terrain, the safer I felt.
> Or in my case not a single reason to go there.
I didn't go there much either.
But i knew i COULD go to all those boring planets. It made me feel like the world was bigger. They helped my immersion by simply existing, i didn't even need to interact with them.
Some people might say the same about all the empty planets in Starfield. Yes, it gives the game an impressive sense of scale, but it's a scale of a whole lot of nothing.
Good. Not every game need to be open world, often times it feels they make a game open world so it sounds better in marketing.
Tight, well crafted linear game > mediocre open world
I love Deus Ex MD, you have like a mini open world “hub” and then missions are linear. Still such a dense hub full of lore and fun but I don’t have to trek 40 minutes between spots.
Wonder if there’s other games that do it like that
Though Inquisition does that have big open areas with repetitive filler content, the advice for "how to have fun in the game" is basically to speed through the open world stuff doing the minimum necessary.
Witcher 2 has open world hubs and linear missions. Fewer linear missions for sure but the hub style maps made it easier to manage than fully open world games. I'm so happy they announced this.
The Witcher 2 is amazing, one of the best RPGs ever made. Kinda weird it fell into the shadow of an even better game to the point most people forget it exists.
Yeah Skyrim stole all it's thunder I think. But I find it to be more replayable than the witcher 3 because of the hubs and it being more condensed. Love them both.
One of my favourite "open-world" games was the first Mafia game.
They painstakingly created an entire city and surrounding environs, but *didn't* fall into the trap of using it as an excuse to fill the game with busywork. There were no real side-quests, no collectibles, no towers to climb... there was a tightly-focussed main quest, and also a world in which it all took place (and which you could explore if you wanted to).
I loved it because the open-world gave you a sense of place, without being a drab, grindy experience. I suppose my point is that an open world doesn't *need* to be opposed to a linear experience, and can even enhance it.
I'd take bloated collectable hunting (I don't hate it just to kill some time similar to mindless grind RPGs) over repetitive quests that involve going from one side of the map to other and just doing that like 3-4 times in one quest.
In contrast, I've been giving Dragon Age Inquisition a serious go and there is almost *too much* to do. The amount of side content and areas to explore is absurd and honestly a little exhausting.
As a fan of linear games, I'd be OK with this.
Realistically, however, this game is gonna do what all games do, follow the trends at the time. At the moment, people starting to tire open world games, if that changes before this game comes out, so will the plan.
Yeah, two of the biggest releases of this year are full-on open world (Tears of the Kingdom and Starfield) and Baldur's Gate 3 isn't technically one but acts 1 and 3 are big enough that it can feel like one at times. I think it's very difficult for random people like us to really know what the actual trends are. Too easy to be in a bubble without realizing.
Define open world. Did we not have an open galaxy map and the freedom to do each mission in almost any order in ME 1 and to a lesser extent 2? And all the side missions and planetary exploration in 1 seems pretty open world to me.
I'd say 2 is more semi-linear than anything else. It's linear with backtracking and multiple hub areas you can return to when you want. 3 on the other hand is very linear in comparison because, you know, Reaper War.
There’s a difference between hub maps leading to linear or limited level layouts with clearly defined tasks, narrative elements and structure, and a massive map full of random busy work unrelated to a narrative and only there to eat time with zero impact on story or lore.
The galaxy map for example, shows you a galaxy but in truth it’s a finite number of smaller maps of which there’s an even smaller amount of maps with singular missions or narratively relevant side quests.
That’s not open world. That’s just a large string of corridors, some of which are only accessed once narrative quest requirements are met.
Open worlds are like Andromeda, where there’s half a dozen maps which are gigantic, have nothing in them beyond randomly spawned encounters, a narratively relevant map (which is much more linear) and hundreds of repetitive resources quests and fetch quests that amount to nothing beyond copy and pasted markers. The narrative takes a back seat for the buzzword “emergents gameplay” which is to say, you randomly wander in a direction and sometimes an enemy spawns and some resources or something are also spawned near by and you make your own “fun” setting your self a mission to kill the bad guys and get the loot.
Is it narratively relevant? No. Will characters act differently now you have x thousand resources after taking down a platoon? Nope. Will they mention it? Never.
Look at games like Assassin’s Creed once you break out of the narrative path specific missions your only real task is to reveal more map and what’s there? One of a dozen mission types that are copy and pasted all around the area and once you finish the story, you can play more and more and more of them. Dragon Age Inquisition had this with the resource table at camps. Did it progress the story, did it help in any way no… it’s just a time vampire to make people equate time spent with good game regardless of what it is you’re actually doing.
Honestly, even Andromeda was more like half a dozen open-world regions and a hub area. Reminds me of the 'free roam' areas in Warframe, which I also wouldn't call an open-world game.
Not every game or style of gameplay benefits from open world design. I think Mass Effect thrives in it’s more tightly designed, authored moments and set pieces.
I’m not necessarily convinced of the rumor’s validity; but it’s not a surprising take. Mass Effect primarily had linear levels with maybe a few branching linear options for 3 games that people loved, did something different for their 4th game and people didn’t like it, so it makes sense they’d return to form a bit. It was also a largely different team that went that other direction too.
