MASS EFFECT FRANCHISE CATCH-ALL THREAD

[Travis Sheldon]

8 hours ago, odessasteps said:

Normandy expedition in No Mans Sky dropped today. 

Only 2 weeks if you want to get the ship. 

Shit, I'm going to have to hook up the PS4 Pro or load it onto the PS5 and start a new save.

[RIPPA]

Per Variety - the Mass Effect TV show finally has a writer

Daniel Casey who was the writer for the 2018 movie Kin and for F9 (yes a Fast and the Furious movie)

And I guess it is "officially in production" for Amazon

[J.T.]

And naturally Amazon shut down FreeVee so they are going to force me to re-subscribe to Prime to watch that shit.

[odessasteps]

Mass Effect cut content surfaces online as fans mourn what could've been

https://www.gamingbible.com/news/mass-effect-cut-content-surfaces-online-145632-20241204

[RIPPA]

11 hours ago, odessasteps said:

Mass Effect cut content surfaces online as fans mourn what could've been

https://www.gamingbible.com/news/mass-effect-cut-content-surfaces-online-145632-20241204

Boy that was an irritating article

Basically - despite all the cut content has been known for a long while - some reddit users only just found out about it

And some how that warranted a story

[Gonzo]

https://blog.bioware.com/2025/01/29/bioware-studio-update/

Now that Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been released, a core team at BioWare is developing the next Mass Effect game under the leadership of veterans from the original trilogy, including Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, Parrish Ley, and others.

In keeping with our fierce commitment to innovating during the development and delivery of Mass Effect, we have challenged ourselves to think deeply about delivering the best experience to our fans. We are taking this opportunity between full development cycles to reimagine how we work at BioWare.

Given this stage of development, we don’t require support from the full studio. We have incredible talent here at BioWare, and so we have worked diligently over the past few months to match many of our colleagues with other teams at EA that had open roles that were a strong fit.

Yeah. . .not super sure if I like the sounds of that.

Just waiting for BioWare to fuck this up, too.

[RIPPA]

Well ME5 is fucked

The EA CEO blamed Veilguard not having "shared world features" (aka live service) for "not resonating with fans"

[Chaos]

15 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

Well ME5 is fucked

The EA CEO blamed Veilguard not having "shared world features" (aka live service) for "not resonating with fans"

That's an odd claim when the market is exercising clear games as a service fatigue barring the staying power of Fortnite and the unexpected success of Helldivers.  Marvel Rivals is more about the IP than it being a type of game people are clamoring for in 2025. 

[JLSigman]

57 minutes ago, Chaos said:

That's an odd claim when the market is exercising clear games as a service fatigue barring the staying power of Fortnite and the unexpected success of Helldivers.  Marvel Rivals is more about the IP than it being a type of game people are clamoring for in 2025. 

Oh, the EA CEOs are absolutely tailoring the narrative to fit what they want.

[Robert C]

Here's an idea - make a game that people actually want to play.  I sincerely doubt anyone other than EA execs has ever thought Bioware games in specific would be better with the game as a service model.  But they're clearly gonna do it again.  Badly.

I can't speak to why Veilguard failed as a release, but I can say why it failed with me.  It just wasn't any fun.  Never once did I see or do something and find myself thinking how great it was.  Mostly I would just walk to the next area where a fight was obviously about to occur and think to myself "here we go again.  I don't really want to fight whoever pops up here." 

So I stopped.  And went back to a game from 2009 that I hadn't played since release.  And had a hell of a lot of fun. Three months later, I can barely remember anything about Veilguard - what I was doing, who I had in my party, why we were doing anything, etc.  Couldn't tell you the name of any character I encountered other than Varric & Solas to save my life.  

Anyway, I think I've finally accepted that Bioware probably won't make another game that I fall in love with.  Nearly 13 years have passed since they made a Mass Effect game that I actually liked.  More than 15 for Dragon Age.  Since then they've made

- Two games that I sometimes enjoyed but thought were deeply flawed (Andromeda, DA2).

- One that I found to be a tremendous slog, much like sitting through a week long corporate training feels (DA3).

- One that I stopped playing maybe 1/3 of the way through and not once have had an inkling of a desire to go back to (Veilguard).  

