Mass Effect Andromeda - I'm not Commander Shepard and this is my favorite sequel

I believe the robots are known as the Reth in this new galaxy so it’s completely different.

I thought I heard they were going to be called the Beth, and Bioware was going to license that KISS song. “Beth, I hear you calling …”

I believe you are thinking of how Scooby says their name.

Hopefully we can turn them into good guys before the creeper invasion!

Oh crap, now I’m just having visions of a Mass Effect/Halo crossover. And I’m liking what I’m seeing.

There’s some speculation now that the skill system, while having some of the same stuff as ME3, is actually more like Diablo 3 in that you can swap out abilities on the fly. This is based on some of the wording in the GI preview from Nov combined with these new screenshots of the menu.

[quote]
If you like throwing gouts of flame, you aren’t restricted to a particular class. Because of Andromeda’s flexible skill system, Ryder can learn any ability, and isn’t locked into a single progression tree. This capability is unique to Ryder as the Pathfinder; other party members fill more traditional roles.[/quote]

That’s actually even more flexible than Diablo 3 in that that game won’t let you hop from Barbarian to Witch Doctor mid-game. Looks like you could go from soldier to biotic on the fly, potentially.

It actually sounds like she can just put points into any skill from any class and mix and match, rather than swapping skills out. Other than I see only three “active” skill slots, so maybe that’s where the swapping comes into play? Or does she “reclaim” skill points and get to re-spend them again?

That sounds like a terrible idea. Letting people do whatever they want skill wise at any time takes away from any incentive to do multiple playthroughs. It severely limited my interest in D3. Then again, I don’t know whether andromeda is the sort of game where you’d want to play multiple times anyway.

It looked like from the video that you had radio buttons for class, as if you could change on the fly. Maybe not, I may be totally misreading that.

That would be… weird. Like do you gain a skill point that you can spend in every class? And so you are always equally developed in each class and can just swap around? I hope not, that sounds kind of … let’s say “wide audience appeal” I guess. I hope it’s just that this particular character can spend her points on any skill (as opposed to whatever class you pick at the beginning of the game) but once you spend a skill point, you spent it. Though, just after I hit reply, I remembered seeing that part of the video where she is picking “profile” which does seem like a “favorites” for skill sets. BioWare.

It’s just Origins with blasters.

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, am I right?

It’s just Inquisition with blasters.

Oh hang on, that’s what I meant. Bioconfused.

And Krogan? There’d better be Krogan.

You mean Qunari? :)

Steer clear of North Carolina.

Hmm. I think we all missed this bit of info from December 30th.

[quote]
Gamble confirmed that while Andromeda would ship with a “Strike Team” system that was a fundamental part of the multiplayer experience, progression in the multiplayer wasn’t required to progress the story.

“There’s a system that we use called the Strike Team system, and fundamentally it allows you to go between singleplayer and multiplayer within the game,” he explained. “And it’s packaged around a meta-story of what’s going on in Helios.”

The producer added that the multiplayer would feed into a deeper meta-story. The meta-story can be finished without playing multiplayer at all, but Gamble said “it’s pretty seamless” to switch between the singleplayer and multiplayer.

When I pressed further, he told me the transition wasn’t instantaneous - but you also won’t have to quit out to the main menu, like you did with Mass Effect 3. “I can tell you that there’s a loading screen - it’s not entirely seamless - but it won’t require you to stop your game and restart in a different mode. Because narratively it’s all connected, it makes a lot of sense.”[/quote]

Probably not exactly mind-blowing information, but James Gunn tweeted that Mass Effect was one of the inspirations for Guardians of the Galaxy.