EA Delays New BioWare IP to FY 2019

[littlebunnyfuufuu]

The new, original IP from Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood developer BioWare

That's an...um, interesting point of reference.

Course I really dislike Sonic Chronicles, ranging from its story/lore (I don't know how you can break Sonic canon, but somehow Bioware managed it), to its gameplay (simplistic), to its ending (cliffhanger, followed by Sonic and Tails discussing how great Bioware is), to the fact that my headcanon dictates that Sonic Forces is the sequel to Chronicles (makes sense, shadup), but, well, okay.

"The design is stunning. Gameplay mechanics are excellent, and the action will be exhilarating. The game is built around a live service, and through our creative process, we decided to add more to the disruptive new social design for our players. To accommodate that, we are moving the launch date for this project into fiscal year '19" explained Wilson.

Why do I have a feeling it's going to be an MMO/MMO-lite/thing? I mean:

While the new BioWare title hasn't been officially announced yet, the game is described by EA and Wilson as more of an action-adventure game than a RPG. Now that we know that a "live service" is so crucial to the game, it hints towards it being an MMO. Perhaps something like Destiny.

You took the words right out of my mouth with the Destiny reference.

Haven't played Destiny, so can't comment, but it's...interesting, I guess. Bioware seems to be stepping out of their comfort zone either way.

Do we give a shit at this point?

A "live service" game from the people who put their name on Mass Effect Andromeda. Whoop-de-fuckin'-doo.

In Bioware's defence, the term "Bioware" is more a brand than a single development studio (there's actually multiple Bioware branches). The people behind Andromeda are unlikely to be the same ones behind the new IP.

You also have to admit that most people dont care/know about individual brances. It was created by Bioware, has thier name on it, and will Forever be attributed and remembered as being a Bioware game. They put thier name on it, reflecting that as a company they stand behind this product.

Bioware approved it

And in this day and age when hyping the crap out of something so they can shove those pre orders and season passes down our throats based on nothing but doctored footage that only shows the best pre rendered strung together footage is a totally normal and ok thing now. We Literally have nothing to go on but the Developer and game francises name, to intuit how a game will turn out-

So I will remember

Bioware approved it.

 

[darkrage6]

...2019? That's a hell of a delay, though at least they might avoid going toe-to-toe with World of Warcraft and Destiny 2's expansions. But still, jesus christ, something must've either broken horribly or they took a hard look at the response to ME:A and went 'you know, maybe we should polish this thing up a little more, make sure people can actually play this damn thing on day 1'.

Do we give a shit at this point?

A "live service" game from the people who put their name on Mass Effect Andromeda. Whoop-de-fuckin'-doo.

I think this is actually why Mass Effect Andromeda was such a... well, mess - from everything I heard all the experienced devs were pulled off ME:A to work on whatever this will be, leaving ME:A with the Bioware B-team.

...which means this game will still probably be a mess, but at least it'll be slightly less buggy than ME:A. And probably will have slightly better dialogue than 'sorry my face is tired'.

I thought Andromeda was pretty damn good.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

An action-adventure, rather than an RPG? So....Andromeda then?

 

[Hawki]

You also have to admit that most people dont care/know about individual brances. It was created by Bioware, has thier name on it, and will Forever be attributed and remembered as being a Bioware game. They put thier name on it, reflecting that as a company they stand behind this product.

Bioware approved it

And in this day and age when hyping the crap out of something so they can shove those pre orders and season passes down our throats based on nothing but doctored footage that only shows the best pre rendered strung together footage is a totally normal and ok thing now. We Literally have nothing to go on but the Developer and game francises name, to intuit how a game will turn out-

So I will remember

Bioware approved it.

I think that's being unfair for a number of reasons:

-EA gets to slap on the BioWare label. Remember BioWare Victory? If you don't, I don't blame you, because it was soon rebranded to "Victory Games," and was disbanded along with Generals 2.

-BioWare is unlikely to have complete control over what they develop. Publishers have the right to ask their in-house developers to work on whatever, regardless of how said developers feel. It doesn't make the game immune from criticism, but it can shift some of the blame from the developer to the publisher.

 

[Hawki]

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

Probably relevant.

 

[Cold Shiny]

Heck, they could put it on hold until 2079 for all the attention I'm going to give it.

Andromeda is proof that Bioware is never going to try ever again, and the company will hopefully fade into obscurity, if we're lucky.

 

[Dalisclock]

Heck, they could put it on hold until 2079 for all the attention I'm going to give it.

Andromeda is proof that Bioware is never going to try ever again, and the company will hopefully fade into obscurity, if we're lucky.

They'll be shuttered by EA long before that happens. Give it one more disappointing launch and EA will do what EA does.