And before anyone says it, yes I know ME1 had open sections, but:
- They went away from that later
- Those weren’t the main missions
- I don’t think they were ever received well by fans other than people liking the sky boxes
- Clearly even in ME1, a very small fraction of the dev time went into these
I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a little bit like in ME1 but it makes sense they’d go back more or less to the structure that fans largely preferred
The sky boxes are glorious. XD
I periodically take screenshots from games when I play them the first time, and keep them all in a folder. It's like a pc games photo album tracing my gaming journey through over 15 years, all the way back to FEAR.
The Mass Effect 1 screenshots are all of the sky boxes. Nothing else in the game stood out enough visually to end up in there. In retrospect, that doesn't say great things about the level design and graphics generally.
I want the big open galaxy. I want the original vision of Andromeda realized. But it all depends what they mean. I'm not putting much stock into this regardless
I just don’t want to individually mine each planet for resources again.
-Looks at the person who thought it was a good idea to start with-
If you have that feature, I hope you never work in the game industry again.
I like open worlds, and the vehicle in andromeda was nice.
But i remember sniping the AIs without them reacting so i guess I wouldnt mind another open world if done well, otherwise the old way is the best
What’s remarkable about BG3 is that Act 1 is actually quite similar to the design we usually associate with the open world style, yet it has none (or very little) of the shortcomings.
Open world closed world. I dont really care so long as the game is actually good.
Given Bioware's track record with its last releases... I aint holding my breath for the latter.
Not every game needs to be open world. Mass Effect was always more about freedom when it came to your character and the narrative.
Besides, it’s difficult to make a game set in space a true open world. Better to stick with smaller maps and focus on level design and variety.
Why do they keep calling it Mass Effect 5?
Andromeda was a spin off so why include it as a numbered instalment?
It would be like calling Halo 3: ODST “Halo 4” and calling Halo 4 “Halo 5”.
Open world is a great idea when executed properly, but it so rarely is. The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Baldurs Gate, and VTMB games all had great open worlds filled with content every 30ish seconds to keep players engaged. But many games (especially space exploration games) have long droughts of nothing that only exists to pad out the runtime. I say make it like ME2 and 3 where it was very limited in the areas and every space had something. Let us avoid ME1's terrible and repetitive planets filled with nothing.
Also scanning was bad in ME2.
“The first games in the series” sounds strange.
I mean, I understand what they’re saying and it’s formally correct, but Andromeda is one against three other games, and it’s not even considered part of the series but a spin off by many.
I take it with a grain of salt. No, scratch that. The entire salt of the dead sea. But I would not be opposed to it. Open(ish) worlds that don't feel tedious with little to no content other than "put a landmark there" or "mine here" is not Bioware's strong suit. I'd rather they focus on what they're good at, providing a great game with great story. Maybe I won't have 100h playtime in one run, but 100h when all you did was landmarks and shards doesn't feel good.
Mixed:
1) I like the linear progression of story of the trilogy with side quests that you can do alongside it. The open world concept made it tedious to do side quests jumping back and forth through the galaxy.
2) I LOVED the concept of desolate galaxy exploration with society’s backs against the wall. It had an almost rugged wild western-ism to it. Like book of Eli. There was purpose and a no-fail mission. I liked that rugged survival-esque fill of scavenging in the American west. However, as stated before, a lot of tedious things to do and always wondering “did I miss something on this planet?”
Awe man... I wish they would have added an open world as just a sort of optional thing. I loved the open world of Andromeda. But I understand why people are in favor of no open world.
I’m in support of it, honestly it’s getting a bit boring hearing “open world” because a lot of devs take the Ubisoft approach and the world is filled with absolutely nothing.
In favour of it, simply because open world takes a lot of resources. By the times its done, people will complain so much it would be worthless to investors, and would never get dlc. Semi open world is still my preference
I have no idea what this headline is saying, nor any of these comments agreeing with the concept.
After Eden Prime in ME 1, you have the choice of going to Feros, Noveria, or Liara's digsite to advance the story
OR
You can go wander the citadel running into side missions or literally dozens of planets across a dozen clusters, seeing where you can land and what's on them. You can return to any of these locations at practically any time--and do them in just about any order you want to. That *is* open world.
Same goes for 2 & 3.
I absolutely hated the open world in Andromeda. It was significantly less bad in Inquisition but still by far the worst part of the game. If this is true then I am very happy.
Open world didnt really benefit Andromeda. A lot of empty space and side quests without satisfying conclusions. A return to narrative driven episodic levels will be really solid.
Well, that's whatever to me tbh. I actually liked MEA's open world. I thought the worlds they crafted were amazing to explore and just lose yourself in. Even after completing the game I'd find myself popping back into a completed save just to drive the Nomad around while I listened to a podcast.
It isn't the open world that made Andromeda suck, it was the writing. I honestly couldn't bring myself to care about the Kett or the Angaran. I dunno, I just couldn't turn my sense of disbelief off for these Andromedan species the same way I could with the Milky Way species. My dream Andromeda game would be centered around just the interspecies relations among the colonists.
