Judging from he video, the combat looks solid and varied, just the way Mass Effect should. They seem to have improved on the class system, giving the player more freedom to mix and match. I usually played as an adept or a vanguard in MS2, and Andromeda looks to deliver in the biotics department.

If the combat is as good at as it looks, and the RPG elements are shades of grey with Witcher like depth, this might be my game for the next six months (working man, play when I can).

What's your early verdict?

Gameplay looks incredible, however I'm still extremely worried about the story... there just doesn't seem to be much there. I hope I am very wrong, besides Tekken 7 and Ghost Recon: Wildlands, this is the only other game im interested in this year.

This is what I've been waiting for. It's hard to say for sure until I play it, but that looks damn good. I love that they added equippable melee weapons and the freedom to pick and choose abilities. I was a bit worried about the jet pack but it seems to be well done. Very, very excited.

I like the reintroduction of unlimited ammo, heat-buildup weapons, but I have to laugh at their attempt to make them seem brand new when, yo, that was Mass Effect 1, dawg. They also seem to be simplifying/reusing some of the mechanics from the old games; one less class of weapon (no SMGs), one less type of enemy health bar (no barriers), and quite a few returning weapons/skills (I saw the Black Widow, Overcharge, Singularity, etc). Not sure how I feel about so much repetition given that it's been five years since ME3.

The jetpack seems cool but if the Insanity difficulty equivalent is anything like the old games, standing (or flying) out in the open is just going to get you ultra-dead real fast. The one major positive I have is that the combat animations look great; going back through ME3 right now in preparation hits home how much of a difference five years has made for video games. (Still need to work on some of those facial animations, though!)

Looks great. I like how free form the RPG progression it looks. Interested to see what mix of abilities I can use.

Yet saying "we made it like ME 1 but modern" is an improvement for me in all ways just about.

I think I prefer having actual classes. It forces players to make actual choices about how they want to play, facilitates roleplaying, and focuses gameplay mechanics. The sentiment of "do anything you want!" sounds good on paper, and players complain like to whine about not being able to get every ability, but at a certain point, it just gets to be too much. More stuff =/= good stuff, which is a lesson they should have learned from Inquisition but I'm starting to think they haven't.

Just based on the screenshots in there, I worry that they've got too many things. Just look at the skill trees they have and do the math. There are 5 large skill groups, each with 12 sub-skills. That's 60 sub-skills. Each sub-skill had 6 pips associated with it. That's a grand total of 360 "things" to potentially upgrade, assuming there aren't additional trees they didn't show off. Which sounds great until you think about the consequences.

Other games that have attempted to have that many upgrades either ended up making each upgrade really incremental (which is boring), or gave you so many skill points that you became way too powerful way too quickly. On top of that, for players to be able to purchase even a fraction of those abilities, they need things to do to earn skill points. Lots and lots of things. If all of that stuff were Witcher 3 quality, that'd be great, but Bioware's recent history suggests that's going to be a lot of "Go here, fetch that" or "Go there, kill that," or "Go here, press that."

I dunno. I've been pretty skeptical of Andromeda for awhile. Although I'll admit Bioware has burned a lot of bridges with me given their recent history. The game being written by Mac Walters also doesn't inspire confidence that the narrative of this one is going to be real strong.

@artisanbreads: Oh sure, the clunkiest part of ME1 is by far the combat. I just meant they went out of their way to explain why they moved to "thermal clips" in ME2 and 3 (including in-universe) and how that was an improvement over the old guns, but now it's this new thing out of nowhere again. The combat has only gotten better but the fiction feels like it's all over the place.

@mirado: You're definitely right. I hated the change though so whatever. There are bigger issues with the story ha. Anyways I am really excited for this one.

I think the general look of the combat appears to be fun, it's like a Vanquish Lite with none of the style but it still looks fun. How it feels to play is a wait and see. I'm glad to see the weight system is back as that was the best thing they introduced with ME3. I also like how they're trying to make the weapons more diverse and have themes similar to what Borderlands did with their weapon brands. It's interesting though that they decided to add all these new things to make weapons more distinct while simultaneously removing character classes basically homogenising play styles. This is never a good thing for ARPGs as far as I'm concerned and Fallout 4 is a prime example of why.

@mirado@artisanbreadsCorrect me if I'm wrong but isn't the Andromeda initiative supposed to be in another galaxy and they set out for the initiative before the thermal clips thing in ME2?

