Report: Mass Effect Put on Indefinite Hold

[Steven Bogos]

Report: Mass Effect Put on Indefinite Hold

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Sources are claiming that BioWare's Montreal studio has been downsized, and work on new Mass Effect titles has been put on ice.

Mass Effect: Andromeda was not as well received by critics and the public as its predecessors, and that reaction is reportedly having some lasting effects at BioWare. Sources close to Kotaku [https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/05/sources-bioware-montreal-downsized-mass-effect-put-on-ice-for-now/] have claimed that not only has the developer's Montreal studio been downsized, but the entire Mass Effect franchise has been put on ice for now.

BioWare Montreal is the studio responsible for Andromeda, and last month a number employees were transferred to the studio EA Motive, also based in Montreal, to work on Star Wars Battlefront 2. Those remaining at BioWare Montreal will help support BioWare's other games including the new intellectual property that was recently delayed [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/170322-New-BioWare-IP-Delayed].

Electronic Arts issued the following statement:

Our teams at BioWare and across EA put in tremendous effort bringing Mass Effect Andromeda to players around the world. Even as BioWare continues to focus on the Mass Effect Andromeda community and live service, we are constantly looking at how we're prepared for the next experiences we will create.

The teams in EA Worldwide Studios are packed with talent, and more than ever, we are driving collaboration between studios on key projects.

With our BioWare and Motive teams sharing studio space in Montreal, we have BioWare team members joining Motive projects that are underway. We're also ramping up teams on other BioWare projects in development.

There will be much more to come from BioWare in the years ahead.

Source: Kotaku [https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/05/sources-bioware-montreal-downsized-mass-effect-put-on-ice-for-now/]

Permalink

 

[Quazimofo]

Huh, thought Andromeda sold better than that.

Still don't really care though. There were several things they could have done to make me care about mass effect after the fuckawful ending of the trilogy, and they did none of them.

I'd say farewell to a once great series, but I already did that years ago. I'm only commenting because.... I'm really really bored, I guess.

 

[Cold Shiny]

GOOD! ME:A was a total dumpster fire. I love to watch hubris destroy stuff I hate.


On a more level headed note, I like the way the AAA Industry is responding to consumers.

"Assassin's Creed didn't sell well this time? Let's take a break."

"Andromeda wasn't received well? Let's focus on other stuff."

Its nice to know that they aren't tied down to something that clearly isn't going in a good direction.

And you never know, maybe they'll come back to these franchises with renewed vigor.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Good. They made a bad game, they deserve to get shit-canned as a result.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

So...although unanswered questions from ME:A are going to remain unanswered? Like...basically the entire game? Smooth, BioWare. I know Andromeda wasn't the greatest game, but I'd still like to know what happens. I was kind of hoping you guys would learn from the mistakes and strive to make it better--like you've been saying you were going to do--but apparently tucking your tails and running is the better choice.
Thanks. Thanks a lot.

 

[AD-Stu]

Well that's... disappointing, but not unexpected I guess. I wonder if they're still going to go through with DLC for ME:A, they clearly had it as part of their plan at launch.

Huh, thought Andromeda sold better than that.

I got the impression it was one of those projects that went on for so long and cost so much to develop that there was almost no reasonable level of sales that would make it "successful". Wasn't that the same problem Mankind Divided had too?

 

[Ukomba]

All I know is I didn't buy it. Primarily it was because I was hoping for them to run with the indoctrination theory and the cop out of going far into the future and a different galaxy alienated me from the series. Then when I saw the product after it came out it cemented my decision to not buy it.

*I MAY buy it if it were on sale for $10 or less*

 

[Shadowsetzer]

So...although unanswered questions from ME:A are going to remain unanswered? Like...basically the entire game? Smooth, BioWare. I know Andromeda wasn't the greatest game, but I'd still like to know what happens. I was kind of hoping you guys would learn from the mistakes and strive to make it better--like you've been saying you were going to do--but apparently tucking your tails and running is the better choice.
Thanks. Thanks a lot.

I'm pretty sure that that's standard SOP for video game companies, not just EA/Bioware. Why spend more money on an IP that's gotten middling-to-poor reactions two games in a row? They don't make them for the art, after all.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Geeze, seems a bit premature for EA to do what EA does. I haven't played this one and I likely won't for a while but the Mass Effect name is still going to draw a crowd. If this game finds its way onto the Switch or if I find it for super cheap once I get my hands on a PS4 (or less likely, a PC that can play games from this decade) I'll probably give it a shot. Despite the shortcomings of the third game, I still like Mass Effect...I just wish it was more RPG and less Action...like the first one.