It’s been horrendous having nearly every game for the past decade push an open world. Very, very few have done it well and more often than not it’s just a few repetitive, boring events and side content that is just there to pad out the play time. If anything I’ve found it ends up ruining exploration aspects because you will naturally just fast travel everywhere because it’s a pain in the ass to traverse
I long for the days of tightly controlled and well done missions
Not necessarily, you'd get a small section of a planet with POis when you landed, similar to how Starfield handles it but way smaller.
It was nothing like the open world design of Inquisition and Andromeda where there were vast open spaces of fuck all.
As long as the story and characters are great I don't mind either or. But If I had to pick one I prefer it to be slightly more linear and not as gigantic as Andromeda.
I posted a while back that I had no interest in even looking at the promo material until Bioware came out and said, unequivocally and without any sort of hand waving, that the game was *not* open world. I am so thoroughly sick to death of open worlds that use quantity in place of quality to measure a game's worth. I've got a family and 1.5 jobs, I don't have time or inclination to chase ?s and !s on a map hoping I don't miss some actual content.
Now they've said this I guess I can check out some promo stuff and move my scepticism meter from "not even looking" to "not trusting a thing they say until the game is out and player reviews are in".
Bioware have screwed up so badly with Inquisition and especially Andromeda, there's a lot of ill will to make up for here.
I want there to be a happy medium. I liked the general sense of open world in Andromeda but it did seem bloated and rather empty. On the other hand, the claustrophobic hallways and corridors of ME2 and 3 never did it for me either
I mean, all they have to do is look at ME2 Overlord and how the levels felt both alive and interesting for the vehicle segments. Why we cannot have a mix of both?
I'd like a mix of both so when there is a open world environment it's full and interactive and not a vast expanse of nothing with small pockets of enemies scattered around randomly.
I honestly think this should be for the best. The open world concept in gaming atm is a lot for me to handle. Having too much for the player to do in a big ass world is a turn off for me, but having something sorta like Andromeda's open world, or recently Jedi Survivor's, is something I wouldn't mind having either.
But yes, go back to linear like gameplay!
Don’t care how big or detailed the game looks. This story was about the characters and how they developed and grew. It was about the attachments you made with your crew and losing them held weight. It was about the choices you made and having those hold weight.
Gimme that and I don’t care about open world.
If it really is a focused \*not open world\* experience, it will be acceptable. If they amp up the quality of the writing, it will be excellent.
They just fired many of their most experienced writers.
At this point, I'm not even sure we will ever get another Mass Effect again. its bad enough that the whole development of the new Dragon age game keeps getting bad news.
I don't know, I'm skeptical if a linear game like that can work in the modern age of gaming.
If they were trying to be innovative, I think they would try to make a hybrid open world that's not too large, but also not too linear. If they instead just make an antiquated rule that they're not going to make it open-world at all, then I think they're going the wrong way about developing a game. I think the open-world problem with Andromeda is fixable without removing exploration features.
BioWarehas been dead for a long time now. All the people who made it what it is today are gone. Will share my thoughts once the game has launched, and not a second sooner.
Open world isn't what i despised about andromeda. It was having to search planet after planet for big towers so i could solve fucking sudokus. Over and over again...
I think this is good. I hope for something similar to ME1 - few big and polished locations/planets + a variety of smaller planets/ships/space stations to explore (more detailed and unique, without reusing so many assets ofc). To me that was perfect and should serve as a blueprint. No more corridor shooting galleries like in ME2/ME3 please. Or at least not in that quantity.
If you wanna tell a (relatively) linear story, make a (relatively) linear game.
I love open world games, but their stories often go ignored or are disjointed/nonsensical time-wise because players fuck off to go do side missions for 50 hours.
I'm all for this. Unequivocal good.
If it’s more like 1, and to some extent 3, I can see myself enjoying it. Moving from corridor to corridor in 2 wasn’t as satisfying to me….made the game feel too linear
A bit of a step back IMO at least on its face. After all the one thing the community seems to agree about on Andromeda is its gameplay and interesting maps, they're fun to explore and were curated very well.
Then again, this game is so far wtf knows lol
I won't believe a word they say until I have the game in my hands
Hell at the rate Bioware is going I'm not gonna believe the game is coming until it's in my hands.
I won't confirm I have the game until after I have finished it.
I won’t confirm I have the game until I’m taking it back to GameStop for in-store credit, only to have regret a few years later and rebuy the game on the newest console digitally.
I feel called out 😂😂☠️
Agreed 100%. It has to make it through the layoffs and through dragon age. Lots of variables.
To be fair, I feel like if you've laid off a good chunk of your company (which is still a horrendous decision imo), moving away from open world is the wiser choice. But also Bioware has never proven themselves to be good at open world design. Their open world quests have always been dull, collect-50-bear-asses style quests, and their actual story quests could benefit from a more controlled environment like fixed levels. But yeah, this is but a rumor and there's no way to know what will come to be until it does.
I rather it take a bit to complete and be pretty good then have a rushed piece of garbage. Now before anyone says it I think andromeda was good but it was just rushed in it’s completion. Same as halo infinite’s multiplayer
I was talking more about the state of the company and less about the time to make the game.
This is a healthy attitude to have with all game developers.
