It's November 7th, Mass Effect fans, which means it's time for another N7 day for lovers of the iconic Action-RPG franchise from BioWare.
Voices of Our Heroes
It wasn’t too long ago that we found out the nature of our protagonists in Mass Effect: Andromeda this time around. Instead of being two different versions of one character, they are actually siblings who both exist in the massive universe at the same time. Today, during all of the N7 Day announcements, the voice actors for these sibling protagonists were revealed.
Playing Sarah Ryder is Fryda Wolff who has appeared in games like Fallout 4, Civilization: Beyond Earth, and Octodad: Dadliest Catch. Playing her brother, Scott, is Tom Taylorson, who was actually Octodad. Their father, Alec Ryder, is voiced by Clancy Brown who has a long list of acting credits which includes video game roles (Hades, God of War III), cartoons, and movies.
What are You Doing?
In Mass Effect: Andromeda, players will take control of one of the Ryder siblings as they assume the role of Pathfinder, thought it’s not yet clear how you obtain that role. As the Pathfinder, you are tasked with exploring an unknown galaxy, one that humans have never stepped foot within before, as you search for and colonize planets for humanity.
Taking steps on a new planet is nothing new to the Mass Effect series, but Andromeda looks to add a but more of a threat to the ordeal as well as wrapping it in a ton of mystery. From the trailers that were released during N7 day, we briefly meet a villain who is intrigued by these humans he’s come across, so much so that he’s willing to dissect them (while they’re still alive, it seems).
Only the general mission of finding a new home has been revealed, so it will be interesting to see what else this upcoming game has in store for us.
What Is a Pathfinder?
According to the Andromeda Initiative orientation, a Pathfinder is a “blend of elite solider, scientist, and guide who will be tasked with finding a new home.” In essence, each Pathfinder is the captain of their respective ark, choosing what planets to explore and colonize as they endeavor to finally find a place for everyone to settle.
We know that as part of the story you will become one of these central individuals, though we have yet to find out how. The fact that the trailer states you’re the new one, means there was one before you after awaking. It is possible that it was your father, who is part of the story, but we’ll have to wait on confirmation from the developers or until we play the game ourselves.
New Gameplay?
There wasn’t much shown in the way of new gameplay during N7 Day 2016, though we did get some brief glimpses. During the new trailer we got to see a new, terrifying alien race. Well, we got to see parts of it, such as the legs, hands, and back of one particularly curious alien’s head as he decided to check the inside of a human. There was also a lot of variety shown in the different locations as well as some really large aliens you’ll have to fight down the line.
A true gameplay reveal is slated for later this year, though. If you watch the brand-new trailer on YouTube there is another announcement at the end stating that the gameplay will be shown off on stage at this year’s The Game Awards, which is set to air on Dec. 1. That should give us a better grasp of how players will get to actually experience the worlds and threats that were shown off.
The Andromeda Initiative
The Andromeda Initiative is BioWare’s means of getting information about the upcoming title to fans. As part of N7 Day, the first video, titled “Orientation Briefing,” gave fans some insight into the events that will lead to the start of your intergalactic adventure.
Jan Garson, founder of the initiative, explains to us that 600 years prior to the start of Mass Effect: Andromeda, you and thousands of other humans and select alien species are placed in cryogenic sleep aboard five massive space arks. You’re then sent far away to the edge of the Andromeda galaxy, where no humans have ever stepped foot. From there, it is up to the survivors to explore and colonize planets safe for humanity and the other races.
The initiative will continue to provide new videos and information to those who have signed up, filling in several blanks before the game’s anticipated release.
New Features
Some information that wasn’t revealed as part of the two new videos released concerned new features that players will be able to enjoy when the game releases. These were revealed as part of the product details for the game’s pre-order pages on online marketplaces such as Amazon and Best Buy. The features include:
- Destructible Environments
- Boosted jumps for added verticality
- New weapons
- New Biotics
The weapons and Biotics were expected, but having destructible environments can be a very big deal depending on the degree to which you can affect the world around you. The verticality may also prove to be very interesting, provided there aren’t just random jumps that add nothing new to the experience aside from the act of jumping up. Both of those features can very well be the core of planets that really promote thorough exploration, and that’s never a bad thing in an RPG.
When Can You Play It?
