Mass Effect: Andromeda was a disappointment to series fans for several reasons, and among the biggest ones was how few new alien species players encountered in the game. In spite of the fact that you were travelling to an entirely new galaxy and expected to run into many new alien races, with just the Angara and the Kett, Mass Effect: Andromeda had only two new ones (or three, if you want to get technical about it and count the Remnant as well). Of those, the Kett weren't really a separate alien race either.
According to several former BioWare devs who recently spoke with The Gamer, a lot of that was down to budget cuts. Former BioWare writer Chris Hepler stated that he had ideas for "five or six" new alien races while Andromeda was in the early stages of its development, while fellow ex-BioWare writer Jo Berry also pitched "a few". Former senior writer Neil Pollner also had his own ideas.
"But we were only given the budget for two new species, plus the Remnant," Pollner said. "Not to mention that we couldn't even include all the Milky Way species. And we weren't going to be able to let you travel throughout the galaxy. This meant that we had to develop the story around some pretty glaring inorganic limitations. So, not only did you get something that felt (and was) much smaller than what you got before, almost everyone playing the game probably had something that they really liked about Mass Effect that just wasn't there."
In fact, the budget cuts and limited scope of development was a hindrance in other areas as well. Pollner mentioned that there were ideas for having a dynamic system in place that would inject much greater complexity into the idea of the players, as Ryder, having their first contact with the new alien species and then trying to communicate with them.
"Ryder the explorer should have a challenging and dynamic first contact experience," Pollner said. "Instead, you're almost immediately killing kett. So, some very basic pillars just weren't lining up."
"That first contact expectation I mentioned? We'd developed ideas for how the player would navigate that," he added. "We were working on a process for the Milky Way species to learn how to even communicate with the new alien species. We were developing several additional species for the new galaxy, as well as several different storylines for why the expedition had been undertaken. Most of that pre-development work ended up not being used."
Interestingly enough, something else that limited the scope of development and creativity as far as creating new alien races was concerned was considerations for cosplays, with the decision being made to stick with humanoid designs for new species.
"I remember some early concepts that were pretty out there," former design director Dorian Kieken said. "One of the strengths of the original Mass Effect trilogy is that you can actually cosplay most of the alien characters – except the Hanar, although I wouldn't underestimate the creativity of some cosplayers. The intention in Mass Effect: Andromeda was to introduce new races that would still be in the realm of cosplay, which is probably why more crazy concepts were abandoned."
"In the early development of the game, we explored a lot of new species," Kieken added. "I'm not sure why we settled on the specific number that were in the final game, but my guess would be a mix of production reasons and having a reasonable amount of races to deal with knowing we were already bringing quite a few from the Milky Way as well."
It's disappointing to see the discrepancies between what the original ambitious vision for Mass Effect: Andromeda was and what it actually ended up becoming. At the end of the day, it was a solid enough game in its own rights (especially once the technical issues were ironed out), but there's no doubting that it didn't come close to matching the highs of its predecessors.
Hopefully, the upcoming Mass Effect 4 will be able to live up to expectations. When that game will launch is anyone's best guess- it's probably several years away at this point, though.
Meanwhile, we do have Mass Effect: Legendary Edition coming up in May, so series fans definitely have something to look forward to.
EA recently re-iterated that Battlefield 6 will release this Holiday, while also confirming that the shooter will be getting its full reveal in the Spring, but though official information is still a ways off, multiple leaks over the past few months have revealed several potential details on the game. Many of the most prominent leaks have come from Tom Henderson (aka TheLongSensation), who has a rather solid track record, and recently, Henderson uploaded a new video that spilled the beans on plenty of new details, many of which fans of the series will be quite excited about.
Destruction has long been a defining hallmark of the Battlefield franchise, and it seems DICE are looking to take that a step further with the next entry. Henderson claims that in Battlefield 6, players can look forward to dynamic, large-scale destruction effects. Allegedly, pretty much every building in the game's maps will be destructible, barring the ones that will be tied to objectives. Destruction will also be dynamic, which means how the buildings fall and what level of damage you see will vary depending on how they've been hit.
Henderson also claims that Battlefield 6 will see the return of 4-player squads, and that multiple squads can be included within a single unit. You can, of course, still expect to see the Assault, Engineer, Support, and Recon classes. Something else he adds is that Battlefield 6 will also have a free-to-play mode – which will most likely be battle royale – to compete with Call of Duty: Warzone. This is something that Henderson has mentioned in previous leaks as well.
