For a lot of people, I’m sure that Mass Effect Andromeda is the first game they’re desperately waiting for in 2017. Though it’s still within the Mass Effect universe, it wipes the slate clean after the original trilogy, with an all new cast of characters thrust into uncertain times as they try to find a place for the races of the Milky Way in the Andromeda galaxy. Would it surprise you to learn that things don’t quite go according to plan?
We went hands on with the game, which you can read all about here, but also sat down to speak with Producer Fabrice Condominas about such burning questions as how good the dancing will be and why they don’t just pack all this science fiction nonsense in and make a straight up dating sim.
TSA: There’s an awful lot to talk about with Mass Effect: Andromeda, and I think I’d like to start with how you talked about having this open world feeling, but it not being a sandbox. That’s an interesting one, so how have you tried to let people feel that freedom in a linear game?
Fabrice Condominas: Yeah, I think the important part is setting expectations for the players. You’ve got an open world in the sense that you can wander around, you can actually do nearly whatever you want in a lot of planets, but it’s about linking specific points. Between those points, though you can sometimes have content, we’re not saying we’re generating content, we’re not saying all those sorts of things. You shouldn’t expect content where you know there’s no content.
But our global message is to say it’s all your choice. So, for example, if you’re running around and there’s no content, you will have the beautiful terrain. And yes, we dispatch content to make sure you don’t get bored after 20 minutes, but they’re hand-placed in specific places, but that’s different in a sandbox where the content becomes more predictable, and to be honest, we tried it over the course of the last five years!
TSA: There were a few years where all we got to see were aspirational videos, and everyone was thinking, “What are they doing?”
Fabrice: Yup! So we generated lots of terrain and we did a number of things, but it was just that when we were playing it, it didn’t feel right for the type of game we’re doing. Not an absolute, but for us, it didn’t feel right.
TSA: Of course, relationships are a big part of any Mass Effect game, but I got the feeling that you already knew a few of the people on the Ark from before they left the Milky Way? But by and large, are you forging fresh and new relationships?
Fabrice: Yeah, the vast majority are brand new and the overall feeling anyway will be new, even your relationship with your father, for example. The game starts after 600 years in a new galaxy and a totally new setting, including for your characters, so everything is new around them, so even if you have a previous relationship with X or Y, the context of your relationship changes.
That was a very important point for the main character, because we wanted the player and the character to grow up together. So when you arrive in this new galaxy, as a player you don’t know anything, but your character doesn’t either. And things don’t go as planned, so even the things they could have known are thrown out of the window.
The idea is to create that bond between the player and the character where you will evolve. There’s no difference in the knowledge between the two and no disconnection.
TSA: Have you ever considered just putting the science fiction stuff to one side and just doing a dating sim?
Fabrice: [laughs] I’m pretty sure we’d make a lot of money with that!
TSA: I mean it could still be a science fiction dating simulator, but there’s a lot to that side of the game among its fans!
Fabrice: Actually, years ago I saw a study with science fiction fans, Mass Effect and all that, and online dating was their number one point of interest, so…
TSA: That would be a good spin off. A Mass Effect dating website!
Fabrice: Yeah, we’d make a bit of money there…
TSA: Over the years, the games have shifted to a more and more action heavy style of combat, but underneath it all, do you still think of it as an RPG?
Fabrice: Absolutely, yes, and I think this one goes back to our roots way more than 3, for example. The thing is that when you come after the trilogy, so you don’t have the trilogy’s constraints anymore, you can look back and learn from it. I think each instalment had different strengths and weaknesses: Mass Effect 1 was very strong with its RPG mechanic, Mass Effect 3 was very strong about the combat, and Mass Effect 2 was probably the relationships.
Obviously we want to take the best from them all, but we also noticed that a part of being strong is the balance between them. We wanted to even that out, which means bringing back those RPG mechanics while keeping the combat and having the relationships too!
TSA: With the RPG side of things, the fascinating thing here is that you can re-spec on the fly…
Fabrice: It’s not exactly a re-spec, because you don’t change where you’ve invested your points, you don’t trade skills. You can re-spec in the game, but not on the fly, that’s really the profile swap which means you keep the skills and the places where you invested your points, but that if you fulfil a prerequisite, you will unlock profiles. That you can change on the fly.
TSA: Sorry, I think I used the wrong term, but you’re not losing that core of building the character you want to have?
Fabrice: No. For us, it’s a matter of choices, and we’re bringing the notion of choices as far as we can in the gameplay. In the same way, if you want to be a pure Vanguard, you can absolutely do that, just put all your points into the Vanguard. You can even be at the high levels and, because you have so many points, you will unlock a second profile. I’m thinking that if you’re Vanguard you can be a Soldier at some point? Or you can just ignore it.
You don’t have to do it, but if you want, it goes into the idea of being more a Jack of all trades. If you want to switch things, so you realise combat is suited more to a sniper and you’re playing as a Soldier that has access to an Explorer profile that’s more sniper heavy? Maybe you lose the advantages of the Soldier, but you’ll gain advantage in sniping. You can switch profile at the beginning of the combat, but then if it becomes melee heavy later on, you can switch back.
TSA: Was it difficult to introduce new and iconic aliens for Andromeda? You’ve got the legacy of the trilogy, and I guess it’s almost like in Halo 4 where they had to move on a bit from having the Covenant as baddies.
Fabrice: Not really, because the way we build our games is that we always start by what stories we want to tell and what characters we want to use, including the enemy, the antagonist. So even before knowing or assuming it was a new race, we didn’t really know that when we built the characters.
After that it becomes more complex, but I wouldn’t say it was that tricky. […] It’s personalities and we decided fairly late in the process, actually, which race it was.
TSA: OK, so the last few questions and these can just yes or no answers. Is there a canonical ending from the end of Mass Effect 3, and does that affect this game in any way?
Fabrice: No.
TSA: Is the dancing better in this game? Or, firstly, is there dancing?
Fabrice: [laughs] Obviously, but that would be a spoiler!
TSA: Do you get to punch a woman in the face for no reason?
Fabrice: That’s also a spoiler!
TSA: OK. Are the alien races based on secret European Space Agency files?
Fabrice: [laughs] So, this is not a spoiler, but I can’t answer that…
TSA: Is pop music in the Andromeda galaxy any good?
Fabrice: Well, you left between Mass Effect 2 and 3, so it’s the same.
TSA: Ah, I meant for the new alien races that you meet.
Fabrice: Ah, the aliens? Well they’re aliens, so it depends on taste.
TSA: Is daddy Ryder – sorry, I’ve just written “daddy” and not his name – modelled after Troy Baker? Because there’s a little bit of that look in his face.
Fabrice: [chuckles] Nope. Or not that I know of!
TSA: Finally, do you expect someone to do a bunny hopping speed run of the game?
Fabrice: Well yes, obviously, and I’d tell them good luck. We’ve tried it internally and it’s not that easy. I expect a guy to go on YouTube in a week and say they did it in two and a half hours, and nobody understands how.
TSA: Actually, what would be faster to get around, the jet pack or sprinting?
Fabrice: I think sprinting? I haven’t made a one to one comparison, but it would depend on terrain.
Thanks to Fabrice for sitting down to answer our (often quite silly) questions. Be sure to check out our hands on preview of the game, which is rushing towards its release on 23rd March for PS4, Xbox One and PC.
