Mass Effect Andromeda Failed Due to Bad Word of Mouth and a Crowded Launch, Says Anthem Producer
It’s 2018 and we’re pretty sure that the world still isn’t over Mass Effect Andromeda. Considered one of 2017’s worst gaming failures, it left many fans of the Mass Effect franchise feeling divided and eventually was abandoned by BioWare to work on other projects. The tale of Mass Effect Andromeda is certainly a sad one, and yet Anthem producer, Mark Darrah, feels as though the game was never really given a ‘fair shake’ in the first place.
In a moment of blunt honesty, that truly deserves to be applauded considering the hate Mass Effect Andromeda received, Darrah posted his opinions about the game on his Twitter account. He started off by admitting that the game was indeed “deeply flawed” and that he was aware that the game was at its worst state at launch, thus why the game received so many patches that went on to ‘fix’ a lot of fans problems with Andromeda.
However, Darrah also mentioned a crowded release of other RPG games most likely didn’t help. “The review environment was crowded,” he said, listing games such as Nier Automata, Nioh, Horizon Zero Dawn and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. He acknowledged that these games “did something better” than Andromeda, which made its systems get scrutinized in a harsher light.
Darrah also mentioned that word of mouth also had a helping hand in destroying Andromeda’s reputation before the game had even fully released. Yes, we’re talking about facial animations. Which is ironic considering that standards for facial animations in the Mass Effect franchise has never been truly high. In fact, just take a look at the image above. You may be thinking, ‘but isn’t that just a poorly timed screenshot?’ and you’d be right in thinking so, and that is the same treatment that Andromeda received.
This, of course, does not make the arguments of poor animation and a list of other things fans had problems with any less valid. However, it does convey how nostalgia, understanding of resources and fan expectation, already spelled doom for Andromeda. It’s just disappointing BioWare decided to cut away from the chance of making Andromeda into something better with DLC.
Nonetheless, what’s done is done. BioWare has set their sights onto advertising and perfecting their next game, Anthem which will be out February 22nd, 2019 on PC, XB1 and PS4.