@lawgamer: I have exactly this worry, especially as I'm currently playing through Kingdoms of Amalur at the moment and the upgrade system of that game similarly feels so "don't bother committing to anything, just do anything, and switch whenever you want". The consequence of this being that I feel like every individual upgrade is either so spread out that I notice no real difference, or focusing on a single path makes combat a complete pushover. Andromeda really strikes me as though they're trying to appeal to everyone at the same time, which rarely works out as well as it sounds in a boardroom.

I think free form systems can work just fine in a number of different games. As always, it's balance. I think the issue some games have is they just give you so many points you get everything and it feels pointless. The same goes for class based systems though, which can be done poorly.

I like how this looks.

"You don't have to specialize, so you can use any weapon."

You said that like you expected a positive response from me.

@mrhadouken said:

It's still pretty difficult to market an open world game by its story. But I share that concern, and it's why I haven't paid Andromeda any attention. I was ignoring it completely until I see multiple reviews I can trust.

@ivdamke: It's possible, but a) They still have the thermal clip weapons (the first type in the video, although he refers to it as ammo for some reason) and b) when they do show the overheating weapons, he calls them "brand new" (or at least I think he does) like we've forgotten about them (I haven't!).

I mean, it's a minor nitpick, and it's not going to doom my enjoyment or anything (I'm far more worried about them reusing a lot of powers/abilities, saturating you with too many familiar faces/races, and that bland villain). Just an observation that it's coming around full circle.

I think you'll definitely see that in the multiplayer. I would also guess that "do anything you want" will still be limited by overall skill points. I doubt you'll be able to have every skill at once at any point in the game, but you will be able to dip a little into solider, tech, or biotic powers, without being limited to a specific skill tree or set of powers. I'm guessing that you'll still be limited by not fully focusing on one tree, though. Despite the game allowing you to mix and match, it might still be best to concentrate on one particular set of powers.

Looks better than ever, I think. I appreciate how the fire and gravity powers are used now. Used to be, I pulled up the powers wheel with a guy in my sight, chose everyone's power and just hit him at once. This flamethrower actually has a presence in the world, and the gravity powers allow you to lift folks around and manipulate them rather than just lift them up into the air.

I think the weapons they showed look like they feel weak, if that sentence makes sense to anyone else. They sound kinda shrill and pew-pew-y, especially the plasma and beam weapons, and the beams look real thin and frail. It's a far cry from, say, a 2005 resident evil 4 shotgun.

I like that anyone can use any weapon. Maybe this is different for people who think those games were fun enough to warrant a playthrough with a different class, but I played adept in ME1 and Vanguard in ME2 and 3 and as a result I pretty much stuck to a shotgun and/or a pistol. I'm not big into RPing, but even if I was I don't feel like "not being able to use this gun" is a facet of the game that makes for especially interesting roleplay. Maybe it'll be a bit overpowered, but personally I'm gonna appreciate that variety when I'm liberating my fiftieth planetary outpost or Remnant Stronghold or whatever.

Yeah i kinda miss the classes but if the incentive to stay in a specific skill tree is strong enough then it could lead to classes anyway. I liked picking one and then another on my second playthrough, but if the moral system is gone not sure what point there would be in multiple playthroughs at all now.

Hopefully they keep classes for multiplayer as that really made different characters feel diverse.

At the end of the video they show you can pick soldier, infiltrator, profiles, etc. I understand you can put points into whatever you want but it seemed that the classes ("profiles" now) you can pick will help you if you want to specialize and focus on tech, biotics, or combat.

I think it looks great.

I'm still pretty worried that this looks better than its going to feel. Specifically this dynamic cover system seems like a bad idea. There are, to me, two types of third person shooter. One where you have complete control of character action and only by pressing left trigger do you bring up a gun and reticle. These are games like tomb raider, uncharted and the last of us. Then there's the more structured third person cover shooter where you always are behind the back in combat, with a reticle, and left trigger is for extra steady shots. These are gears, the division and mass effect 2 and 3. Dynamic cover works fine in the first type, tomb raider and Last of Us do it for instance. But Andromeda seems to control like the second type, as the other mass effects did...but with dynamic cover. I'm not convinced that's fun, it could potentially be very frustrating.

