Mass Effect Andromeda's Awful Facial Animations Are The Result of Rampant Outsourcing

Mass Effect Andromeda has been getting really good reviews with one major exception – the facial animations are absolutely terrible. I’ve been watching my partner play through the game and the animations behind even main character’s faces makes them look like they're dead inside.

[AspiringProGenji]

Ah. Another sight of trouble and sloppy game development for a beloved franchise. Thanks Bioware! Why are you apologising? The game The alfa testers are saying the game is fine and the hate or critical feedback is unwarranted

https://youtu.be/n0iB5i8cCa...

[GOODKylePS]

greeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa t

[-Foxtrot]

Woah don't want to criticize them...you might be called sexist if one of them is a girl.

[yeahokwhatever]

Is that EA's excuse now? Just throw the other companies they work with under the bus?

[jaymacx]

That worked for the Mafia for years. Hire someone else to do your dirty work then your hands are clean lol.

[Muadiib]

Companies like this make me sick, they claim to be American, they take American money, but they hire as few Americans as they can. Hopefully that kind of despicable behaviour won't be rewarded anymore and companies that actually invest in their host country will prosper.

[Dark_Knightmare2]

If you ran or knew anything about business you would know why they do that

[Decastis]

Thank you Hillary for your insight...

[Muzikguy]

So it's more important to make as much money as possible instead of supporting the country and the people you're marketing towards? No. This is the part of capitalism that IMO sucks

[Muzikguy]

@Gr8

That's great. I know how capitalism works and I know how businesses work and I'm probably older than you are. I mean, I have to be to see flaws in the system. This type of thinking is why businesses have a hard time finding qualified workers and why we overpay for services these days. American ideals were built on capitalism and sonwas the American dream. Many feel that's dead. We are now a country of services. Services we could do ourselves without paying others to do it for us.

Capitalism only can go so far. What about those people you market towards? How can they buy your product if they have no money to do so? Capitalism turns into greed and greed is a bad thing. By your logic we shouldn't open business in America. We'd be 3rd world again real quick

[Tru_Blu]

Unless you can convince investors in EA to not want to make as much money as possible it's how capitalism works. Results be dammed, the money is all that matters in the US unfortunately.

[AbleAmazing]

BioWare isn't an American company.

[Phunkydiabetic1]

No, but EA is. Bioware answers to EA.

[BrianOBlivion]

BioWare is and has always been a Canadian company. It is currently owned by an american company but it is still operating out of Canada.

[rainslacker]

Bioware is a Canadian developer. EA is a global publisher.

Hate to tell you, but almost every game developer outsources, often to asian companies. You can boycott or complain if you want, but you'll still be buying games that have outsourced code or work in it. Just watch the credits of any game....they're are always other studios credited. Even the most highly respected game developers in the world outsource.

There's a reason for outsourcing. Some outsource companies reside in the US. Others in EU. Others in Asia. And so on. The game industry is a global business, and it's significantly cheaper to outsource a lot of work, rather than keep a large amount of staff on the payroll, where they'd eventually be let go because the work would dry up.

It's just the way the industry works. Get used to it, because it's not going to change, and if it does change, expect game prices to rise signifcantly, or start paying for a lot of additional DLC on those AAA games.

[Gecksta]

They really look like the characters out of XCOM

[Jon_Targaryen]

This game for the most part looks great IMO.

[Lynx0207]

Yep, as long as you don't look at characters.

[NarooN]

Looks great if you don't see it in motion... or one of the many horrific screenshots out there.

[Pozzle]

That's actually a point made in the video. The environments and location designs were mostly done by Bioware, which is why they look fine. But the character models and animations were outsourced to a cheaper studio, which is why they look so crap by comparison.

[Segata]

Yes it is. As long as you don't hate terrible writing. Acting so bad 70s porn actors look like Golden Globe winners. Annoying voices. A dull story and such a glitch game it makes Bethesda jealous.

[chris235]

and my wallet staying closed is another effect of their bad business decisions.

[guyjean]

"I’ve been watching my partner play...!
Cool. Now let's get that "I have heard from someone playing ..." article out asap.

[OB1Biker]

Haha I also found that one weird. That similar to most critics inquisitors here watching you tube though

[ABBAJESUS]

I knew it! Same happened with Aliens: Colonial Marines.

[Banjorol]

My face is tired lol

[WharenPeace]

But but.. muh social justice....!!

[opinionated]

Of course. Outsource the animation so we can sit around talking about important things like representation.

