Games
The new game in an old series helps the universe feel alien again.
It’s fair to say that the Mass Effect trilogy defined a console generation. The sci-fi RPG series proved BioWare could create its own compelling universes away from LucasArts licenses and its addictive cover-shooter mechanics forced more traditional action studios to up their own games.
It comes as something of a surprise then to find that the team isn’t looking to the trilogy for Mass Effect: Andromeda, the first game in the series made for the new generation of consoles. Quite the reverse, in fact.
“[Protagonist Commander] Shepard was an almost stereotypical hero. He or she was your classic ‘been there, done that’ kinda guy or lady. Brave and tested. Trained as an elite soldier, in command of an elite group, ready to save the world. It worked, and we are very proud of this first Mass Effect trilogy, but I think as an industry we have evolved out of that," explains BioWare creative director Mac Walters during a panel around New York Comic Con at the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan recently. As the studio is keen to emphasise, Andromeda is not a sequel.
“Mass Effect: Andromeda is different because we want it to be different. Mass Effect already was an evolution from the Space Marine that just destroys everything without caring too much, without recognising the impact he has on his surrounding. But with Andromeda we want this to be a hero journey.
"You don't start as a hero, ready to face whatever lies ahead. You start as a fairly ordinary person, sure with some military training, but still, a lot to learn. You are not a natural-born leader, more a fish out of water. You start as a Pathfinder, not an Elite Soldier, and that's a totally different story."
When Mass Effect: Andromeda launches in March 2017 on PS4, Xbox One and PC, players will collectively walk out of a spaceship that we've slept in for a very, very long time. Because the Milky Way is hundreds of light years away from the Andromeda system, so the inhabitants of this spaceship were put into cryosleep.
Our job is to find a new home for the human race within the Andromeda Galaxy. Why? Reapers something something. Who knows? BioWare remains tight-lipped about possible links to the original story of the first trilogy.
What's clear though is that a Pathfinder is not first and foremost a military unit, but more an astronaut. If you take a closer look at the suit of our protagonist it's very different from Shepard’s, right?
The Ryder Family, new suits and an N7 Dad
Shepard’s suit was very dark and always looked combat ready. It was heavily focused on defense with a helmet design similar to the US Air Force. The pathfinder suit, on the other hand, looks more like something NASA would build. That’s intentional.
“It looks a bit more friendly by design," explains Walters. It's mostly white, while just the arms and parts of the leg are covered in blue. There’s a jetpack built-in though, which already shows why Mass Effect: Andromeda is different from ME3: it's much more about exploration, or how Walters phrases it: “We want to wow you again and build alien worlds that you want to spend time in. Not just for combat, but exploration. For me, personally, it's not just about writing an interesting hook for a character but putting her or him in interesting circumstances and seeing how they react to it."
In Andromeda we can choose between a female or male Ryder. (“Sorry, we do names a bit later. Well, you know us,” laughs Walters). But what we know for certain is that sister and brother are in the same Andromeda galaxy – just not necessarily on the same planet. Maybe they meet each other at one point and it becomes a family story, like Gears of War 4?
“Well, let's take it that way," says Walters, who also serves as lead writer for the game. “You've already met Daddy. He was the older guy in one of the first trailers. The one in the N7 [special forces] armour." Don’t be surprised if Daddy appears to save son or daughter (or both) during the campaign, in other words.
This feels like a real alien world again
Mass Effect 3 largely played out in your fairly classic space stations. That was okay, but a bit too predictable: here is a bridge for my sniper, there’s some more room to drop a singularity. Everyone dies, the end. It was a good game, but lacked the secret, alien-feeling worlds of the first Mass Effect.
Andromeda is now ready to bring that back in its first ever demo, which starts out in a base of a still unknown alien race. Maybe it's the Remnants, maybe it’s not; it's definitely a very advanced culture with high-tech at the core of their structures. It feels and looks great because cool metal and concrete (or whatever material these aliens might use) meet organic plants that spread through the entire bunker. Ferns with thick arms bust through the walls. They come in all forms and shapes, above and below.
There are yellow and orange points too, dancing around the base like they want to point out certain things. BioWare play a lot with lighting here and, even though we just see the occasional security drone that casually follows us, there are clear steps in the structure made for feet – they’re even highlighted in blue LEDs, which is more striking than it sounds.
After all, this is an entirely new galaxy; evidently, this race walks on two feet like we do, but their tech is way more advanced, as the floor appears before you as you walk on it. It's a weird, fascinating place and it becomes clear what BioWare wants to achieve here: we are indeed wowed and we don't just want to fight here. We want to explore. Use the jetpack, poke around, try and decipher some of the literally alien hieroglyphs.
Our suit also comes equipped with a scanner, which gives us some more information about these weird alien plants. “Related to Eos surface plants with deviations,” says the DNA analysis. It's a lifeform from the planet of Thallus, uses chlorophyll, but doesn't require water nor the sun, and is classified as “Riccia Remnantis”. That's cool on one hand, because we are stunned by this level of detail, but bad for our mission to find a planet that has water sources.
“We want you to enjoy spending time in these worlds", says Walters. “Andromeda is not just about planet hopping from one combat zone to the next, but real and meaningful exploration. We want to wake up this little scientist and diplomat in you that is interested in getting to know these races, how their societies operate and how their tech works."
To boldly go into HDR
We haven't seen much from Mass Effect: Andromeda on the current gen, but it looks stunning on a Playstation 4 Pro, especially in a 4K resolution of a super crisp 4096 x 2160 (the screenshots you see here are taken from a PS4 Pro). It's the same engine that powers Battlefield 1, Frostbite.
The textures are super-sharp to the point where we can literally count every screw on our suit. DICE and EA have built up a giant Frostbite specialist team that takes care of the engine and travels from studio to studio to make the most out of every game ( FIFA 17, for instance, is also powered by Frostbite).
With Andromeda, BioWare have a stunner on hand. With the PS4 Pro release on 10 November coming up fast, you can expect some more big reveals, but for now, Andromeda is the showcase and Walters has nothing but praise for the new HDR [High Dynamic Range] technology in the PS4 Pro (and Xbox One S).
“When you just walked into this hallway [in the game] a normal display would just wash and bloom everything out. You wouldn't be able to see this subtle shining that is lighting up the room just a tiny bit. Just enough so that you can see what's going on.
"We can now use the whole colour palette in a much more vivid way because there is so much more scale between different grays and whites. There is so much more contrast and we can play with that to set a certain atmosphere.
"It feels more secretive and mysterious, which I love. Like this subtle shimmering blue tone that lays over the base. In general, it's been awesome to work with the PS4 Pro, because more power brings more immersiveness and we can do so much more with shadows, lighting and reflections in the eye of our characters.”
“This is going to be powerful when it comes down to relationships because we can now portray how a person feels through eye movement and all these subtle little things. In general, we want relationships to be less formulaic, less about checklists and more about growing feelings in a very organic way, that feels natural and right. We know that our fans want that and we are ready to give it to them." Bring it on.
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