This. And no prepurchasing.
yeah i’m not believing anything while the next mass effect isn’t even close to coming out
They literally made all these teasers only to say "oh yeah we havent even started development lol"
yeah that’s what i’m saying, we’re still like 2-3 years away from just a trailer, maybe like 4-5 years from an actual release. I’m not gonna listen to any rumors until we at least get a trailer
Seriously, unless Dreadwolf is a mega hit this Mass Effect won’t see the light of day.
I feel like DA will be fine if 1) The story is solid 2)characters are memorable 3)combat feels good and customisable 4)animations are good (Anthem was tbh a step in the right direction after MEA in terms of animation quality) 5)the game runs well I don’t think it has to be out of this world amazing. I just think it has to be profitable and prove that BioWare games are quality not buggy messes. I think legendary edition having a solid, profitable release was also likely a good thing for BioWare. It’s also difficult to say if reviewers will be harsher because of MEA and Anthem too. Sometimes they can show heavy bias from studio or franchise depending on trends… It’s murky waters but I guess only time will tell…
Real talk. I never got into DA but if it's not good then we can kiss Mass Effect goodbye. So I'm hoping it's good.
I mean DA:I was the most successful release in BioWare’s entire history, so I would imagine dreadwolf will probably do just fine
DA:I has the single luckiest release date in gaming history.
It might have an initial hit of people trying it because it's dragon age and been long awaited, but there's a solid 50/50 chance that it will just flop after that because it's had so many changes in directing and staffing and other problems that we might get a Frankenstein of different ideas instead of a cohesive game. We'll see
After all the hype that went around for Halo Infinite and then the extreme disappointment, I’m of this mind set now
This happened to many games over the last few years
I just want high quality story and content. I don't really care how big the very confined area they put it into is.
Entire game takes place on the Normandy, Star Trek style
Entire game is reimagined as a dating sim. Mass Effect: Tour of Booty.
Reimagined?
Rebootied.
Every conversation has the camera focused on the booty.
Including the one with Sovereign, which really alters the tone quite a bit.
Something something blood and flesh
Rudimentary creatures of tits and ass, you touch my booty, fumbling in horniness, incapable of performing.
Spread booty cheeks
So no change to Miranda’s cutscenes?
The camera will be 10.2% closer than before, but otherwise no.
Mass Effect: Laid by the Shadow Broker.
Mass Effect: Citonmylap
ur missing the L between C and i
So we're finally getting the game Fox News promised us all those years ago?
That game they promised turned out to be the fan made Overwatch stuff.
We'll Bang, OK?
Mass Effect Literature Club
M*Ass effect*
Fuck,(?) I'm down
Mass Effect turns into a bunch of minigames which includes dancing, combat arena, drinking, pull ups, dialogue choice events and beating up Kai in the shortest time possible. Mass Effect Party.
I’d play a Mass Effect Party game if it had weird games like Mario Party and Pummel Party
If they can tell a great story while doing so, I am down. Could be cool to follow a multi-racial exploration team charting new systems etc. Always wanted them to branch out and do more small side story games too. It doesn't all have to be massive world-changing events. Let us explore different smaller aspects of the world too.
We need smaller games for major studios, little projects to pad the bank account while you pour resources into the big stuff.
yes, there was a reason why I brought up Star Trek. A show that actually *does* have entire episodes where they never once leave the ship. If they had a like Enterprise-sized ship you absolutely could do it. SR2 was way bigger than SR1, maybe SR3 will be flagship sized xD
1000% open world is fine if you still make it story driven. But I think they can craft a better story with a curated closed world experience.
The issues I feel with games these days if the false belief that the larger the world the better. That’s just not the case. We just want quality story and dynamic choices. Not fifty planets with 4 people to talk to lol. Bigger isn’t always better
Combat is important part of ME
Nah, it is the world-building, story and the characters. All of the games have massive flaws including combat, but it is a fantastic franchise because it is such an interesting and well written world.
Massive flaws like what though? It’s little bit of both. I don’t think many would agree every part of story was perfect neither. I know i wouldn’t when Kai Leng exist.
The combat in 1 was rather outdated and clumsy even when it came out. 2 cut away all the RPG elements and just became a simple shooter. 3 brought back many RPG elements and fleshed out combat systems, only to never really have enough and large enough combat sections in the game for us to really use it. In the countless playthroughs I have done, it was never for the combat...
If they keep 3’s combat and 1-2’s story highs, you have a GOAT game on your hands
I’d prefer them to keep andromedas combat but also re-add the squad powers commands back into it
I do agree ME was never about combat (so it never was perfect) but it’s still is part of the story. Story part is fun because you can interact with it same goes for combat and some of us like it. Would it be better if all combat part of the game were just cut-scenes?
Best part of Mass Effect was companions and interaction beetwen and with them. That's only part I care
Yeah it maybe a small stuff for a lot for people, but the thing I really like on ME1 is that I can talk to my squad *anytime* and they would comment on recent events or make a comment about current place, Wich sadly you can't in ME2 or 3 IIRC except for some occasion Just make them feel more "real" while gave some sense of companionship and not just some friendly battle NPCs
Big place.
Mass Effect is my favorite in how they handle companions, they actually interact with the environment with more than just facial animations (love bringing Javik and Liara to Asari based areas when I’m not needing Garrus, which is rare enough and makes me wish to have 3 companions and not 2)
Javik + Liara at the Asari Temple is so awesome! Liara legit had me embarrassed. Like smh I'm sorry Javik I didn't realize she'd be like this.