 

[votemarvel]

Hopefully, Bioware releases a Mass Effect OT remaster with all the DLC and the combat system from ME3 used in ME1 and ME2. That, I think would make me love Mass Effect again.

The problem with putting ME3's combat into the first game is that it would require a redesign of the levels.

Cover is relatively spartan in the first game, with shields actually being effective and the enemies tied to the same dice-roll as Shepard. Compare that to the levels of 2 and 3, where there were more chest high walls than a Gears of War game, shields were as effective as wrapping yourself in wet tissue paper and every enemy (with the exception of heavy weapons) had pointpoint accuracy.

I really can't see EA seeing it as a viable option when backwards compatibility on consoles is gaining them new sales at no extra cost to them. Remaster? Why when there are a wealth of PC users making high resolution textures for free.

Plus would they really want to effectively discount all the DLC, when they can still get people to pay full price for it.

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.

 

[RobertEHouse]

Bioware is part of the beast that is EA, now ladies and gentlemen the best thing we can hope for is a quick death of it. It would be the most humane thing to do for that former great studio so it can void the long agonizing death that awaits it like others before.

Also side note, anytime you use the words "exhilarating action" you are trying to describe something which is normally a mundane, sound amazing.


"Stunning design" well that might be true, if you had never played a video game since the 70's. or is he talking about the box art?

In truth I think we all have a idea of exactly what we are getting in 2019 a MMO with Light RPG elements that have you using a gun of so sorts with a special ability. With of course a heavy dose of micro transactions placed in good measure so EA doesn't have to work hard.

 

[Dragonlayer]

And yet ME3's multiplayer was surprisingly awesome, so what the fuck happened!? Then again, I suppose they didn't have to practise much dialogue writing or facial animations for last stand combat scenarios....

Pretty much. Making a complete single player game from scratch, especially a story-driven one, is a whole different kettle of fish to making a self-contained co-op mode.

They just plain weren't ready for the big leagues.

It's a goddamn shame is what it is. Like Pearcinator above, I *really* wanted to like this game: I'm an absolute raging fanboy for the original trilogy, the kind of blind Geth heretic who didn't even mind the original ending to ME3 that much and found Extended Cut to have fixed all the issues I did have. I didn't expect Andromeda to light my world on fire, something I fully accepted simply because the original trilogy for me was such an amazing experience it's hard to see what could have topped it, and I've been forcing myself to remain aware of my *huge* biases (because it's not fair to scream "YOU NEW COMPANIONS AREN'T GARRUS AND TALI WURST GAEM EVA!!!"). It's also not a bad game per se, it's just....argh, such a let-down! The storyline takes a while to kick off but once the initial colonisation business is dealt with, things get quite engaging and I found a real sense of progress in watching the viability meter across the new galaxy improve with my every completed quest and established outpost. But the quality in writing bounces all over the place from "Heh, that was good!" to "Fucking seriously?", and the further I get, the more I realise I'm pushing to the end not because I'm gripped, but because I feel dutybound to complete a new Mass Effect game, if only to tell my friends that ultimately it's not worth it as a ME purchase. And as I overcome my self-forced liking, the new team's mistakes just become more and more noticeable: animation cock-ups and regular audio glitches (as in every hour something on the sound front fucks up for me) are most easily ignored when everything else is stellar, and sadly that's just not the case here.

Err....sorry to have talked your ears off with my pseudo-review, but I missed the release-day threads due to university!

 

[Dragonlayer]

And yet ME3's multiplayer was surprisingly awesome, so what the fuck happened!? Then again, I suppose they didn't have to practise much dialogue writing or facial animations for last stand combat scenarios....

Pretty much. Making a complete single player game from scratch, especially a story-driven one, is a whole different kettle of fish to making a self-contained co-op mode.

They just plain weren't ready for the big leagues.

i'm honestly surprised it's made by a completely new team... my issues with the game add up to "it feels way too much like the first game." in the way it feels to control (minus the jumping/jetpack), the deluge of side-quests and things to collect and skills to put your points into, inventory management (eeeuuugh), even the exploration... it gives me Mass Effect 1 flashbacks--and while that game has, in my opinion, the best story in the series, it's the one that (also in my opinion) has the worst gameplay.

i do think the complaints i've seen about Andromeda are way overblown (the animations aren't that bad and no more goofy than previous games, and the writing is fine so far besides the boring plot), but man... it's hard to go back to it when it feels like it's got all the same baggage of the original game(s) and not enough steps forward.

as for this new ip... it's obviously too early to judge one way or another. i love the lore of the Mass Effect universe, but who knows what genre this thing even is, so... we'll see, i guess.

