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Mass Effect: Andromeda - Game Informer Details (Combat, story, more) [Up: All Info]

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Woorloog

Banned
Just read somewhere that companions can't die. Is it a joke? This doesn't sound like Mass Effect at all.

Mac Walters QA.

May have meant "during gameplay" or may have been a lie to avoid spoilers. Impossible to know at this point.


Also, is there a list of the companions, who they are, etc.? I mean, i'm under impression here those leaked?
 

JeffZero

Purple Drazi
I can't really see Walters referring to combat scenarios with regard to that question and its implications. I think the intention was clear. Allegedly, no squadmates can die throughout the course of Andromeda's narrative.

And yeah, even the otherwise-unkillable squadmates can die at the tail end of 3.
 

JeffZero

Purple Drazi
There are a pretty small amount of characters so I imagine they don't want to deal with scenarios where any of them disappear.

If there are indeed six squadmates in Andromeda, that matches the number in 1, which allowed for the deaths of a handful of them. I mean, I think you're onto something, but it's probably a bit more than that.

My hypothesis is that they a.) wish to avoid too much branching for potential sequels which they'd like to see these characters have defining roles in; and b.) there is a conscious push against the melancholy and hopelessness which some players believe permeated ME3 and even DA2 -- Inquisition is of a similar structure and elements like death gating and tone of ending seem, to me, to be a willful opposite of the more recent BioWare titles before it.
 

Ralemont

not me
I didn't get much by way of "complexity" from Sera, nor do I feel there is much to like about her as the game progresses, but I'm open to hearing remarks from those who feel otherwise.

DAI spoilers:

A good example is her anecdote from the "cookie on the rooftop" scene. She was taken in by a human woman and cared for. The woman used to make her cookies all the time to show she cared for Sera. Well, it turns out the woman couldn't actually bake and was just buying the cookies from a baker, and told Sera the baker didn't like elves so she'd never go in there and find out. Typically the moral here would ultimately be about how much the woman cared for Sera, but Sera never forgave her for it because it made her hate someone who didn't deserve it. Ultimately she pins the episode as a lesson on how much pride sucks and can hurt other people, and you see how it ties into her detestation of the Dalish elves, who base their entire being on pride and looking down on others. Of course, this ultimately is all also reflected in her utter hatred of
Solas, a name that literally means pride
.

She also constantly struggles with hard questions about herself and doesn't always come to the right conclusions. Dialogues with her aren't treated as normal BioWare character dialogues, where there's a conflict, the PC gives their opinion, and the character realizes the PC is right and changes their opinion. Her dialogue post-temple is a good example. She revels in the fact that the Dalish were wrong but refuses to accept the accompanying facts about how the Elves really used to be something special, because that ultimately proves the Dalish right in principle though wrong in details. When the Inquisitor points this out, she doesn't go "yeah you're right." She gets really angry and still refuses to accept it. But it's treated as a part of her long-term growth, and by the time Trespasser rolls around she's matured and no longer hates the Dalish but pities them instead.

She's also Andrastian, which goes against the expectation that a young anarchist that grew up on the streets wouldn't be religious or concerned with spirituality. In fact it's revealed her primary reason for joining the Inquisition was to see if the Inquisitor really was a Herald of Andraste. It's another layer of complexity you wouldn't expect from her character archetype.

tl;dr Sera feels complicated in the way real people feel complicated.
 

JeffZero

Purple Drazi
Heh, damn, Ralemont. Yet another great answer. Much appreciated. I'll search for and consider these nuances the next time around.
 

denx

Member
Isn't an Andromeda tie-in novel supposed to come out next year? I'm sure they'll retcon the whole deal with the Andromeda Initiative into the overall context of the original trilogy then.

Don't know if this is known, but Michael Gamble confirmed the other day that some of our squadmates will be from Andromeda species.
 

JeffZero

Purple Drazi
Isn't an Andromeda tie-in novel supposed to come out next year? I'm sure they'll retcon the whole deal with the Andromeda Initiative into the overall context of the original trilogy then.

Don't know if this is known, but Michael Gamble confirmed the other day that some of our squadmates will be from Andromeda species.

Yeah, the first of four planned tie-in novels should debut at some point prior to the game's release. I look forward to it.
 
