With the brand new Mass Effect: Andromeda trailer hitting us, let’s consider the facts about this exciting new mixture of action-RPG and TPS.
It was announced last year and has been in development for too long, so the fans are pumped and ready to play. This trailer introduces tons of new material we can mull over and leaves room for speculations.
The gameplay, characters, sound effects and open world setting look quite appealing, so here’s what we know so far.
The Setting
The Mass Effect world has been around for about ten years, but its constant developments and changes have always kept players on the edge of their seats. The biggest introduction in Andromeda is an even wider open world concept where everything can happen simultaneously on various planets. Its selection of possible settings, therefore, brings an entirely new philosophy into the series and unlocks previously unknown dimensions.
The Heroes
Previous Mass Effect games allowed players to choose from six classes of heroes and assemble their ideal team from different characters. Now, it’s all about two protagonists – Sara and Scott Ryder. Appealing to both sexes, they’re everything you’re left with, but having the possibility of building their personalities on your own sounds quite exciting. They are pathfinders, soldiers, and explorers mixed into one, which makes them extra intriguing.
The Transportation
Our heroes are equipped with a new vehicle that might look familiar: it’s a six-wheeled buggy that’s basically their main ride. It not only gets them from point A to point B – which can be quite far apart in these spacious worlds – but also serves as the first line of defense against enemies and hazards. It may look silly, but keep in mind that the Mako did as well.
The Mission
What are the Ryder siblings up to in Mass Effect: Andromeda? The premise sounds simple – they are traveling the galaxy to find a new planet that might suit the human kind – yet, there’s something fresh about it. This won’t be the come-to-the-planet-and-humanize-it type of adventure we’ve seen in The Martian, or destroy-everything-that-moves-and-procreate scenario from Marvel movies. You need to take over the planet, but, at the same time, make it fit for humans. Do sounds like a tough job? Well, it should be.
System Requirements
We do know lots of things, but not the full system requirements yet, so we can only speculate. Andromeda will surely use Frostbite 3 engine that’s been around for some time, so we can assume it’ll need Intel i5 CPU with at least 8GB RAM and at least 27GB of free disc space in order to run smoothly. When it comes to graphics, this game might challenge some of the best gaming graphics cards on the market, but the true fans will appreciate it, especially if they own an AMD Radeon R9 290, NVidia GeForce GTX 970 or stronger GPUs.
The Position in the Canon
The players of Andromeda will be separated into two distinct groups – those who have played Mass Effect before and those who are new to the franchise. But, can these two groups find common grounds? Of course – that’s what the developers actually had in mind when making the game.
The characters are new and their mission might look pioneering at first, but there are tons of connections to the previous titles in the series, from craftily hidden Easter eggs to obvious references. Some species will return, as well as several prominent themes, and the overall effect, atmosphere and gameplay should feel familiar to those with previous Mass Effect experience.
That’s why the original trilogy now serves as a kind of a back story and a foundation for Andromeda.
