Is the Mass Effect Series Dead?

Mass Effect should be too big to fail. What does EA's reaction mean for AAA game development?

[Godmars290]

"Too big to fail"?

What the actual f***!?

EA put B-team effort in a AAA touted product and somehow its "too big to fail"?

And I'm talking about ME3. Andromeda got C-team treatment with some kind of warped perception that fan loyalty was going to carry it.

Too big to f***ing fail - AAAGGGHHHHH!

(Really can't handle that much stupidity in the morning. Or ever.)

[Retard]

Yeah, it's sad and spot on "C- treatment". After release they decided pandering to certain people was more important than a quality product. After killing the same enemy recolored 4 difficerent ways, I tossed this gargantuan garbage out of my digital library. It's officially my last ME pre- order or purchase.

[VenomUK]

I hope it isn't dead.
I love the original trilogy and. The problem with ME: Andromeda is this game was likely a well-intentioned cash grab. What makes me say this? It is because the story does not continue after the events of ME3 - it effectively happened during the earlier events of the trilogy meaning that its story has no consequence on what happened to Shepard. Well why wouldn't Bioware continue the story? Because it was made by their B-team made up substantially of freelancers. Bioware wanted to make another game but they didn't have faith in them continuing the story.

My hope is that the Bioware A-Team when they have completed Anthem then return to the Mass Effect universe to continue the story of Shepards fight against the Reapers.

[Stogz]

What bothers me most is that they obviously half assed the game and yet fans of the series will have to suffer now because it didn't sell well (rightfully so) and now we may not get another for many years. Hope whenever they do make another they don't half ass it again.
My bet is EA sees the $ destiny and division made so they pulled everything into Anthem.

[MrCrabPuss]

The bigger they are, the harder they fail....no wait...

[-Foxtrot]

They should reboot it next gen. Seriously brand new, start from scratch including the lore, keep the things which work and remove the things which didn't. They can keep things like N7, Mass Relays, the Citadel etc but story wise it should be a blank slate.

Make it more like Mass Effect and make it more RPG like along with heavy strategic elements...oh and once again in my old fashion, cut the god damn thermal clips, this shouldn't be a run and gun shooter.

[Godmars290]

It stopped being an RPG, because a shooter-in-RPG-clothing, with ME2. They then went one worse by creating too grand a scale to manage.

[Movefasta1993]

Do you know what a role playing game is right?there is a fuck load of role playing in mass effect 2 , seriously ...nvm

[MadLad]

Mass Effect 2 most definitely was a role-playing game. I'd say the best in the series by a decent margin. Sure, they removed some of the more old-school RPG elements, such as the gunplay, but the character progression was still there. The character building was there. The moral choices were there. The branching story paths were there.
Mass Effect 1 felt like a KOTOR re-imagining, mixed with Deus Ex. It was great. Admittedly, being the old-school RPG enthusiast that I am, I was a little annoyed with the more shooter-esque feel of the second game originally. When the original Mass Effect released, I enjoyed the fact that they handled gunplay in a more stat based way that they did.
I felt that removing that system took away from how 'hardcore' the title was. After a little time, however, I felt it was better for the series as a whole. By today's standards, the original Mass Effect feels very clunky. I can't say the same for 2 (or even 3)/ And the other elements of the game I feel surpassed the original in a number of ways.

3 wasn't a worthy conclusion to the series proper, however.
And I still haven't bothered with the recent release. Though what I have played seems decent enough, I guess.

[Godmars290]

ME2 wasn't so much about story but rather character presentation. The main story had nothing to do with the overall campaign, the Reapers don't actually come into play until the DLC, all you do is build bounds with with your teammates.

[rainslacker]

Or just release a better sequel. Do we really need to go back through all that lore again, just in a different way.

The universe is a big place, and they left it at a place that it's easy enough to create a good story if they actually choose to do so.

[MrCrabPuss]

ME has "jumped the shark".

[trouble_bubble]

Some things are cyclical. Space, sci fi aliens and all that, aren't all that in gaming at the moment.

COD's getting away from the moon jumping and space sets, titanfall 2 came and went, no man's sky got roasted, dead space is dead, Prey bombed, mass effect flopped, halo and gears are burnt out shells of their former selves, the guardians of the galaxy game is invisible. The aliens lost.

SW battlefront has the 40 yr old star wars license to help sell it but even Disney's starting to milk Star Wars to death on a yearly basis. Destiny 2 looks like more of the same. It'll sell because dude bros, but the space race in and of itself is over. For now.

