YAAAAY!…THAT’S ALL YOU’RE SHOWING US?
Today is N7 day, a celebration of the Mass Effect franchise and its fans. Those fans have been looking forward to today for a while, as we knew we’d be getting news about Mass Effect Andromeda.
That news was the cinematic reveal trailer.
…Ehm, wow….That’s cool, but also really disappointing.
While we’re excited to get glimpses of the story, we were hoping for more. We were hoping for actual information on the Andromeda galaxy, new alien races and what we could find on unexplored planets. Actual gameplay would’ve been nice too, really.
While it addresses things like how the crews survived the long trip (cryostasis) and how long it’s been since Mass Effect 3 (600 years, apparently), it leaves a lot of questions completely unanswered.
Let’s look at what we can tell from the trailer.
We’ve seen the female variation of our main character, but this trailer shows off the male version. Aside from looking surprisingly young, it’s not a design that really stands out. However, since you can customize your character anyway, that’s hardly a big issue. It’s fine as the standard appearance.
“Do I look bland enough?”
We also learned that our arrival in the Andromeda galaxy will be less ‘peaceful exploration’ and more ‘I hope you weren’t attached to that ship, because screw your ship.’ Considering the explosions and fire, whatever goes down clearly does not go well for your crew.
We also catch a glimpse of the person in the N7 armour again. While they were originally believed to be our main character, Bioware has since stated that this is not the case. The popular theory is that this is actually the father (or at least a commanding officer) of our main character, Ryder.
This probably means he’s completely doomed. Father-figures and mentors typically don’t last very long. The fact that someone calls you the new pathfinder in the trailer also seems to indicate that previous pathfinder is either dead or incapable of fulfilling his duties.
Supposedly, your choice of gender will also have a very minor impact on the story. If you play as the male Ryder, you will have a sister somewhere out there and vice versa.
The rest of the trailer gives us brief glimpses of disjointed cinematics, but some things can still be learned. For example, we see the individual in the N7 armour remotely detonate an explosive. Grenades were always more the ‘fire and forget’ type in Mass Effect up until now.
Does this mean combat will have more room for tactics?
Whether this is purely a cinematic feature, a glimpse of a form of explosive we’ll get to use or a hint at a class with that ability is currently unclear.
Furthermore we see a character (possibly Ryder) mess with something that almost appears to be a drone. Those are not new to Mass Effect or its combat mechanics, but they’ve never looked quite like this.
If it is a drone, it’s quite a change in design from the glowing orbs of previous games.
The wildlife got a moment in the spotlight too. We briefly saw a desert planet and one that seems to be mostly frozen tundra, but the desert planet has some signs of life in the form of a monstrous alien and…something that looks like a giant, mechanical worm.
We may need bigger guns.
We’re really not sure what that thing is and whether it’s a machine or just an odd-looking creature.
And finally, we of course need an antagonist and we got one…sort of. We’ve only seen him from behind and from the side so far, as well as some glimpses of what could be aliens of the same race. His name, species and motivations are currently completely unknown.
Speaking of aliens, you’ll note that there’s not a lot of new ones in the trailer aside from our antagonist. Judging by the comments, we’re not the only ones disappointed that all of the races from the milky way are present, but we’ve had no confirmation of races native to the Andromeda galaxy yet.
We’ve spent 3 games with Asari, Krogans, Turians and Salarians. They’re great and all, but we want something new!
All in all, this trailer was a little disappointing. Hopefully, the next one will actually answer some burning questions and show us some gameplay.
One queston it could answer is what the hell this thing is.
What did you guys think? Disappointing, or are you more hyped than ever? Let us know in the comments below!
Fanbot 