While everyone was arguing over the overblown mess that was Mass Effect 3’s ending (or, endings I guess), smarter people were instead getting lost in the game’s brilliant multiplayer. The wave-based co-operative mode allowed you and three other friends to party up and use the game’s weapons and powers against increasingly stronger foes – in a formulaic manner that somehow punched above its weight. Andromeda’s version then doesn’t look too different, which isn’t a bad thing at all.
A new entry in to the series of gameplay videos for the RPG has given us our first look at the multiplayer component to Andromeda, which will be sprawled across five maps. Players will again party up with another three humans, with each getting the option to customise their character from 24 different bodies of varying races. Players will also have access to a variety of weapons, with the 40 gun-strong locker bouncing between type, origin and situational awareness.
Players will also have access to specific boost, which will temporarily allow them to do more damage, produce different elemental outputs with weapons and all that jazz. The maps (or at least, the one in the footage) seem suitably claustrophobic, forcing the team to shift position regularly as newer, more perceptive enemies enter the battlefield. The trailer would have you believe that a well-balanced team is more effective, but we all know how that shapes out in the real world.
Players will be able to change their loadouts according to the play style that suits them best, in line with the class fluid nature of the single-player component too. Your role is determined by what you equip, which gives you some flexibility between games. Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer was just a neat little distraction that often resulted in hilarious nail-biting games, so I wouldn’t expect much more than that From Andromeda (in case you’re thinking this is a multiplayer mode to take extremely seriously).
Mass Effect Andromeda is out on March 21st.
Last Updated: March 15, 2017
Captain JJ
March 15, 2017 at 08:59
So people who don’t like co-op aren’t smart?
Just wait until @disqus_DoEH3TsffU:disqus hears about this!
RinceThis
March 15, 2017 at 09:23
They aren’t! You missed out the other day dude!
Captain JJ
March 15, 2017 at 09:25
Haha. Yea man. Would’ve loved to have been there 🙁
RinceThis
March 15, 2017 at 09:29
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a06160879d8561533f3b9815a006d7453220554f26d4deee0444a34d3dd2e1ff.jpg
Captain JJ
March 15, 2017 at 10:23
Awww 🙁
miaau
March 15, 2017 at 11:06
Man, I still want to meet all the peoples that get together, but time, leaving wife and kids at home, find them something to do, must be a perfect storm for it to happen.
I am a genuinely nice guy, I promise. Mostly.
Alien Emperor Trevor
March 15, 2017 at 11:10
I just assumed he meant the smartest people didn’t fuss about the ending or waste time with the MP.
miaau
March 15, 2017 at 11:11
I did not have to assume that (“the smartest people didn’t fuss about the ending or waste time with the MP”.)t, as I understand that to be an absolute truth.
http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/absolute-truth.htm
Absolute Truth – Inflexible Reality
“Absolute truth” is defined as inflexible reality: fixed, invariable, unalterable facts. For example, it is a fixed, invariable, unalterable fact that there are absolutely no square circles and there are absolutely no round squares.
Ottokie
March 15, 2017 at 09:03
Call of Duty meets XCOM
HairyEwok
March 15, 2017 at 09:38
Only difference is you play as the aliens as well now 😛
Ottokie
March 15, 2017 at 09:39
I’m still trying to get through ME 1’s intro
Sageville
March 15, 2017 at 09:48
Put it down, pick up ME 2 and chose life…
Ottokie
March 15, 2017 at 09:53
I did. Went in 2 hours and could not go on. Boring dialog and boring story.
HairyEwok
March 15, 2017 at 09:57
I’ve seen some Andromeda gameplay…
I wont give any spoilers but it seems that they do touch on some things that happen in ME2 and ME3. Fortunate enough Bioware does explain the stuff in short dialog when talking to certain races.
Sageville
March 15, 2017 at 15:25
Cannot relate…
miaau
March 15, 2017 at 11:05
ME 1’s intro, all those years ago, had both my wife and gripped to find out more of the story, we loved it.
BUT, we are both (more me, but both) SCI-FI people, who enjoy a good story set in sci-fi land.
And it is a good story, ultimately.
RinceThis
March 15, 2017 at 09:21
Win! Looking forward to this so much! Please don’t suck. Like Darryn. Don’t suck like Darryn, please!
DBL_ZA
March 15, 2017 at 09:36
Nobody sucks like Darryn ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Captain JJ
March 15, 2017 at 10:27
Darryn doesn’t suck. He’s the master of comic book write ups! You soulless wench! 😛
Grid10ck
March 15, 2017 at 09:29
So who at CriticalHit is getting the game early through origin access and giving us a mini review of the game? I dunno if you have read the Rock Paper Shotgun review, but that guy clearly can’t give a unbiased opinion, the entire piece sounds like it was written with his balls in a vice.
RinceThis
March 15, 2017 at 09:30
lol
Kromas Ryder
March 15, 2017 at 09:34
I have to agree. I read quite a few opinion pieces and nearly all of them said the game was great and the side quests felt amazing.
However everyone agrees also that Sara Ryder animations are stupidly terrible. And as a former Femshep player I am sad.
Kromas Ryder
March 15, 2017 at 09:35
I have put hundreds of hours into ME3 co-op. Glad to say I will do the same with this one.
HairyEwok
March 15, 2017 at 09:41
Unrelated to co-op but related to ME: Andromeda. Have you guys seen the facial expressions and lip syncing when talking to the many alien races. Holy hell they did a fantastic job on that department!
Craig "CrAiGiSh" Dodd
March 15, 2017 at 09:56
AMPT!!!
miaau
March 15, 2017 at 11:03
Still not bought the game……
EA is seemingly going to give me a 10 hour demo, so will judge based on that.
Also, money is ridiculously tight, due to circumstances outside my control, else I would have bought long ago. Sigh. no FOMO purchases, ok?
HairyEwok
March 15, 2017 at 12:12
By the way this game gets released 1 day after my birthday sooooo…. PLEASE AND THANK YOU!
Banana Jim's Final Form!
March 16, 2017 at 09:03
That disgusting click-bait rag, Rock, Paper, Shotgun wrote a damning first impressions of the early hours of the game, and PC Gamer did the same thing. It sounds like Andromeda is Mass Effect’s Dragon Age 2 (and Inquisition).