[rainslacker]

It's kind of a sad excuse, since even when you outsource, the dev/pub are still responsible for making sure the work is done right, and to hold that work to a certain level or quality they wish to achieve.

There are tons of devs that outsource. It's more common than not to actually do so, and in most cases, one wouldn't be the wiser if the producer/director does their job right and make sure the outsourced work is done to the proper standard.

[opinionated]

Yeah true.

[PiNkFaIrYbOi]

So much more wrong with this game than just the animations.

[starchild]

Not really. There are a few minor glitches I've encountered, but nothing dramatically different than any large RPG I've played. Combat is great, the narrative is interesting, the graphics outside of face animations are outstanding and the overall game is enjoyable.

It's a bit more glitchy than it should be and the face animations are poor, but I think some people are really exaggerating things to an absurd degree.

[PiNkFaIrYbOi]

I've gone through it all already. Early on the graphics aren't bad but later on they become very bad at times. The frame rate drops off badly at times. Most of the voice acting is just bad, the romance options and romance in general is lacking. The storyline is weak, most of the gameplay and mechanics aren't that great. Taking out the combat wheel like it was in the earlier games made it somewhat suck. Character creation was lacking as well. Most of the characters are not that interesting. Like hardly any music in the game like in most of the their previous games. Than the animations was just flat out bad for nearly all of the characters.

Not to say it isn't a fun game, wouldn't of put as many hours into it as I have but I doubt that I will go back to it and play through it again. The only way I will probably touch the game again really is if there is any DLC t for the single player that comes out, not sure yet if I want to play the multiplayer or not.

[Boog_89]

Let's all pretend the game is garbage because of facial animations.
Big fan of the first 3 and this one is no different, Im having a blast, I love it.

[Segata]

What about the bad acting? The bad writing. The dull story. The glitch filled mess of a game it is. Fem Ryders voice is like a cheese grater to the nutsack.

[Trekster_Gamer]

Game sux are..
Trying to sell my copy on Craigslist..

[SojournUK]

Gameplay pretty good, spending my time at the moment split between this on the pro and thimbleweed park on my xbone. I've only just finished the vault on Eos, some of it was a bit of a chore (scanning is a ballache) but it's not as bad as the interweb makes out!

[mankely2015]

very good

[ThePresentIsAgift]

Let me guess, the script writer was learning English whilst they penned the lines. The clunky dialogue and pacing is pathetic, reminds me of the ps1 version of Resident Evil. What a fall from grace, the first three were well written and dialogue flowed in a seemingly logical and far more credible manner. I wish Andromeda was released when it was actually finished. Do EA learn nothing? FFS it took them over two years to fix Battlefield 3 and 4 because of premature launch and 3 on pc is still exploited wholesale 24/7 by hackers and cheaters because the game logic is so poorly coded.

[Bolts]

America first! Trump was right. When you outsource, faces get tired.

[Tumaras]

Lots of companies outsource dev work, even the company I work for does. But, with any company that does any outsourcing the company employees are still responsible for directing, reviewing, managing, and approving the work and the output of the work done by contractors. And those reviews would have happened weekly if not daily as they made progress. Bioware shouldn't have seen the awful state it was in and basically said, well we didn't do it and it's crap but it's the fault of outsourcing so let's release it as-is. They should have seen it was way off-track very early on and either switched to a different outsourcing company, brought it back and in-sourced, delayed a year if needed to redo the animations, etc.

[redaxis]

Thats kinda is an excuse too. U need to supervise the work even if they are outsourced.

[starchild]

That's true. Outsourcing isn't the problem. The facial animations really should have been held to a higher standard.

[DJ]

It's bad enough this game was developed in Canada to take advantage of tax credit subsidies. But then THEY outsourced to a Romanian studio on top of those subsidies?

Wake up guys, game development has never been cheaper! Hollywood does the same thing. Big movies like The Avengers are shot mostly on tax subsidized green screen sets in Canada and Georgia and cost 1/3 of what you've been told.

Your Average blockbuster game has 100 people costing roughly $70,000 a year for 2 years, totaling $14,000,000. To break even, only around 500,000 copies at $60 each have to be sold across multiple platforms (platform holders get a cut). EA and Bioware management decided to go cheap on Mass Effect Andromeda and it backfired. Saving a few million dollars may end putting this whole project in the red. Not to mention hurting sales of future franchise installments...

[Jc95]

No excuse.. I mean look at that face... LOOK AT IT!!!