- One game as a service that 17 people played, and only three of them liked it (Anthem).

I'm not sure I care at this point.  I mean, I'd be elated if they made a good ME or DA game again.  But I don't see any reason to think it might ever happen. 

I got KOTOR 1 (and the non broken parts of 2), ME 1-3 & DA:O out of them.  Maybe that's enough.

 

[RIPPA]

My wife was not happy when I said over the weekend that I am not sure I will be alive when the next Mass Effect game comes out

[supremebve]

On 2/5/2025 at 2:14 PM, Robert C said:

I can't speak to why Veilguard failed as a release, but I can say why it failed with me.  It just wasn't any fun.  Never once did I see or do something and find myself thinking how great it was.  Mostly I would just walk to the next area where a fight was obviously about to occur and think to myself "here we go again.  I don't really want to fight whoever pops up here." 

 

It's been about a month since I finished Veilguard and it is smack dab in the same territory as Mass Effect Andromeda in my memory.  If you were to give me a pop quiz right now about the events of the game and/or the names of the characters, I'd probably fail.  It is a game I played all the way through and I don't think anything stuck in my mind for a full month after finishing it.  

That said, I still remember distinctly scrambling to turn off my console when I made the decision that led to Tali's death in Mass Effect 3. I was invested in pretty much every character in every game and could probably tell you every hidden background detail for the entire crew of the Normandy from memory.  Those games worked because they were built on legitimately high stakes and characters you built a bond with over time.  None of their recent games have done that.

[odessasteps]

I saw a headline the other day (didn't read it) that said something like "mass effect developer says game still in pre production." 

[supremebve]

On 2/6/2025 at 3:52 PM, odessasteps said:

I saw a headline the other day (didn't read it) that said something like "mass effect developer says game still in pre production." 

I feel like they announced this game because they think we'd like it, not because they had any ideas about what a new Mass Effect game would be.  I used to date this girl who liked the idea of a bunch of shit, but never really wanted to do any of that shit.  So, I'm running around thinking I have a bunch of cool date ideas, but she was just saying, "yeah, that completely hypothetical thing that I'm not really interested in sounds fun."  Then I'd figure out a way to actually make that shit happen and we'd both end up pissed because I spent time and money planning some shit she just assumed I was bullshitting about.  That's what this feels like.  They said, "hey, how about a Mass Effect game?"  We said, "cool, we'd love that." Now, they feel obligated to make some shit and when we finally get it we aren't going to want it.

[RIPPA]

So due to a combination of factors... I found myself booting up the Legendary Edition for the first time in what turned out to be 4 years.

I had never finished my playthrough of all the games - stopping for reasons I can't remember (probably a new Destiny year)

Turns out that I am at Priority: Rannoch

Fuck... not really the time for me to be relearning the controls

[Raziel]

Not like that mission is super important or anything

[Gonzo]

Happy N7 Day, folks.

Not that it really means anything anymore and likely won't mean anything at all in the near future.

[RIPPA]

Unsurprisingly they posted a very short blog post

The only thing about the game is that it is still in development and claiming EA remains committed to it

There was more info about the Amazon TV show

• Within the Universe's timeline
• It will take place after the original trilogy
• It wont be a rehash of Commander Shepard

It comes across as if it will be a precursor to the next game

[RIPPA]

And I say that and in the last 15 minutes they dropped a cryptic tease that may or may not lead to a teaser trailer... assuming folks figure out the link

[Casey]

2 hours ago, RIPPA said:

And I say that and in the last 15 minutes they dropped a cryptic tease that may or may not lead to a teaser trailer... assuming folks figure out the link

It lead to some unreleased concept art of the Krogan civil war, lol.

[odessasteps]

 

[JLSigman]

NOAP

[odessasteps]

I said elsewhere “appeal to non gamers” = gratuitous nudity. Miranda, I’m looking at you. Or Jack, for other demographics.

[supremebve]

20 hours ago, odessasteps said:

I said elsewhere “appeal to non gamers” = gratuitous nudity. Miranda, I’m looking at you. Or Jack, for other demographics.

I'm in on seeing all the boobies this galaxy has to offer.

[odessasteps]

I mean, the game did have strategic nudity, IIRC, when Shepard had Zero G sex in at least one game.