#12. MASS EFFECT: ANDROMEDA
Mass Effect Andromeda bore an enormously heavy burden of expectation, promise as it did to be the next step forward for the legendary Mass Effect franchise, a step that it planned on taking with an essentially clean slate and a brand new story. It would have been hard for any developer to cope with such expectations, and Andromeda sadly crumbled under the weight.
In hindsight, Andromeda is by no means a bad game- but no one wanted the successor to the Mass Effect trilogy to be “okay”. Where the original trilogy’s characters were brimming with an excess of personality and propped up by incredible writing, Andromeda’s cast was tame and bland. Where the first three games constantly showed off BioWare’s imagination and storytelling chops with rich lore and fresh stories, Andromeda seemed perfectly content to just do more of the same, and not even do it as well as its predecessors had. It also felt the need to go open world, which turned out to be a pretty bad decision, while issues with the Frostbite engine and a rushed development schedule also resulted in significant technical issues.
Andromeda has some redeeming qualities. The pieces it put into place in terms of narrative for future instalments were exciting; its combat was kinetic and fast and probably the best the series had ever seen; and now, after several patches, the game no longer suffers from embarrassing technical issues as it once did. So yes, Andromeda is a decent game- but by Mass Effect’s standards, decent just doesn’t cut it.
