I quite like the open planets, so far.
That being said I have a deep disdain for when people contest the notion of empty planetoids and negative space is the wrong direction for this franchise. As I noted in an earlier post, while I feel Andromeda does open environments fairly well, I don't feel it evokes an atmosphere of Mass Effect 1, though occasionally hits the ballpark.
Much of this is due to the emphasis of filling these open planetoids with stuff to do. Irrespective of the subjective quality of this content, or how much I'm enjoying them as is, it does deteriorate the sense of scale and wonder of discovery in the context of the setting.
I don't mind people having a preference that leans against negative space, seeing it as pointless and devoid of engaging game systems, but I'm so at odds with the vocal deterrence away from this kind of game design that it drives me batty. I'm fascinated by the ways in which designers can evoke emotion and immerse players into their worlds, convey themes and concepts, through interactivity. And I feel that with negative space, even if it's empty and "pointless", it can work wonders towards conveying the intended feeling.
There's a moment in the very original Mass Effect where you scan a planet, an anomaly is detected, you land in your Mako on this empty, aimless, dull green terrain. Illuminated with a bright blue sky you drive around in the absolute nothing to find your "anomaly", which is nothing more than a half buried Prothean pyramid to be activated for a whimsical paragraph of text.
It feels poignant. So much emptiness, loneliness, and nothingness, yet this tiny discovery of unique, hand tailored individuality no matter how small and simple to be found. Yes, you drive across stretches of "boring" terrain, with nothing to do and no real distinct visual stimuli. But I love that. That's a planetoid. It's huge and oppressive in its nothingness, its existence so romantically oblivious to your presence, stretches of dirt and dust and sky perhaps unseen by any sentient eye for millennia. And here you find this little fragment of something unnatural, something that is a sign of intelligence beyond your own, alone in this cosmos. It really feels like an uncharted world, and the sense of scale is magnificently conveyed because of the nothingness.
I wish Mass Effect would teeter back towards this kind of design. Yes, these hand tailored interactive moments are absolutely essential and part of the series strength. But here's the thing; if I have an objective to find and explore a crashed star ship, its interior neatly hand crafted and unique, make me work through the nothingness with my own agency to find it in the first place. Have me scan a random planet in a random system and my computer bleep with an anomaly detected. No specifics, unable to pinpoint the precise location, only that something unusual and odd and worth investigation is hereamidst stretches of snow or sand or primordial grass or whatever else. Have me land on this barren terrain, mountainous and stretched, the local radar picking up where the thing is but still not what it is or context. Let me roll over a snowy mountain to finally see in the middle of a vista a giant crashed starship half buried in the snow. And let me manually drive all the way up to it, through the nothingness, to breach the door and explore the hand crafted interior within.
This is what I want from Mass Effect, even if I know I'll never get it.