A very rote presentation that. Lots of tried and maybe true combat mechanics shown but it really didn't wow me at all. The verticality factor could be interesting, or just really over powered. But really, overall the enter thing seems very clinically put together without much real heart. Its like all they did was take all the feedback from past games and implemented that without any real original splash.

The game looks not as polished as I'd like. Some of those lighting details and particle effects look really out of date. So much for leveraging Frost.

I'm open to being surprised but right now it doesn't look all that interesting.

My biggest fear, judging from the various information about it, is that it'll turn out to be the Mass Effect version of DAI. Now I know that game [DAI] clicked with a lot of people, but to me it was a complete yawn fest. Gameplay wise that is. Just feeled like an offline version of a somewhat okish mmo.

Looks great. I loved Mass Effect 3, partially because the combat was so good. And this is the sort of fast-paced, jet pack thrusting gameplay I've been into since Halo 5 included it.

I hope the story has focus, that's my only worry about this game. Everything else I've seen so far looks sharp as hell.

A couple of things. SMGs are still in the game, they are just classed as pistols, confirmed by a developer on twitter.

On the topic of "repetition" of weapons, I am having a hard time seeing your point of view here. In Mass Effect 3, there are over 60 different guns. Are they supposed to throw all of those away and not re-use a single one? From a lore perspective, it makes no sense. These weapons exist in the universe, why would they suddenly all vanish? From a gameplay perspective, having the huge existing arsenal from past games and then adding a bunch of new weapons on top sounds to me like a great way to have a ton of weapon variety. In general, I just don't understand this argument.

Furthermore, only 1/3 of the weapon categories will include weapons from past games. The weapons are split between Milky Way weapons, Andromeda Weapons, and Remnant weapons. Obviously the Milky Way weapons are going to be familiar, but the other two types are going to be 100% new. That's also where the difference ammo comes in. Obviously the Milky Way weapons use the thermal clip system, and the Andromeda weapons use different systems. They weren't trying to make the overheat system sound like some new hotness. The literal quote was "(the remnant weapons) use the overheat system." If your interpretation of that is "These weapons use this amazing, kickass, and ENTIRELY NEW overheat mechanic," I don't know what to tell you.

To your complaint about power repetition, I feel the same way as I do about your complaint about weapon repetition. There are both new and returning abilities, and with such a huge catalog of existing abilities, I just don't understand why you'd want them all gone. I want to play a Mass Effect game without overload and singularity about as much as I'd want to play a Zelda game without the Master Sword, a Star Wars game without force pushing and lightsabers, or a Halo game without the Battle Rifle.

I didn't expect anyone to lament the absence of starting pre-existing classes. Although, if the profiles function in the same way the destiny cards did in Kingdoms of Amalur, then we'll be encouraged to spec in a certain way to unlock class specializations.

In any case, the combat looks fluid and I like how they're trying make weapons feel different based on their technological origins (also, glad the Mattock is back). I don't like the HUD at all though; the menus look fine, but the health bar and cursor look somewhat dated.

It looks fine. Looks like they played it save and didn't change the formula too much. I really hope they capitalize on the fact that the game takes place in another galaxy though.Up to this point the trailers haven't really grabbed me and this one hasn't changed that.

OK, I was kind of worried about Andromeda but I'm in full on hype mode now.

huh, tough crowd. i wonder what people actually wanted from a new Mass Effect game (or if they even wanted one at all)

The combat looks great but the AI seems terrible for both your squad and the enemies. I get that with more mobility it's hard to be flanked or out maneuvered but it would be nice if your enemies had similar options at their disposal. That was one of the cool things about the latest Deus Ex that was overlooked since it was a stealth game first and foremost.

But this was just a short video so it's hard to tell and it's not worth complaining about, i'm sure it will be fun regardless. I like the option to spec however you want.

I'm liking the retooling of existing biotic powers as well as the introduction of new ones.

Really looking forward to Biotic Pulling a guy, use him as a shield to close the distance then throw him back to his buddy.

That's how I feel but it's gotten past the point of arguing for me. I think this looks way, way better than past ME games in many ways and we will see how the story is. The story in 2 and 3 was very flawed itself so again I feel like tough crowd but hey I'm excited to play it myself.

Sometimes I feel like people sand over the rough edges of the ME games in their minds or something.