[Yui_Suzumiya]

Sorry but Prey didn't bomb at all. Space is tops in gaming right now!

[MorpheusX]

@SolidGear3

The NEW Prey, did bomb.

[MadLad]

Prey didn't bomb.

It definitely did well enough that, if Bethesda wanted, they should feel safe in green-lighting a sequel.
Did it do as well as they wanted? Nah.
Then again, most games don't.
And there's only a handful of situations where a game largely surpassed expectations.

[trouble_bubble]

Prey estimates on vgchartz for XB1 are 110,000. For a AAA from Bethesda years in the making, that's close enough to stink bomb country that I can smell the sulfur. 270,000 on PS4. Better, but for a multiplat probably not enough to justify dlc let alone a sequel.

Space isn't tops in gaming right now. Look at the article you clicked on. "Is Mass Effect dead"?

The Star Trek mmo just launched on console this year and is equally meh. No one cares. Only the PC version has enough reviews to even get a metacritic average and it's only 66%. They're in a slump right now. Even the indies. ADR1FT has a 56% metacritic average on PS4. Set phasers to fail!

Cyclical, like I said. Give it time.

[freshslicepizza]

I would like them to carry on the franchise one way or another. I love space games and the IP is too rich to simply ignore. So many possibilities but the online should not be the focus.

[TheOttomatic91]

Due to Andromeda's financial and critical failure yes unfortunately, I mean that's the real reason why there will be no DLC.

A part of me is sad but then the other part is quickly reminded about how awful Andromeda was. If Bioware wants to make another Mass Effect game they should wait a number of years and reboot the series.

[StuffAndThings]

Or since Andromeda is so far into the future & before Mass Effect 3 just act like Andromeda never happens & return to Shepard & crew. Or the first contact wars

[UltimateOne88]

This is exactly what I was thinking. Go back to the Sheppard timeline and tell a new story with the original crew.

[TheColbertinator]

Andromeda might have killed it. EA is a known wasteland of great franchises like Command and Conquer,Mercenaries,Dead Space etc.

[MorpheusX]

I Hope so.

Im sick to my stomach with what Mass Effect has been turned into by EA.

A game that caters to the LGBT & the ultra Left Liberals, feminism.

As far as Im concerned, Im glad its gone, as much as I loved the Mass Effect series last Gen, its over........EA & its Political agenda has destroyed it.

EA is the Kiss of Death.

[MadLad]

EA has a gay agenda?

I believe rather inconsequential additions to the game, such as non-hetero relationships, largely fall on the developers. I seem to remember, in interviews, Bioware writers making a point to add such elements into the game. They get kicks out of that stuff.
Bioware has always been that way, even before being absorbed into EA.
Hell ... one of the character writers for DA: Inquisition made a point to state that he fleshed out male homosexual romance in the title, being a gay man.

[FlameWater]

It's good to see a AAA franchise blow up in the face of a developer, it proves they are not untouchable and susceptible to the consequences of their actions.

[andrewsquall]

Yep. Called it Dec 2016 after that atrocious game reveal at the VGAs. Gone the way of Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid and now even Hitman sadly.

[BlackIceJoe]

I hope not, but make it more like the first game. I still feel there is a vast amount that can be done in this universe and would be sad to see it go.

That being said I think it is best to make a different game before bringing out another Mass Effect and that being Jade Empire.

I'd love to see more of that world and would even be fine with a remake, then finally getting the sequel. That is the game Bioware needs to be working on next and hopefully they will.

[mad-dog]

yes. dead.

[inxine]

i dont think its dead, fans are just rly disappointed with the last game but it did well.

[VTKC]

It dies whatever EA touches. Especially when they didnt create it, ie taking over someone elses work

[PiNkFaIrYbOi]

It might be less about the critical reviews and more that it flopped commercially and didn't even make its money back as of yet that it took to develop and advertise it.

[rivaldoo777]

Yeah Ass effect is good as dead lol. Just throw that garbage and try to make quality games. Learn how to make quality games from Nintendo and CD PR

[MadLad]

I'm not quite sure you know what you are talking about. Nintendo, themselves, have never released a hardcore, open-ended rpg. At best, they have created linear JRPG-lite tltes. Anything beyond that has come down to second and third-party deals.
CD Projekt Red has only ever worked on one series - The Witcher. A series that, as much as I love, started as an interesting and in-depth, though largely clunky and at times mediocre CRPG; then to a much more technically proficient, if still clunky and weirdly paced title with the second; and then, with the third, ultimately, probably one of the best examples of an open-world RPG, that just so happens to be one of the most technically proficient; though still largely hardcore experiences to be found in gaming. This, however, took three releases, and the better part of a decade.