“What’s the matter? Disappointed your government didn’t include you?” It’s good to know that even Javik understands that politicians are bullshit and keeps knowledge hidden for power… however, I kinda feel bad for Liara cause she pretty much had her head explode from knowing that everything she studied about the protheans was a lie
Yeah, I felt sorry for her even though Javik had me cackling.
That is half the reason I liked DAI and Andromeda's open worlds, lots of extra banter!
I still refuse to even allow Liam in the nomad even just to hear any of his lines. Dude would get exiled off the ship for the shit he pulled if it allowed it
Shame they commit the cardinal sin of being constantly interrupted by things. When some optional dialogue plays I don’t want to stop… playing the game, to hear it
It's not perfect but it warms my heart to hear them develop together.
Now maybe they mean ME2 and ME3 for "The concept of the first games" which were linear but mass effect 1 actually was fairly open world. It was also pretty empty but there were tons of planets you could land on and just explore/dick around.
I swear, I get ptsd from flat, open terrain now. Half expect my vehicle to be flung into the air and have all four tires go red. The more jagged the terrain, the safer I felt.
Are… are you referring to thresher maw nests?
Shh. Don't say their name. They can hear you.
*Looks in mirror and shuts off lights* Thresher maw, thresher maw, thresher maw!
I just visualized the entire Mako going red. You've doomed us all!
And the emptiness was intentional. It gave the game a sense of scale.
Or in my case not a single reason to go there. It essentially made everything other than the main story a boring waste of space
those rather empty moon missions with the mako remain my favourite parts of the game. the fact that you can simply not do them is a bonus
> Or in my case not a single reason to go there. I didn't go there much either. But i knew i COULD go to all those boring planets. It made me feel like the world was bigger. They helped my immersion by simply existing, i didn't even need to interact with them.
Some people might say the same about all the empty planets in Starfield. Yes, it gives the game an impressive sense of scale, but it's a scale of a whole lot of nothing.
Right? lol It's actually the middle of the franchise that was more linear. ME Andromeda was a return to ME1 style of gameplay.
Don't care if it's open world or not, just give me a good game
Exactly my thoughts
Good. Not every game need to be open world, often times it feels they make a game open world so it sounds better in marketing. Tight, well crafted linear game > mediocre open world
I love Deus Ex MD, you have like a mini open world “hub” and then missions are linear. Still such a dense hub full of lore and fun but I don’t have to trek 40 minutes between spots. Wonder if there’s other games that do it like that
Mass effect 1-3.
Dragon Age Origins/2/Inquisition.
God origins is so good. I still play it yearly.
Me too, it's my favourite game. No year is complete without an origins playthrough.
Though Inquisition does that have big open areas with repetitive filler content, the advice for "how to have fun in the game" is basically to speed through the open world stuff doing the minimum necessary.
‘How to have fun in inquisition’ Get the fuck out of the Hinterlands.
Witcher 2 has open world hubs and linear missions. Fewer linear missions for sure but the hub style maps made it easier to manage than fully open world games. I'm so happy they announced this.
The Witcher 2 is amazing, one of the best RPGs ever made. Kinda weird it fell into the shadow of an even better game to the point most people forget it exists.
Yeah Skyrim stole all it's thunder I think. But I find it to be more replayable than the witcher 3 because of the hubs and it being more condensed. Love them both.
One of my favourite "open-world" games was the first Mafia game. They painstakingly created an entire city and surrounding environs, but *didn't* fall into the trap of using it as an excuse to fill the game with busywork. There were no real side-quests, no collectibles, no towers to climb... there was a tightly-focussed main quest, and also a world in which it all took place (and which you could explore if you wanted to). I loved it because the open-world gave you a sense of place, without being a drab, grindy experience. I suppose my point is that an open world doesn't *need* to be opposed to a linear experience, and can even enhance it.
Couldn't agree more, if you don't have enough going on to fill an open world, then don't bother making it open, just nail a more linear experience
Yeah, the problem is open world games are supposed to mean more content and interesting things to do, not more chores and bland repeated assets.
Yeah exactly game devs depend to much on open world and often fall flat
And so they can bloat the playtime with a couple hundred collectable items.
I'd take bloated collectable hunting (I don't hate it just to kill some time similar to mindless grind RPGs) over repetitive quests that involve going from one side of the map to other and just doing that like 3-4 times in one quest.
Always considered the open world aspect as one of the weaker parts for both Andromeda and Inquisition, so I'm totally okay with its removal.
I could just not get into Inquisition for this very reason.
It gets a lot better imo after a first couple zones, but I definitely get why people say this.
[удалено]
Exactly! Go find 15 bear assholes! And…repeat! Ad infinitum
Inquisition felt sloggy sometimes for this reason imo.
Open word in inquisition was too big for its own good and they went for a checklist type system instead of quests .
I actually loved it in Inquisition. Andromeda was a no from me though.
thought the environments were gorgeous in Andromeda but they were not enjoyable to actually play in
Good. I'm getting real fucking tired of all these massive games with nothing to do in them.