I think the fanbase is split along enough lines based on which game is their favorite, combined with what they want out of ME, that you get a whole spectrum of skepticism/optimism/negativity and so on. Like...the folks who like ME1 the most are probably also the most down on ME3, right? And the worse you feel about 3, probably the more negative (or at least skeptical) you are about Andromeda.

The combat trailer looks pretty good to me, and actually makes me feel a lot better about the state of Andromeda. But I also care about the story way more than the combat, so loadouts and and biotic powers matter way less to me than the number and density of dialogue wheels. Everything the devs are *saying* about the game makes me hopeful, but I'm cautious because I didn't like 3 that much, and they haven't really *shown* too much, considering it's out in a month. But fingers crossed, I really, really want Andromeda to be amazing.

@gooddoggy: Personally I loved 1 the most and I'm up on Andromeda because it looks more like 1 in that it's more open and more of an RPG. To me, things like having open levels you can explore is a big addition and this has that again for Mass Effect. I also like how open this looks because it looks quite a bit like an RPG and that's welcome again. More weapons to use and not worry about just using the same shotgun because I went Vanguard is great. For me I am hoping I can use Vanguard and the invisibility ability together, plus the jetpack, and be moving all over the place in this.

Story is what it will come down to most I think and I don't know what to say. I think DA:I was a bummer in this way and 2 and 3 both had some real bad parts so we will see. Like DA:I, I am pretty confident this will at least be fun to play through for me I just hope it's an amazing game. If they nail it, it could be really special. As much as I love ME 1, it has flaws of course and I think they should have worked at those like Andromeda seems to be doing more than go so constrained with 2 and 3.

Well the original Mass Effect was a straight up RPG with some third person gunplay, and thats where most of the original fans come from. Then the games got progressively more action oriented, gaining new fans and losing old ones in the process. So I think it's kind of understandable that those oldschool fans, the ones that actually made Mass Effect a success by getting the first game and loving it, would hold out some hope that a brand new trilogy might once again revisit it's origins and maybe introduce some more RPG back into the mix.

This looks cool, but if they're super doubling down on action like this I am a little worried how much the structure of the base gameplay has changed as well. I mean what is Mass Effect at this point? Even the much maligned Dragon Age Inquisition (which I personally really enjoyed) retained it's core identity as an RPG in various ways while introducing faster paced gameplay to appease a wider audience. Andromeda seems to be transitioning into a full fledged third person shooter. Dialog choices and skill trees are not an uncommon sight in action games anymore, and it's the deeper stat based gameplay that sets even an action-RPG apart from being just a shooter with some choices mixed in.

As to the question of whether people even wanted another Mass Effect I would hazard to say that despite the backlash after ME3, the majority of fans still recognize this as a very unique and desirable franchise. I would love them to go back to a more robust inventory system with armor pieces and stat points, but I'll also play a Mass Effect shooter if it's good. I mean a well playing game is a well playing game - as long as I'm having fun thats all that matters.

@artisanbreads: I think you and I are pretty much on the same page. If they can give me a modern/polished/big-budget ME1 with better combat, then that's exactly what I want. And it sounds like that's what they're saying, it's just a question of whether they actually deliver on that.

I'd probably be most pleased if they went the Nier Automata route. "Platinum Games has been making the combat for us for three years while we did all the writing. Also, we discovered how to make well-animated human faces."

I beat all the other games, but I'm not like a huge fan. There are parts I like and parts I hate, and the cover shooter combat has never been a draw for me. Still, it looks improved this time around. Credit where credit is due, right? I think being basically pleasant, open and playable(Nice-looking environments instead of the drab deserts of ME3, combat that doesn't rely so heavily on cover or spamming CHARGE) is gonna be more than enough for lots of people to get into it. Even if the story sucks or is less of a priority, which we don't know yet, I can imagine it getting great scores based on the quality of its open world space exploration. No Man's Sky-style space exploration speaks to something special in certain people, and it's not exactly a cornered market among AAA games yet.

It's just tough for me to get HYPE for this when we don't know how it's gonna play out. The most recent Bioware games that aren't MMOs are what, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age Inquisition? I think anyone with some pattern recognition might be wary of getting hyped about a Bioware game at this point, because every game they make has huge issues that might break the experience for you depending on your tastes and priorities, and they aren't likely to describe it that way in their marketing material. I'm not even sure I trust the press on this. I don't remember a lot of the story stuff in ME3 being talked down in reviews, that was all fans. DAI had tons of dull stuff and tropes in its story, a kinda bad action RPG combat system and an abundance of busywork in its open world. It still got like five GOTY awards or something.

