T w e n t y S i d e d

One of the goals BioWare had for Andromeda was to make a game about being an explorer. That’s what the whole “Pathfinder” thing is about. Strange new worlds, new life, new civilizations, boldly go, etc etc. It’s a great thematic fit for a sci-fi series like this.

But then apparently someone else on the team decided that the Pathfinder should be fourteen months late to the party. The Nexus exiled a bunch of people and now they’re scattered all over the cluster. In the course of the game, you will never be the first person to set foot on a world. For the major worlds, you’re not even the first person from the Milky Way. You’re not even the first human. Everywhere you go you’re bumping into existing human communities and structures.

You’re not the Pathfinder, you’re a tourist.

Squad

Before we take off in our shiny new spaceship, let’s look at our starting squad members. Like Mass Effect 1, you begin with a couple of humans and then add aliens to the crew as the story goes on.

As before, your crew members have special “loyalty missions”, which are quests dedicated to their character. In Mass Effect 2, you had to do someone’s loyalty mission to enable them to survive taking part in the suicide mission. It felt a little arbitrary. How does settling Garrus’ grudge enable him to survive a rocket to the face?

Here in Andromeda, you can’t unlock the top-tier abilities for a character until you make them loyal. I like this better. It makes a little more sense and it makes them more generally useful. If I make Garrus loyal in Mass Effect 2, that’s only useful in specific circumstances during the final mission. If I make Cora loyal here in Andromeda, she’s more useful every time we’re in combat together.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Andromeda Part 9: The Squad”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

While talking with Director Tann, he gives you a task: Go out and fix the golden worlds to make them habitable. I guess he’s read the script and knows that you’ll discover that the alien structures are climate-control devices that will make this possible. The more reasonable thing a person would do in this situation is suggest looking for some new worlds. He ought to ask you to go out into uncharted space and see if you can find anything livable.

You can call him out on this by pointing out that making planets habitable is impossible, and he responds by saying a “true” Pathfinder would enjoy the challenge. Given what he knowsHe doesn’t even know about the alien tower on Habitat 7., this is not a rational point of view for him to adopt.

Worse, this takes away Ryder’s agency within the story. She’s the main character and yet she’s just following orders from other characters. (Who are, incidentally, all proven failures.) We just went through that ridiculous train-wreck of a scene on Habitat 7 to put Sara in charge, and now the writer is going to keep having other characters make decisions for her.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Andromeda Part 8: The Nexus”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.