Yup. That's the thing that defines Mass Effect.
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Mass Effect: Andromeda - Game Informer Details (Combat, story, more) [Up: All Info]
- Thread starter shinobi602
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Yup. That's the thing that defines Mass Effect.
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?
Not really. IIRC Liara was the only squadmate that couldn't die in the trilogy.
Even then, she could die in ME3. Same as Javik and Vega.
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.
And yeah, even the otherwise-unkillable squadmates can die at the tail end of 3.
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.
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.
Feels kinda lazy. Squadmates dying was a notable aspect of the original trilogy.
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.
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.
lol, you explained it way better than I ever could. Agreed.
George Oscar Bluth II
Banned
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?)
Heckler456
Banned
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
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)
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)
I forgot about that semi-leak, heh. Well, it could very well be that the synthetic's an Andromedian native.
Do you have a link to that leak?
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.
George Oscar Bluth II
Banned
I hope we get alien crew (non-squadmate) as well. It'd be neat to have a Turian pilot or Salarian engineer.
shinobi602
Member
There will be.
Heckler456
Banned
Hey Shinobi, I'm supposing that if you knew anything more about the novel, you would have already shared it, right?
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.
shinobi602
Member
All I can say is that it's scheduled to come out early next year.Hey Shinobi, I'm supposing that if you knew anything more about the novel, you would have already shared it, right?
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?
Heckler456
Banned
Alright, thanks! Glad it's seemingly still releasing prior to the actual game.
Excellent post.
George Oscar Bluth II
Banned
Awesome.
Ivory Samoan
Gold Member
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
http://www.biowarestore.com/the-art-of-mass-effect-andromeda-limited-edition
Estimated Ship Date: March 21, 2017
And another hint at the release date.
Estimated Ship Date: March 21, 2017
And another hint at the release date.
I still don't believe this. Nope nope nope.
exmachina64
Banned
I don't disagree with you, but I think the VA is what makes the character most annoying to me.
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.
BrassDragon
Member
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.
Aztechnology
Member
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.
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.
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.
crackhead_bob
Member
Will there be any connective link to the old trilogy....ever, or is this a cleansing of the palette?
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.
JimmyRustler
Member
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.
Heckler456
Banned
The link may amount to pretty much that archive they mentioned having on board the Nexus. That and maybe some stray mentions.
dreamer3kx
Member
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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