Mass Effect: Andromeda - Interview @ VG247

VG247 asked Bioware about the open world design and RPG mechanics of Mass Effect: Andromeda:

We asked Bioware about Mass Effect Andromeda’s biggest challenge: going open world but remaining true to its roots

Bioware General Manager Aaryn Flynn talks a little about the challenge of Mass Effect’s latest.

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How does the more open play style fit in with the choice-driven nature of Mass Effect? It seems like meshing those two things together properly would make things quite a bit more difficult.

Yeah, it does, oh yeah. It’s one of those things where we didn’t estimate properly I think… [laughs] It’s a lot of work.

I think one of the great things for us is that we’re learning how to still provide a really special narrative experience – one that is beautiful, and polished, and full of choice and consequence all at the same time as having this experience that is still more self-directed and lets you feel like you’re really in the environment and in the space and truly in control of things.

Where do you think Andromeda stands in terms of RPG mechanics? Each of the Mass Effect games has a different balance between the action game and the RPG…

Yeah, they do, definitely. So… we talk about Andromeda as the spiritual successor to Mass Effect 1. To us this means that we think about y’know… really, Andromeda is our chance to do a lot of things that were ideas that we couldn’t really do on Mass Effect 1, but now we have a chance to do them because our own experience is greater, the hardware is greater, so many other things have been pinned down for us.

That really allows us to do that, to return to some of those ideas from the first game and do right by them, and so that’s the way we think about it. Hopefully you feel the same way about the game when you play it.