Battle passes are also supposedly in, with seasons that will last 8-10 weeks. In addition, complete cross-play is also going to be featured across all platforms, which means players playing on different generations of consoles can also play with and against each other. Most recently, Henderson claimed in a leak that Battlefield 6 was going to be a cross-gen release, with a separate team within DICE handling the last-gen version of the game. Read more on that through here.
Of course, it goes without saying that all of this should be taken with a grain of salt. As I mentioned previously, Henderson does have a pretty solid track record with leaks, but until we hear official details from EA, it's best to err on the side of caution with any leaks.
Microsoft Were Considering Gearbox Acquisition Before Embracer Deal – Rumour
It was recently announced that Embracer Group, who has been on a major acquisition spree for some time now, have added Borderlands developer Gearbox to their internal portfolio in a deal worth $1.3 billion. It seems, however, that if things had gone a little differently, Gearbox could have ended up being bought out by someone else.
Xbox insiders Brad Sams and Jez Corden took to Twitter not long after the announcement of the Embracer and Gearbox deal to claim that originally, Microsoft were looking into acquiring Gearbox to add to their portfolio first party studios. The deal, of course, wasn't completed, and Gearbox instead ended up signing on with Embracer instead.
Xbox boss Phil Spencer said not long after the announcement of the ZeniMax deal (which is not a step closer to being finalized) that they are still looking to add more developers to their lineup, and that's something that recent leaks and reports have re-iterated as well.
As far as Gearbox is concerned, it was recently confirmed that the developer would continue to work with 2K Games for the Borderlands series in spite of their Embracer Group deal. Read more on that through here.
This is true.
— Jez (@JezCorden) February 3, 2021
Monster Hunter Rise Wasn't Originally Going to Have Seamless Open World Maps
Monster Hunter World was a major step forward for its series in many ways, and many of those leaps forward were focused on the tech behind the game. For instance, where the series had previously always had areas within its maps separated by loading screens, in World, every single map was completely seamless.
While that's going to continue in the upcoming Monster Hunter Rise, that wasn't originally the plan. Speaking in a recent interview with IGN, the game's director Yasunori Ichinose said that early on during the game's development, owing to the Switch's technical limitations, Capcom had planned on having areas within maps separated by loading screens. As development progressed though, the developers saw that having a seamless map without any immersion breaking transitions was crucial- a belief that was driven even further by the success of Monster Hunter World.
"On the Nintendo Switch, we thought it would be difficult to preserve visual quality and detail in a sandbox environment," said Ichinose. "However, as development progressed we started realizing that open environments had become more and more the norm for blockbuster titles, and the success of World inspired us to take on the challenge."
Monster Hunter Rise is due out exclusively for the Nintendo Switch on March 26. Though it will only be releasing for the Switch for now, leaks have suggested that the game will eventually make its way over to PC. Read more on that through here.
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury Shows 9 Minutes of New Co-op Gameplay
Co-op is, of course, a big part of the experience in Super Mario 3D World, and that's very much going to be the case in the game's Switch release as well. The base game is adding support for online co-op, and even the Captain Toad levels will now allow 4 players to play together. In addition to that, the new content in Bowser's Fury will also allow two player co-op.
Ahead of the game's imminent launch, Nintendo have released a meaty gameplay video to show what players can expect from the co-op in Bowser's Fury. It will see the second player controlling Bowser Jr, who can hover around and hit enemies with his paintbrush and help Mario get inaccessible power-ups. Bowser Jr's gameplay is clearly less emphasized while compared to the first player (sort of like Cappy in Super Mario Odyssey's co-op). Check it out below.
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury launches for the Nintendo Switch on February 12. Check out details on its frame rate and resolution targets through here.
Resident Evil Village Will "Virtually Eliminate Load Times" Thanks to PS5's SSD
Though Resident Evil Village is going to be a cross-gen release, it seems Capcom are making sure to leverage the new and more powerful hardware of the PS5 and the Xbox Series X/S to deliver a technically impressive experience (which, looking at other recent Resident Evil releases, isn't surprising in the slightest). It has, for instance, been previously confirmed that the game will incorporate the DualSense's unique features in its gameplay, and now, the developers have spoken of a few more enhancements as well.
Speaking in a recent interview with Official PlayStation Magazine (issue 185), producer Pete Fabiano said that Capcom are looking to leverage the PS5's SSD in "virtually eliminating load times allowing players to keep the feeling of immersion."
Another PS5 feature that the game is going to make use of is Tempest, the game's 3D audio engine. Fabiano briefly spoke about this as well, stating, "You'll be fully bathed in audio from all directions."
Meanwhile, it's also been previously confirmed that on the PS5 (and on Xbox Series X), the survival horror title will feature support for dynamic 4K, as well as ray-tracing.
