Mass Effect Andromeda Dev Explains Replacement of Renegade/Paragon System

Bioware’s Mass Effect: Andromeda makes its fair share of changes to the previous games’ mechanics, particularly with the movement, ability to change classes mid-game and so on. However, one of the bigger changes is the replacement of the Paragon/Renegade system with “Tones”. According to creative director Mac Walters in an interview with OXM, there are many reasons for this.

For one, the Paragon/Renegade system was removed “because they felt very Shepard – they were very tied to the Shepard character, so they didn’t really make sense if we weren’t going to have Shepard as our main protagonist.

“What we have now is based more around agreeing and disagreeing. he reason I like that is because in the trilogy it’s like, ‘I’m gonna play Paragon,’ and then you know which way you’re moving the stick on every conversation. You don’t have to think about it, because you’re just going to hit Paragon every time.”

Now it’s going to be more about the actual conversations and what makes sense to your character. “With agree and disagree it changes by the circumstance and it changes by the character you’re talking to. So you have to actually be more engaged in what’s going on, to know if you’re going to do that.”

Walters also noted that with the four different tones, it would “basically allow other types of characters to express them[selves] in one of four different ways, and sometimes one of two different ways. And I think that gets back to that more traditional role-playing sort of feeling which is less about ‘Do I want to be good or bad,’ and more about ‘How do I want to express myself?”

Mass Effect: Andromeda is out on March 21st for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. What are your thoughts on the new dialogue system? Let us know below