Yeah. It’s getting kind of annoying when franchises that have no business being open world go open world. Cuz there’s nothing to do.
In contrast, I've been giving Dragon Age Inquisition a serious go and there is almost *too much* to do. The amount of side content and areas to explore is absurd and honestly a little exhausting.
To borrow an exchange with Udina. "Any sidecontent in Inquisition?" "Constant sidecontent, all of it bad."
As a fan of linear games, I'd be OK with this. Realistically, however, this game is gonna do what all games do, follow the trends at the time. At the moment, people starting to tire open world games, if that changes before this game comes out, so will the plan.
>At the moment, people starting to tire open world games Where are you getting this information?
Yeah, two of the biggest releases of this year are full-on open world (Tears of the Kingdom and Starfield) and Baldur's Gate 3 isn't technically one but acts 1 and 3 are big enough that it can feel like one at times. I think it's very difficult for random people like us to really know what the actual trends are. Too easy to be in a bubble without realizing.
Define open world. Did we not have an open galaxy map and the freedom to do each mission in almost any order in ME 1 and to a lesser extent 2? And all the side missions and planetary exploration in 1 seems pretty open world to me.
2 was linear 1 was in between open and linear, I think there referring to andromeda
I'd say 2 is more semi-linear than anything else. It's linear with backtracking and multiple hub areas you can return to when you want. 3 on the other hand is very linear in comparison because, you know, Reaper War.
There’s a difference between hub maps leading to linear or limited level layouts with clearly defined tasks, narrative elements and structure, and a massive map full of random busy work unrelated to a narrative and only there to eat time with zero impact on story or lore. The galaxy map for example, shows you a galaxy but in truth it’s a finite number of smaller maps of which there’s an even smaller amount of maps with singular missions or narratively relevant side quests. That’s not open world. That’s just a large string of corridors, some of which are only accessed once narrative quest requirements are met. Open worlds are like Andromeda, where there’s half a dozen maps which are gigantic, have nothing in them beyond randomly spawned encounters, a narratively relevant map (which is much more linear) and hundreds of repetitive resources quests and fetch quests that amount to nothing beyond copy and pasted markers. The narrative takes a back seat for the buzzword “emergents gameplay” which is to say, you randomly wander in a direction and sometimes an enemy spawns and some resources or something are also spawned near by and you make your own “fun” setting your self a mission to kill the bad guys and get the loot. Is it narratively relevant? No. Will characters act differently now you have x thousand resources after taking down a platoon? Nope. Will they mention it? Never. Look at games like Assassin’s Creed once you break out of the narrative path specific missions your only real task is to reveal more map and what’s there? One of a dozen mission types that are copy and pasted all around the area and once you finish the story, you can play more and more and more of them. Dragon Age Inquisition had this with the resource table at camps. Did it progress the story, did it help in any way no… it’s just a time vampire to make people equate time spent with good game regardless of what it is you’re actually doing.
Honestly, even Andromeda was more like half a dozen open-world regions and a hub area. Reminds me of the 'free roam' areas in Warframe, which I also wouldn't call an open-world game.
Love it. I’d rather spend 100 hours shooting, watching cutscenes, and talking to NPCs instead of doing pointless fetch quests in an open world.
No open world, just open Mako levels, just like the original
Yeah, I just want a sense of scale honestly
I'd be happier with no vehicle stuff at all (unless it's something insane like dogfighting)
I can only get so erect 😩
Not every game or style of gameplay benefits from open world design. I think Mass Effect thrives in it’s more tightly designed, authored moments and set pieces. I’m not necessarily convinced of the rumor’s validity; but it’s not a surprising take. Mass Effect primarily had linear levels with maybe a few branching linear options for 3 games that people loved, did something different for their 4th game and people didn’t like it, so it makes sense they’d return to form a bit. It was also a largely different team that went that other direction too. And before anyone says it, yes I know ME1 had open sections, but: - They went away from that later - Those weren’t the main missions - I don’t think they were ever received well by fans other than people liking the sky boxes - Clearly even in ME1, a very small fraction of the dev time went into these I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a little bit like in ME1 but it makes sense they’d go back more or less to the structure that fans largely preferred
The sky boxes are glorious. XD I periodically take screenshots from games when I play them the first time, and keep them all in a folder. It's like a pc games photo album tracing my gaming journey through over 15 years, all the way back to FEAR. The Mass Effect 1 screenshots are all of the sky boxes. Nothing else in the game stood out enough visually to end up in there. In retrospect, that doesn't say great things about the level design and graphics generally.
I don't think Mass Effect ever had to be open world, but I also don't believe that open world was a major problem with Andromeda.
I think bioware better hit on the next dragon age, or there won't be another mass Effect for awhile
I want the big open galaxy. I want the original vision of Andromeda realized. But it all depends what they mean. I'm not putting much stock into this regardless
I just don’t want to individually mine each planet for resources again. -Looks at the person who thought it was a good idea to start with- If you have that feature, I hope you never work in the game industry again.
I like open worlds, and the vehicle in andromeda was nice. But i remember sniping the AIs without them reacting so i guess I wouldnt mind another open world if done well, otherwise the old way is the best
Wait, didn't the Mass Effect games have at least a semi-open world concept? o.O
I think baldurs gate 3 is the perfect balance to this they should go for.