@humanity: Yeah I'm with you. I think I just see people be harsh on this game with things where I just say well that's been an issue since day one with this series. I also want it to be better but I also have my expectations in some areas in check.Like the people saying the facial animations weren't great... there have been loads of ridiculous moments throughout the series with dumb facial animation.

I enjoy 2 and 3 even if they are more flawed to me but I like this. I also think DA:I is pretty good, I just think the main story really sucks. Confident I will enjoy this but for me Bioware used to put out more classics and I would love that level of game.

@artisanbreads: Yah I dunno what the problem with the faces is, they look absolutely fine to me but hey sometimes people need something to latch onto.

@ll_exile_ll: Nice to hear that SMGs are still in.

On repetition: maybe I'm expecting too much of the radical setting change/much longer development time, but I felt like this was a perfect opportunity to go a bit crazy with the whole thing. Development time/resources aren't infinite, and I would have much rather them toss out all of the old shit if it meant more new shit; I'm replaying ME3 in preparation for Andromeda, and my FemShep is rocking a Black Widow, biotic Lift and Overcharge, and running around with a Turian and an Asari, whereas in the new game, it seems like I can have my FemNotShep use a Black Widow with Lift and Overcharge while running around with a Turian and an Asari.

That's fine if there's a ton of new stuff on top of the old, but Eurogamer is saying we've seen all six new party members and only one of them isn't a returning race, and there's only two other new races besides. That doesn't make me confident in the amount of new shit we're actually going to see, especially story-wise, and I would much rather have them sacrifice all of the old weapons for more all new ones (because, let's be honest, there's only a handful of guns in ME3 that are actually different from each other. Most just are variations on damage/reload/clip size/weight.)

Of course, like you pointed out, there's three different categories of weapons and only one (or two if you count the fact that those are just ME1 weapons) should have the returning stuff in it, so perhaps I'm worried over nothing.

They weren't trying to make the overheat system sound like some new hotness. The literal quote was "(the remnant weapons) use the overheat system." If your interpretation of that is "These weapons use this amazing, kickass, and ENTIRELY NEW overheat mechanic," I don't know what to tell you.

Oh, I thought at 1:41 in that video he said "brand new" but if he actually said "remnant" than I stand corrected.

I want to play a Mass Effect game without overload and singularity about as much as I'd want to play a Zelda game without the Master Sword, a Star Wars game without force pushing and lightsabers, or a Halo game without the Battle Rifle.

Never played the first two Zeldas, or Four Swords Adventure, or Minish Cap, or Rogue Squadron, or X Wing vs Tie FIghter? You can have a great experience in those universes without relying on all of the established tropes. Hell, you could play all the way through ME1-3 without ever using singularity once, so those abilities aren't quite as core to ME as you make them seem to be.

I was just hoping for something very different this time around. It's cool if you're excited to see a lot of that return, I'm not trying to crush anyone's enthusiasm or anything like that. It's just with this radical setting change and the long development time, I expected to get away from gravel-voiced alien threats and the usual "you're the captain of a ship and here's your crew" framework. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to strand you far away from anything we've seen in the old games, and really shake the structure up.

Then again, I'm just complaining about what I wanted it to be (and something they never promised) rather than what it is, so there's that.

@ripelivejam: honestly i wanted a multiplayer only game that built on the hoard mode from 3. I dont want any competitive, but i am kinda done with mass effects story but i really liked the multiplayer. Hopefully they bring back the same type of co-op play from 3.

This looks pretty good in my opinion, but this has never been the aspect of the game I was concerned about.

So... the second video in the series is out. Being able to create power load-outs that are changeable on the fly is not the worst alternative to not being able to use more than three powers at a time.

In that part 2 video, that fiend fight looked really clumsy to me. Just circle around this big slow monster until it dies. The AI of your crew and enemies in part 1 looked just as bad.

You can swap profiles mid fight so you can use combat, tech, and biotic abilities swapping between the profiles as you want. I think I'll like this change.

I'm still unsure about losing the power wheel that was a staple of ME combat. They are keeping the weapon wheel but are now relying on your crew's AI to do their abilities. They chose to go for faster combat with your jetpack and movement speed and got rid of the focus on pausing and assigning powers. Can't say I approve of that decision.