Although many people were expecting it, BioWare didn’t announce a release date for Mass Effect Andromeda at The Game Awards when debuting the gameplay, meaning it’s still scheduled for a spring 2017 launch on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
To find out what’s going on with the date, Eurogamer spoke with Creative Director Mac Walters and Producer Fabrice Condominas. As Condominas explained, there’s no reason to be worried about the release date:
There’s absolutely no reason to be worried. BioWare is all about quality and believe me – the team is extremely aware of how fast that is coming [laughs]. But we’re focusing on that – that’s our objective. Maybe we’ll need two extra days? When we’re 100 per cent confident we can go to certification on a certain date, then we’ll give a very specific date. In the meantime, we’re focusing on quality and every day counts. We don’t want to pressure that.
Condominas also addressed the feedback surrounding the facial animations and lip-syncing in the trailer, saying they’re working on it. He added:
As was mentioned in the tweets it’s actually something that comes last in the polishing stage. We’ve been using full facial capture for the first time to record the actor’s performance and it’s also the first time for BioWare [using this technique] working in Frostbite – I think we’re beginning to push that fairly far. We’re actively working on it and it’s the last thing to be polished before we do a manual pass and really, really tweak all those movements because we first wanted to make sure the dialogue is final and settled.
During development, BioWare cut a squadmate they were working on because, as Walters says, “we decided to do loyalty missions that meant every squad member had their own special mission plus a significant amount of relationship dialogue.”
After Walters expressed interest in possibly bringing the cut squadmate back (whether it’s in Andromeda or a book or a comic), Eurogamer brought up the fact that BioWare previously suggested we could see DLC squadmates. This confused Eurogamer because, after Mass Effect 3’s DLC character Javik, BioWare said they probably wouldn’t do squadmate DLC again. As Walters clarified, we could see someone added for a specific mission:
Yeah – I think there’s a lot of different ways we could introduce new characters like that, new squadmates, whether they are one-offs for a mission… But I think Andromeda is more of a persistent experience, more of an open world than we’ve done before. Even once the critical path story, the main narrative, is done there’s still a lot to accomplish. It’s a game of exploration so if we wanted to create a space for a new follower we can do it. It’s more a question of will we do it, at this point. I wasn’t ruling it out, I think I meant, but it’s certainly possible we’ll bring in new characters before we get to a Mass Effect Andromeda 2.
When do you think we’ll see Andromeda?
[Source: Eurogamer]
