In an interview with Eurogamer, Mac Walters, a writer on all three entries in the Mass Effect trilogy prior to serving as creative director on Mass Effect: Andromeda, said that he always wished the studio made a sequel to the 2017 sci-fi RPG.
Unlike the original Mass Effect trilogy, which takes place in the Milky Way Galaxy and focuses on an existential threat around Reapers, Mass Effect: Andromeda tells a separate tale in the Andromeda galaxy. The story focuses on a Pathfinder who sets out to expand galactic civilization on a 600-year odyssey to an entirely uncharted part of the universe.
It’s important to note that Mass Effect: Andromeda was not made by BioWare Edmonton, the main studio of the developer behind the original trilogy. Instead, it was built by the BioWare Montreal division and was the first title in their portfolio at the time.
The decision to delegate Andromeda over to Montreal was so that Edmonton could focus its resources on Anthem (2018), the third-person Destiny-like shooter that was being released to high anticipation.
Even though it was Montreal’s first game, the studio had previously worked on the majority of the N7 missions in Mass Effect 2 (2010), the multiplayer in Mass Effect 3 (2012), the Omega DLC, and much more. By the time Casey Hudson, the series executive director, left BioWare in 2014, Walters switched over to Andromeda after spending most of his time on Anthem with the Edmonton studio.
Mass Effect: Andromeda was released to mixed reviews, with many calling the world bland and the story unexciting. What is there is good, especially the multiplayer, but the problem is more about what’s not there. Part of the troubled development, according to Walters, was that the team wanted to create a procedurally generated galaxy, a la No Man’s Sky.
In his words, Walters said: “Ultimately, that was too much at odds with a lot of the way that we tell stories…and the way that we create our content, which tends to be very bespoke–a lot of big set-pieces and things like that. It’s hard to translate in a procedural world.”
Although Walters states that the team should have done even more to reduce the scope and ensure quality, the team was in a weird industry phase where quantity was being favored over quality. This was also during a moment in time when Electronic Arts (EA), the publisher, was making a push towards more open-world games as they were easier to monetize, according to ex-BioWare dev Manveer Heir.
The Mass Effect series will continue on, as will the Dragon Age series. Expect the next big release from the award-winning studio to come in the form of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf at some time next year.