Isn't an Andromeda tie-in novel supposed to come out next year? I'm sure they'll retcon the whole deal with the Andromeda Initiative into the overall context of the original trilogy then.

Don't know if this is known, but Michael Gamble confirmed the other day that some of our squadmates will be from Andromeda species.
Let's see then...

Liam the human
PeeBee the asari
New species squadmate
Drack the krogan (Leaked way back when. Maybe cut?)
Blonde biotic human female (Also leaked way back when. Maybe cut?)
 
Isn't an Andromeda tie-in novel supposed to come out next year? I'm sure they'll retcon the whole deal with the Andromeda Initiative into the overall context of the original trilogy then.

Don't know if this is known, but Michael Gamble confirmed the other day that some of our squadmates will be from Andromeda species.

Yeah. The writer for the first books is supposed to be N. K. Jemisin. Haven't read anything from her, but from what I hear, she's an alright author, so definitely looking forward to the book. I asked via Twitter if she could drop any hints as to when the book might be coming, but I got blocked for the effort :p
 

JeffZero

Purple Drazi
I thought about posting guesses a bit ago. I guess I'll go ahead and do so now since George did!

1. PeeBee
2. Liam
3. Cora, unless she's the cut (although I expect we'll have a female human squadmate regardless)
4. Drack, unless he's the cut (which I could see happening if he felt too much like Wrex/Grunt)
5. New species squadmate, but not a kett, because we will have a kett squadmate in a future title instead
6. Either a second new species squadmate or a new salarian, instead of a new turian (to the shock of Garrus lovers everywhere)
 

Ralemont

not me
According to a semi-leak on the BSN, there's a synthetic squadmate as well.

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Drack was cut. I can't imagine a krogan squadmate who doesn't just bitch about the genophage all the time since that was kinda their thing.
 

JeffZero

Purple Drazi
According to a semi-leak on the BSN, there's a synthetic squadmate as well.

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Drack was cut. I can't imagine a krogan squadmate who doesn't just bitch about the genophage all the time since that was kinda their thing.

I forgot about that semi-leak, heh. Well, it could very well be that the synthetic's an Andromedian native.
 

AyzOn

Neo Member
I liked Sera in DA:I but I really hope they didnt go copy and paste on the personalities from DA.
Everything else sounds really good so far so I can only hope they didn´t mess up giving the characters fitting personalities.
 

Ridesh

Banned
According to a semi-leak on the BSN, there's a synthetic squadmate as well.

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Drack was cut. I can't imagine a krogan squadmate who doesn't just bitch about the genophage all the time since that was kinda their thing.

Do you have a link to that leak?
 

Garlador

Member
According to a semi-leak on the BSN, there's a synthetic squadmate as well.

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Drack was cut. I can't imagine a krogan squadmate who doesn't just bitch about the genophage all the time since that was kinda their thing.

Having another angry, bull-headed, genophage-whining Krogan does seem like Drack is the likely squadmate to be cut, the most "well, we gotta have a Krogan in there, right?" kind of character.

... I SAY that and watch as he's actually like Charr, the Krogan love poet from the last games, a sensitive soul yearning to express his feelings through meter and verse.
 

Ralemont

not me
Do you have a link to that leak?

Sadly it's been nuked along with the rest of the BSN, but maybe there's a linked Reddit thread somewhere. I also think someone on the BSN archived everything to a different site but I forget where. Maybe shinobi can chime in since he came into the thread and said a lot of it sounded like legit info.
 

Ridesh

Banned
Sadly it's been nuked along with the rest of the BSN, but maybe there's a linked Reddit thread somewhere. I also think someone on the BSN archived everything to a different site but I forget where. Maybe shinobi can chime in since he came into the thread and said a lot of it sounded like legit info.

I remember 2 leaks, the survey and this one:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1144160

I guess it's neither of these?
 

Ivory Samoan

Gold Member
Just read somewhere that companions can't die. Is it a joke? This doesn't sound like Mass Effect at all.

Die in combat? Sure: use Andromeda version of Unity to bring them back from the brink.
Die in the story? Nope: this is good IMO, makes for stronger writing for the sequel.