Bioware proper knows how to make a proper roleplaying experience. They have been since the late 90's. Have I been entirely pleased with their latest releases? Nah. But do I know, from experience, considering the talent on-hand, that they know how to do the RPG genre justice? Hell yes. And to a larger extent (exclusing CD Projekt's latest release) better than the examples you just gave.

[rivaldoo777]

I'm talking about BOTW and Witcher 3 over Andromeda. Previous titles were very good.

[R6ex]

Dead and buried (from a ME fan since 2006) ... :(

[INMATEofARKHAM]

It's been dead for awhile now... The orginal ending to ME3 was IP suicide. The rehash fixed some but not all of the issues. Granted, you can never fix it in full no matter what you do as people will always remember that feeling of betrayal your most loyal fan felt after they got through that ten minutes of nonsensical BS at the end.

[gutteranthems]

I would be willing to give it another chance. It was clear from the start that Andromeda was more of a side story than it was a follow-up to the original trilogy. Sweep this one under the rug, learn from your mistakes, work with the right team, and go for gold on ME4

[Jakens]

Thankfully, Even Gearbox can forget one of their Borderland games, as they needed to, which is nice.

[opinionated]

To me? Sure seems like it. I could forgive if the next ME was awesome. I don't have that much faith in bioware anymore though.

[GamePeace]

It got serious injuries after the last Mass Effect, it needs some serious rest for now ...

[Miacosa]

It should have been allowed to end gracefully instead of being forced to exist just because. That's why we ended up with a game like Andromeda a boring slog that is a pale imitation of the trilogy before it. Sometimes good things do and should come to an end. Anthem seems like it might be a new and fresh beginning.

[SaveFerris]

Mass Effect is dead and Bioware killed it.

[MrCrabPuss]

Well that depends.... how many characters are going to have a trans gender option? That LGBTQ bandwagon IS still rolling isn't it? Hell, maybe even a little mix and match of the old bathing suit areas eh?

This series was never that great IMO...with the exception of #2, the writing got shittier with each installment with its eye plucking level of annoying and ceaseless positive reinforcement, pep-rally garbage. I couldnt even finish the third piece of trash, felt like I was playing through a f'ing "After School Special." I was waiting for some tripe like "dont use drugs billy" to spew out from someone's dialogue. Havent touched one since and probably never will again.

[Bolts]

Dragon Age will certainly fail too if they give fans more of the same. I call it the Witcher 3 Effect.

[Artemidorus]

Wouldn't say dead but definitely put at the back of the que.

Non fans of the series destoryed it by pointing out flaws. Even when improved and some flaws fixed, they continued bashing it to a point they put things on hold.

If you could all do this to COD that would be great.

[Mikey Mike]

Bring back Sheppard....

[DrShoe]

Yes, Bioware is overrated and they make pathetic games that only appeal to SJWs and the retarded.

[Viryu]

For starters, ME:A failed because EA thought it was a great idea to suddenly implement Frostbite 18 months before release, having to redo the whole game on it. Heads should seriously fall in EA's directorial management, but those cash junkies will blame it on those below them, as always. Everything there was simply a quickly scrumbled mimic of a game. Like the multiplayer, put some random races with random abilities on maps with designs copied from ME3, but forget that there's stuff like jet jumping now.

As for continuation of the series, Shepherd's saga still has a great potential asking to be completed. In the true ending you see Shepherd's hand reaching out of the rubble on Earth, so everything that happened during the ending on the Citadel might have simply been Reaper's making the hero hallucinate, but it failed and the Reapers' control might have been broken. Just go from there, there's an amazing potential asking to be used.

[P_Bomb]

What's going on at EA? Burnout, Dead Space, Mass Effect, 007, Crysis. They've slowly snuffed out every franchise. Ear to ear. Even Dante's Inferno was a one 'n' done.

[Saijahn]

For Bioware? I do believe so. There's no excuse for how they mailed Andromeda in. They've done a great job with the updates but its too little too late now. They've already pissed off the community with the lack of clarity on story DLC.

Sell the license to a company that will appreciate it. There's so much depth and possibilities with Mass Effect, it would be a blow to gaming to see it fall.

[Pyrofire95]

Why can't it just be over? Do we have to call it dead?