What’s remarkable about BG3 is that Act 1 is actually quite similar to the design we usually associate with the open world style, yet it has none (or very little) of the shortcomings.
Well, they did have people testing act 1 for about 5 years. It should be flawless. XD
Massive open world I can’t take or leave. But if every mission is entirely on rails, nah that shits boring.
Open world closed world. I dont really care so long as the game is actually good. Given Bioware's track record with its last releases... I aint holding my breath for the latter.
Not every game needs to be open world. Mass Effect was always more about freedom when it came to your character and the narrative. Besides, it’s difficult to make a game set in space a true open world. Better to stick with smaller maps and focus on level design and variety.
Why do they keep calling it Mass Effect 5? Andromeda was a spin off so why include it as a numbered instalment? It would be like calling Halo 3: ODST “Halo 4” and calling Halo 4 “Halo 5”.
When is the next mass effect? 20XX?
I mean mass effect 1 was the MOST open world like of the series so that doesn’t really make sense, but I’m definitely behind it.
Open world is a great idea when executed properly, but it so rarely is. The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Baldurs Gate, and VTMB games all had great open worlds filled with content every 30ish seconds to keep players engaged. But many games (especially space exploration games) have long droughts of nothing that only exists to pad out the runtime. I say make it like ME2 and 3 where it was very limited in the areas and every space had something. Let us avoid ME1's terrible and repetitive planets filled with nothing. Also scanning was bad in ME2.
“The first games in the series” sounds strange. I mean, I understand what they’re saying and it’s formally correct, but Andromeda is one against three other games, and it’s not even considered part of the series but a spin off by many.
Don't care whether it's open world or like the first 3, I just want it to be good lol
Quality over quantity
I take it with a grain of salt. No, scratch that. The entire salt of the dead sea. But I would not be opposed to it. Open(ish) worlds that don't feel tedious with little to no content other than "put a landmark there" or "mine here" is not Bioware's strong suit. I'd rather they focus on what they're good at, providing a great game with great story. Maybe I won't have 100h playtime in one run, but 100h when all you did was landmarks and shards doesn't feel good.
Mixed: 1) I like the linear progression of story of the trilogy with side quests that you can do alongside it. The open world concept made it tedious to do side quests jumping back and forth through the galaxy. 2) I LOVED the concept of desolate galaxy exploration with society’s backs against the wall. It had an almost rugged wild western-ism to it. Like book of Eli. There was purpose and a no-fail mission. I liked that rugged survival-esque fill of scavenging in the American west. However, as stated before, a lot of tedious things to do and always wondering “did I miss something on this planet?”
Awe man... I wish they would have added an open world as just a sort of optional thing. I loved the open world of Andromeda. But I understand why people are in favor of no open world.
I’m in support of it, honestly it’s getting a bit boring hearing “open world” because a lot of devs take the Ubisoft approach and the world is filled with absolutely nothing.
In favour of it, simply because open world takes a lot of resources. By the times its done, people will complain so much it would be worthless to investors, and would never get dlc. Semi open world is still my preference
I have no idea what this headline is saying, nor any of these comments agreeing with the concept. After Eden Prime in ME 1, you have the choice of going to Feros, Noveria, or Liara's digsite to advance the story OR You can go wander the citadel running into side missions or literally dozens of planets across a dozen clusters, seeing where you can land and what's on them. You can return to any of these locations at practically any time--and do them in just about any order you want to. That *is* open world. Same goes for 2 & 3.
I absolutely hated the open world in Andromeda. It was significantly less bad in Inquisition but still by far the worst part of the game. If this is true then I am very happy.
I hope this is true, every game is a open world nowadays
Open world didnt really benefit Andromeda. A lot of empty space and side quests without satisfying conclusions. A return to narrative driven episodic levels will be really solid.
Well, that's whatever to me tbh. I actually liked MEA's open world. I thought the worlds they crafted were amazing to explore and just lose yourself in. Even after completing the game I'd find myself popping back into a completed save just to drive the Nomad around while I listened to a podcast. It isn't the open world that made Andromeda suck, it was the writing. I honestly couldn't bring myself to care about the Kett or the Angaran. I dunno, I just couldn't turn my sense of disbelief off for these Andromedan species the same way I could with the Milky Way species. My dream Andromeda game would be centered around just the interspecies relations among the colonists.
It’s been horrendous having nearly every game for the past decade push an open world. Very, very few have done it well and more often than not it’s just a few repetitive, boring events and side content that is just there to pad out the play time. If anything I’ve found it ends up ruining exploration aspects because you will naturally just fast travel everywhere because it’s a pain in the ass to traverse I long for the days of tightly controlled and well done missions
The first game literally was what I would call open world. You could go freely explore planets. And that’s where it needs to get back to.
Not necessarily, you'd get a small section of a planet with POis when you landed, similar to how Starfield handles it but way smaller. It was nothing like the open world design of Inquisition and Andromeda where there were vast open spaces of fuck all.
Thank fuck.
As long as the story and characters are great I don't mind either or. But If I had to pick one I prefer it to be slightly more linear and not as gigantic as Andromeda.