This is basically sequel confirmed, no doubt...which is brilliant :)
 
I think Sera gets a bad rep undeservedly. I understand those who might be put off on her at first glance but if you play through her loyalty missions and come to understand her more and her motivations she becomes a pretty complicated and interesting character for all her abrasive qualities. Plus her growth throughout the game and what we see of her in Trespasser is great, she seems to have matured and grown but still retained what made her her.

I think a character can be a little abrasive but still interesting and worth exploring

I don't disagree with you, but I think the VA is what makes the character most annoying to me.
 

Squire

Banned
I think Sera gets a bad rep undeservedly. I understand those who might be put off on her at first glance but if you play through her loyalty missions and come to understand her more and her motivations she becomes a pretty complicated and interesting character for all her abrasive qualities. Plus her growth throughout the game and what we see of her in Trespasser is great, she seems to have matured and grown but still retained what made her her.

I think a character can be a little abrasive but still interesting and worth exploring

I think people can very easily get caught up in their first impression of a character rather than allowing it to fluctuate through their experience. I try to focus on what makes a character interesting as opposed to likable and give off-putting characters the chance to win me over. It can take some time, too.

I didn't like what they did with Jack in ME2 at all (replaying the game now, I'm pretty sure I was right), but I loved her to bits in ME3. That's more an example of a transformation though. There's a good character in Sara, in Inquisition, but you have to put the time in.
 
Feels kinda lazy. Squadmates dying was a notable aspect of the original trilogy.

The real loss here is that we can't toss grating annoyances like, say, space Sera, out of the air lock or leave them strapped to a nuclear device.

No one gets left behind in the Helios cluster, I guess.
 
Just read somewhere that companions can't die. Is it a joke? This doesn't sound like Mass Effect at all.

Maybe they mean, squad-mates can't actually die in combat and they just get knocked out like previous titles?

I imagine they still have characters who can live or die by your choices. That's pretty much a tenant of ME gameplay.
 

Squire

Banned
I bet the people insisting ME must have character deaths to retain its identity also swore up and down about ME3s ending being awful.

I expect this fan base to know: on the list things that make for a good narrative (you know, the important thing here) "character deaths" rates exceptionally low. If they're not writing a story that deaths have a place in, fine. That doesn't mean it isn't Mass Effect, that there won't be tough choices with tangible consequences, or that the stakes aren't going to be real.

Edit: In general, I think it does ME a huge disservice to list characters dying as a defining trait. It has a lot going for it as a series and it's not the deaths that are interesting, but the scenarios that gave way to them. Again, they had a place in the specific narratives of the original trilogy.
 

Maledict

Member
I bet the people insisting ME must have character deaths to retain its identity also swore up and down about ME3s ending being awful.

I expect this fan base to know: on the list things that make for a good narrative (you know, the important thing here) "character deaths" rates exceptionally low. If they're not writing a story that deaths have a place in, fine. That doesn't mean it isn't Mass Effect, that there won't be tough choices with tangible consequences, or that the stakes aren't going to be real.

Edit: In general, I think it does ME a huge disservice to list characters dying as a defining trait. It has a lot going for it as a series and it's not the deaths that are interesting, but the scenarios that gave way to them. Again, they had a place in the specific narratives of the original trilogy.

People didn't hate Me3s ending because characters died. If you think that, you are missing the entire point of why people hated the ending,

Characters dying adds weight and drama. In the first game the Virmire choice was an honest conundrum that really forced the players hand and stuck in your head. In the second game of course the Suicide Mission was key to the entire game - and was probably the best end sequence of any rpg I've played because of that. And in the third game Thane and Mordins death were two of the most impactful and emotional scenes I've experienced in a computer game.

Death of characters you like, enjoy and have developed a relationship with is one of the few ways a computer game can give weight to its story. Having it completely off the table from the start is a mistake to be frank - and at the very least they shouldn't have been so fucking stupid as to tell people beforehand.
 
Will there be any connective link to the old trilogy....ever, or is this a cleansing of the palette?
I don't think there will be many connections. IIRC the archs the Ryders are part off in Andromeda set out on their journey before the events of Mass Effect. So technically they can't even know what happened in our Galaxy.
 
Im done until patched up, around 25 hrs in and its just too buggy, couldnt complete a mission because enemy stuck in object, second time this happened, enjoying but jeez.
 
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