Mass Effect: Andromeda is set to be released in Spring of 2017 which honestly isn’t too far off. That means we’ll be exploring a new galaxy and being hunted by new alien races within the next seven months, so the excitement is growing palpable. Of course, it’s just a window, and those are always subject to change (this is an age where we waited 10 years for a Final Fantasy game, after all). Hopefully, that season gets swapped for a month sometime soon. Until then, we can only keep an eye out and see what else BioWare has to share about our upcoming journey into the stars. Happy N7 Day!
November 7 marks two important milestones for Mass Effect. It falls in the same month as the first release of Bioware’s sci-fi role-playing game series, which came out on November 20, 2007, giving fans a good excuse to celebrate its anniversary. And, more importantly, it can be contracted as N7, an alphanumeric designation belonging to elite soldiers within the game, like protagonist Commander Shepard. For years now, November 7 has been a celebration of all things Mass Effect, a time for news, announcements, and excitement all around. But this N7 day kind of sucked.
“I swear, if they don’t announce a remaster of the trilogy tomorrow, I’ll cry,” said one fan on Twitter on November 6. They’d better pull out the tissues. Yesterday’s N7 brought nothing but a video of people reflecting on the making of Mass Effect, the addition of two character classes to Mass Effect Andromeda’s multiplayer, an interactive web tool for nostalgic fans, and of course, some new wallpapers. Fans collectively sighed.
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“Kind of a melancholy N7 day this time around isn’t it?” asked StrngBrew in what became the Mass Effect subreddit’s top comment under its “Happy N7 Day” post. “We have to be at the lowest point in the history of this series with seemingly nothing new on the horizon. All today has done was serve to remind me of that. Bummer!”
Ever since the release of Andromeda, whose tepid reception and depressed sales led BioWare to scale down the studio that had worked on it, things haven’t been right in the Mass Effect Universe. As Kotaku has reported, the series is on ice. We may see more Mass Effect in the future, but right now, BioWare is focusing on other projects.
In all fairness, Andromeda wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t as iconic or memorable as the games which spawned it. I’ve been slowly tying up loose ends in its galaxy ever since launch and have come to appreciate its solemn, uninhabited worlds and the farmer-like patience it requires to cultivate them.
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Nothing in the game was as memorable as Mass Effect 1’s main villain Saren though, or the diverse crew of friends and allies you recruit in Mass Effect 3. And whatever people’s complaints of the end of Mass Effect 3, well, you got to spend the entire game fighting skyscraper-sized alien cyborgs. Enough said.
Trawling through comments on the subreddit, forums, and Twitter, these were the types of memories most people looked back on or shared fan art of. It’s not surprising then that with the series currently on hiatus, most fans were still hopeful, and would have been jubilant over, some sort of port or remaster of the Mass Effect trilogy on current-gen consoles. The first Mass Effect had some basic designs, but I bet those skyboxes would look pretty amazing on the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X.
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Sadly, it was not in the cards. Over the course of a seven-and-a-half minute video, the series’ designers, including director Casey Hudson (who is now the studio’s general manager), looked back on what Mass Effect has come to mean to them and fans in its now-10-year history. “We started off with a grand vision, and as we went through it was amazing to see all of those dreams actually fulfilled,” said senior art director Derek Watts towards the end. If that sentiment might have seemed a bit final, another developer off-screen added in a voice over, “The future of Mass Effect I think is really bright. People just want to know more about this place and these characters.”
When people will get the chance to do that in game form remains unclear. Rather than announce something concrete, Casey Hudson recently on Twitter teased the idea of a short VR travel experience based somewhere in the Mass Effect universe. “Was thinking about how cool it would be to see Mass Effect’s Citadel in VR,” he wrote. “What gaming location would you most want to experience in VR?” Whether that ever materializes or not, it’s hard to see when BioWare’s next opportunity to expand the series will be given the planned late 2018 release of Anthem, its brand new, Destiny-like space shooter.
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Instead, fans will have to settle for re-living their experiences from the original trilogy in the Tapestry, a new online tool the company rolled out for N7 day that lets players revisit and toy around with the complex, interconnected web of choices that played out across those games.
For fans of Andromeda, there’s always Mass Effect: Annihilation, a novel out June of next year that attempts to answer questions about the missing Quarian ark many thought might get explored in single-player DLC that never came. But it just won’t be the same.