“Mac Walters discusses the development challenges and lessons learned from Mass Effect: Andromeda in exclusive interview”

2023-05-21 08:28:19

Mac Waltersone of the authors of the universe Mass Effect, abandoned BioWare earlier this year, discussed in interview one of his latest projects within the walls of the studio – the infamous Mass Effect: Andromeda.

Walters joined the Andromeda team as creative director only following leaving Casey Hudson in 2014. Despite being a bit late in development, he confirmed that the team originally wanted to create a procedurally generated galaxy for the game, inspired by No Man’s Sky. However, according to Waltres, the idea was very different from the way BioWare tells stories and creates its content.

Moving away from the procedurally generated galaxy plan wasn’t the only issue discussed during the turning point in Mass Effect: Andromeda’s development. Then the team also had to re-learn and rethink many things – probably due to the transition from one engine to another, with Unreal on Frostbite.

As Walters notes, some of Andromeda’s problems might have been avoided by downsizing the game and working on its quality. However, at that time, a rather strange opinion was widespread in the industry, which pushed the idea of ​​u200bu200b”quality is in quantity.”

Herself Electronic Arts, For example, “was pushing for more open-world games” because they were easier to monetize. Other major publishers followed a similar path, which eventually led to a lot of bloated card games that repeated the same thing.

Walters admitted that the developers at BioWare were a little deceiving themselves, thinking that with a game without proper polish (level Mass Effect 3) no problem – because it is large, and it has room for further work.

Alas, fans of the cult ME did not appreciate this approach. According to Walters, the failure of Andromeda can be considered a “lesson learned”. At the same time, the developer is still sorry that the studio was not able to demonstrate growth on its mistakes in the sequel. He is sure that in this case, the players would really see the level of polish that she once received Mass Effect 2.

Recall that BioWare is currently working on a new game in the Mass Effect universe, and is working on it BioWare Edmonton. As for the authors of “Andromeda” from the Montreal studio, they became part of EA Motives.

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