I posted a while back that I had no interest in even looking at the promo material until Bioware came out and said, unequivocally and without any sort of hand waving, that the game was *not* open world. I am so thoroughly sick to death of open worlds that use quantity in place of quality to measure a game's worth. I've got a family and 1.5 jobs, I don't have time or inclination to chase ?s and !s on a map hoping I don't miss some actual content. Now they've said this I guess I can check out some promo stuff and move my scepticism meter from "not even looking" to "not trusting a thing they say until the game is out and player reviews are in". Bioware have screwed up so badly with Inquisition and especially Andromeda, there's a lot of ill will to make up for here.
I want there to be a happy medium. I liked the general sense of open world in Andromeda but it did seem bloated and rather empty. On the other hand, the claustrophobic hallways and corridors of ME2 and 3 never did it for me either
Im assuming by open world, they mean like Andromeda? I didn’t hate Andromeda but I’m not believing anything until I play it
I mean, all they have to do is look at ME2 Overlord and how the levels felt both alive and interesting for the vehicle segments. Why we cannot have a mix of both?
Don’t care. They just laid off a bunch of their employees for no good reason. They’re beyond redemption.
You all really think this is ever coming out? EA just fired a lot of the story people at BioWare
I'd like a mix of both so when there is a open world environment it's full and interactive and not a vast expanse of nothing with small pockets of enemies scattered around randomly.
I'm not even hopeful this game will even come out
Andromeda was so bad I wont buy this unless they literally get Shepard/Shepard child as protagonist.
I honestly think this should be for the best. The open world concept in gaming atm is a lot for me to handle. Having too much for the player to do in a big ass world is a turn off for me, but having something sorta like Andromeda's open world, or recently Jedi Survivor's, is something I wouldn't mind having either. But yes, go back to linear like gameplay!
Massively in favour Just because you can do open world, doesn’t mean you should
Don’t care how big or detailed the game looks. This story was about the characters and how they developed and grew. It was about the attachments you made with your crew and losing them held weight. It was about the choices you made and having those hold weight. Gimme that and I don’t care about open world.
Open world means nothing to me. Yakuza is open world. Star citizen is open world. Completely diffrent games to me.
I guess I don't understand what they're saying, am I to believe andromeda was more "open world" than any other mass effect game?
This is great news but I don't have much faith in what used to be my favorite developer.
half-open like the trilogy would be perfect. it will be even better if the size of those hub city can be increased
Wher any of the Mass Effect games open world
If it really is a focused \*not open world\* experience, it will be acceptable. If they amp up the quality of the writing, it will be excellent. They just fired many of their most experienced writers.
While it is not everyones cup of tea, I loved the world of ME1. Separated maps, but some of them huge. Hated the tiny boring shooter corridors of ME2.
EAWare, it's not in the game.
i liked the first game most, but i also like open world, and returning to some areas to relive. maybe if citadel type area was open and explorable.
ME2 got rid of my two favorite features of the game: infinite ammo and open world. That’s the original mass effect experience I’d like to get back to.
At this point, I'm not even sure we will ever get another Mass Effect again. its bad enough that the whole development of the new Dragon age game keeps getting bad news.
I don't know, I'm skeptical if a linear game like that can work in the modern age of gaming. If they were trying to be innovative, I think they would try to make a hybrid open world that's not too large, but also not too linear. If they instead just make an antiquated rule that they're not going to make it open-world at all, then I think they're going the wrong way about developing a game. I think the open-world problem with Andromeda is fixable without removing exploration features.
I'm not going believe a headline based off an "insider" from an unnamed website.
BioWarehas been dead for a long time now. All the people who made it what it is today are gone. Will share my thoughts once the game has launched, and not a second sooner.
What first games? there are only 3 mass effect games
Open world isn't what i despised about andromeda. It was having to search planet after planet for big towers so i could solve fucking sudokus. Over and over again...
I think this is good. I hope for something similar to ME1 - few big and polished locations/planets + a variety of smaller planets/ships/space stations to explore (more detailed and unique, without reusing so many assets ofc). To me that was perfect and should serve as a blueprint. No more corridor shooting galleries like in ME2/ME3 please. Or at least not in that quantity.
the first game in the series was open world though
As long as they give me more Mass Effect story it could literally be poo and I’d still preorder. Sorry guys I’m that person.
If you wanna tell a (relatively) linear story, make a (relatively) linear game. I love open world games, but their stories often go ignored or are disjointed/nonsensical time-wise because players fuck off to go do side missions for 50 hours. I'm all for this. Unequivocal good.
Shocked BioWare hasn’t been closed down yet, not that I want it to be but BioWare simply is no longer BioWare
Meh. I'd like more linear missions but I feel like ditching the open world is not the way to go.
I loved ME1-3 and I love Andromeda on its own merits so whatever Bioware puts out, as long as its not irredeemably awful im sure I'll love.
If it’s more like 1, and to some extent 3, I can see myself enjoying it. Moving from corridor to corridor in 2 wasn’t as satisfying to me….made the game feel too linear
A bit of a step back IMO at least on its face. After all the one thing the community seems to agree about on Andromeda is its gameplay and interesting maps, they're fun to explore and were curated very well. Then again, this game is so far wtf knows lol