Resident Evil Village launches on May 7 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC. In this same interview, Fabiano also confirmed that the game will be "much larger" than 2017's Resident Evil 7.
Final Fantasy 16 Ranks in Top 3 of Famitsu Most Wanted Charts
Final Fantasy's got a lot coming up in the foreseeable future, from the sequel to Final Fantasy 7 Remake to the next expansion for Final Fantasy 14. The next mainline entry in the series, Final Fantasy 16, is also in the works, and it goes without saying, hugely anticipated. As it has for a number of weeks running now, it's ranked quite high in the latest weekly Famitsu charts for the most highly anticipated upcoming games, taking third place.
Monster Hunter Rise is on top once more, while Tales of Arise has climbed up to second place. Resident Evil Village and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's upcoming sequel at No. 4 and No. 5 have held on to their places from last week, with Bravely Default 2, out in under a month now, has jumped up to sixth place.
Several other upcoming Switch exclusives, including the likes of Shin Megami Tensei 5, Bayonetta 3, and Rune Factory 5 also figure in the top 10.
You can check out the full top 10 below. All votes were cast by Famitsu readers between January 14 and January 20.
1. [NSW] Monster Hunter Rise – 1,055 votes
2. [PS4] Tales of Arise – 808 votes
3. [PS5] Final Fantasy 16 – 792 votes
4. [PS5] Resident Evil Village – 620 votes
5. [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 – 538 votes
6. [NSW] Bravely Default 2 – 495 votes
7. [NSW] Shin Megami Tensei 5 – 445 votes
8. [NSW] Bayonetta 3 – 426 votes
9. [NSW] Rune Factory 5 – 360 votes
10. [NSW] Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town – 246 votes
Resident Evil Village Will be "Much Larger" Than Resident Evil 7
Horror games don't necessarily need to be the longest, but at around 8-10 hours long, Resident Evil 7 was definitely a bit on the shorter side. With its upcoming sequel though, it seems Capcom are looking to craft a much meatier adventure.
Speaking recently in an interview with Official PlayStation Magazine (issue 185), when asked about how long players can expect Resident Evil Village to be, though producer Pete Fabiano was unwilling to put a number on the game's runtime in terms of hours, he did say that it's going to be "much larger" than Resident Evil 7.
Previous rumours have suggested that Resident Evil Village is going to put a large emphasis on exploration, and that it's going to be the longest game in the series to be built on the RE Engine (which includes the remakes for Resident Evil 2 and 3 as well). Recently, the game's map was also leaked, and it definitely suggested a much larger experience.
Resident Evil Village is due out on May 7 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
Final Fantasy 14 is Coming to PS5, Beta Launches in April
Final Fantasy 14 is going strong, and is going to go stronger still for some time to come, with Square Enix having announced Endwalker, the MMORPG's fourth major expansion. Endwalker launches this Fall, but before that, Final Fantasy 14 will also see another major landmark with a PS5 release.
As recently announced, when Final Fantasy 14 launches on the PS5, it will feature 4K support, faster load times, and better frame rates. Square Enix haven't said exactly what performance, but they are promising "significantly improved frame rates". An open beta for the game is also kicking off on April 13. Additionally, when the game does launch in full on the PS5, the free trial will, of course, also be available.
Final Fantasy 14 is currently available on PS4 and PC. Square Enix has also been in talks with Microsoft for an Xbox release of the MMORPG, but the same is yet to be confirmed.
Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker Announced, Launches This Fall
Square Enix have revealed the fourth major expansion for Final Fantasy 14. Called Endwalker, the expansion will see players travelling to "the far reaches of Hydaelyn"- and even the moon. According to Square Enix, Endwalker will serve as the conclusion of the current narrative arc in the MMORPG, which was kicked off all the way in the beginning when the game relaunched with A Realm Reborn. In addition, the new expansion will also set up new stories and arcs for the game's future.
In addition to new story content and new areas to explore and traverse, Endwalker will also have plenty other additions for players to dive into. Producer Naoki Yoshida has confirmed that new jobs are being added in, which includes the healer class, Sage, as well. Players can also expect new dungeons, update to the Gold Saucer, a new Tribe called the Arkasodara, new gear and crafting recipes, and an increased level cap, which will go from 80 to 90.
A CG trailer revealing Endwalker and giving players a glimpse of some major narrative elements can be seen below. Endwalker will be releasing this Fall.
Meanwhile, if you're planning on getting into Final Fantasy 14 for the first time, you can check out its free trial, which includes the base game and the Heavensward expansion.