 

[Igor-Rowan]

snip

I follow people on Twitter that have some insight in the inner workings of the industry, and it seems like a lot of things went wrong with Andromeda that are just now surfacing, the gist of it is that EA seems to be involved with every single problem that happened thus far, from the re-estructuring of the staff, to the funds, to the technology behind the animations, developers were not allowed to polish.

Liam Robertson hinted he knows a lot, but like us, is missing a lot of the details. In other words EA is taking Bioware on a trip to meet its friends Maxis, Pandemic, Bullfrog and the others.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

Well, this sucks. I was very happy to be surprised at how good Andromeda is, and sequels were clearly planned for it. If it really is over it will be a sad case of a good franchise killed by a shitty fan base, and that just upsets me.

 

[MHR]

Sometimes it's nice to see something bad fail. There was no fixing that ME3 ending, they pushed the envelope with a lot of PC-culture meddling that made it even harder to swallow, and it was just rushed ass.

It should have ended with 3.

 

[AD-Stu]

I got the impression it was one of those projects that went on for so long and cost so much to develop that there was almost no reasonable level of sales that would make it "successful". Wasn't that the same problem Mankind Divided had too?

For Mankind Divided it was more the retarded ideas that Square Enix kept forcing in, like DeusExTV or whatever that stupid marketing thing was called. (It was expensive and no one watched it.)

Like the people they <a href=https://www.masseffect.com/news/esa>sent to astronaut school as part of the marketing for ME:A? Can't have been cheap and don't imagine many people watched or cared about that either.

 

[votemarvel]

It was Dragon Age II and Mass Effect 2 which showed me that the Bioware I'd loved was fading away. They weren't bad games but it was clear that Bioware was moving away, whether by their choice or EA's, from the type of games that had gained them a following who believed that they could do no wrong.

Surely it can't just be a coincidence that 'hate' has built up around the company the further they move away from the type of games that made EA want to buy them in the first place.

 

[Imre Csete]

Well, this sucks. I was very happy to be surprised at how good Andromeda is, and sequels were clearly planned for it. If it really is over it will be a sad case of a good franchise killed by a shitty fan base, and that just upsets me.

No good Sir, there comes a time when you can no longer blame the Toxic Community? for everything bad.

This was EA cashing in on the brand name, with the B team handling a project that was way over their heads.

 

[lacktheknack]

Well, this sucks. I was very happy to be surprised at how good Andromeda is, and sequels were clearly planned for it. If it really is over it will be a sad case of a good franchise killed by a shitty fan base, and that just upsets me.

No good Sir, there comes a time when you can no longer blame the Toxic Community? for everything bad.

This was EA cashing in on the brand name, with the B team handling a project that was way over their heads.

He just said that he was surprised at how good it was.

Or did you just ignore that because...?

 

[Imre Csete]

Well, this sucks. I was very happy to be surprised at how good Andromeda is, and sequels were clearly planned for it. If it really is over it will be a sad case of a good franchise killed by a shitty fan base, and that just upsets me.

No good Sir, there comes a time when you can no longer blame the Toxic Community? for everything bad.

This was EA cashing in on the brand name, with the B team handling a project that was way over their heads.

He just said that he was surprised at how good it was.

Or did you just ignore that because...?

...I read the last part of his post about the fan base?

 

[DemomanHusband]

Well, this sucks. I was very happy to be surprised at how good Andromeda is, and sequels were clearly planned for it. If it really is over it will be a sad case of a good franchise killed by a shitty fan base, and that just upsets me.

No good Sir, there comes a time when you can no longer blame the Toxic Community? for everything bad.

This was EA cashing in on the brand name, with the B team handling a project that was way over their heads.

He just said that he was surprised at how good it was.

Or did you just ignore that because...?

To be fair, saying you were surprised by how good a game like ME:A was is like saying you were surprised by how dry the ocean is, it displays a blatant lack of objective understanding of your own experiences. ME:A is not a good game, not even a passable game with solid mechanics bogged down by bugs, it's through-and-through bad. Trying to pass off all the blame for the franchise's death onto 'the community' is just putting blinders on.

 

[AD-Stu]

Surely it can't just be a coincidence that 'hate' has built up around the company the further they move away from the type of games that made EA want to buy them in the first place.

I think that's a given at this point - you can blame EA for accelerating schedules, or lumping them with outsized marketing budgets that will be impossible to recoup, or for changing the focus of the games from RPG to action, and definitely for shoehorning in things like multiplayer and microtransactions or the change to Frostbite (IDK if that last one is a positive or negative - if nothing else, ME:A certainly looked pretty).

The Mass Effect production team shot themselves in the foot more than a few times too though. Not to keep bringing it up, but by far the biggest fanbase hate of the series has been the ME3 ending and that will always be on Bioware and Bioware alone: there's no way EA would have wanted that ending or the mess that came with it.