That's actually a good point, I keep getting that impression too. It's almost paradoxical really, like a half-hearted collection of gameplay styles from each of the originals mashed together: combat that's halfway between 1 and 3, an improved yet worsened Mako substitute (handles better then the Mako but still feels very wonky and clumsy to me, and the lack of armaments - and inability to effectively run people over - turns field trips into plodding stop-out-shoot-loot-in repetition), just about every side-quest reduced to bog-standard fetch-quests (especially painful after all the times preview material said they were looking to Witcher 3 for deep and meaningful side-stuff) and so many goddamn pre-fab structures everywhere! I played 3 over and over and over and over again, but I can't see myself touching Andromeda after the first playthrough is done.

 

[Zhukov]

Err....sorry to have talked your ears off with my pseudo-review, but I missed the release-day threads due to university!

'Sall good. It's nice to find a view that's a bit more nuanced than "It's the best/worst! Shut up!"

I was in a somewhat similar position. I'd made my peace with the ME3 ending. I don't think the extended version fixed everything, but it at least gave a sense of closure which, upon reflection, was my main problem with the original ending.

So I was willing to meet MEA halfway and assess it on its own merits. I wasn't checking it out because it was a Mass Effect game, but because it was a sci-fi action-RPG with a decent premise.

The crummy animation and visual bugs didn't even bother me that much. I'd rather they weren't there, obviously, but I've dealt with worse. What killed it for me was the filler. You log back in and the game is all, "Time to drive around scanning for resources! Time to complete fetch quests for NPCs you will forget in 30 seconds!" Combine that with the lackluster characters and story pacing and I concluded that there are vastly more rewarding ways to spend one's leisure time.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Err....sorry to have talked your ears off with my pseudo-review, but I missed the release-day threads due to university!

'Sall good. It's nice to find a view that's a bit more nuanced than "It's the best/worst! Shut up!"

I was in a somewhat similar position. I'd made my peace with the ME3 ending. I don't think the extended version fixed everything, but it at least gave a sense of closure which, upon reflection, was my main problem with the original ending.

So I was willing to meet MEA halfway and assess it on its own merits. I wasn't checking it out because it was a Mass Effect game, but because it was a sci-fi action-RPG with a decent premise.

The crummy animation and visual bugs didn't even bother me that much. I'd rather they weren't there, obviously, but I've dealt with worse. What killed it for me was the filler. You log back in and the game is all, "Time to drive around scanning for resources! Time to complete fetch quests for NPCs you will forget in 30 seconds!" Combine that with the lackluster characters and story pacing and I concluded that there are vastly more rewarding ways to spend one's leisure time.

We unfortunately live in an age where 8/10 means unplayable dreck, and people will bombard review sections with -11/10s because they want to punish the developers and fans alike for some perceived injustice, whether game, social or politically motivated so yeah, I try to offer a more useful and balanced opinion. Andromeda is perfectly functional (glitches aside, I've at least never encountered anything game breaking), enjoyable enough in its own right and I've sunk 70 hours into it this far, it's just a big disappointment as a Mass Effect game, even when I had adjusted my expectations during development. It's a good enough sci-fi action RPG....but if it didn't have the ME label, I would never have been interested enough to check it out, and because it does have the ME label, it doesn't meet my standards! And then because of that, all the little things start to add up and bug me: the conversation wheel that never seems to represent what I want to say, and then makes male Ryder say something sassy and stupid (reminds me of DA:I where I actually reloaded several times to choose new conversation lines because my character had sounded like the world's biggest twat), that all the characters seem to be moulded from the same overly lighthearted and airy, "Dude, being shot at is like, the worst part of my day!" template, that side-quests have no impact to them, even when they're about arresting murderers, that so many NPCs have fuck-hideous Tumblrite haircuts, that lighting keeps making my Ryder turn bright orange (customisation is pathetic as well, I look like that Simpsons joke about a wrinkly 30+ years old man playing a teenage heartthrob, especially when Ryder smiles), that that that....

Andromeda will at least make my collection of ME games and goodies complete, but I can't help thinking that I should have picked up Nioh or Titanfall 2 instead.

 

[saluraropicrusa]

That's actually a good point, I keep getting that impression too. It's almost paradoxical really, like a half-hearted collection of gameplay styles from each of the originals mashed together: combat that's halfway between 1 and 3, an improved yet worsened Mako substitute (handles better then the Mako but still feels very wonky and clumsy to me, and the lack of armaments - and inability to effectively run people over - turns field trips into plodding stop-out-shoot-loot-in repetition), just about every side-quest reduced to bog-standard fetch-quests (especially painful after all the times preview material said they were looking to Witcher 3 for deep and meaningful side-stuff) and so many goddamn pre-fab structures everywhere! I played 3 over and over and over and over again, but I can't see myself touching Andromeda after the first playthrough is done.

yeah... personally, i felt that Mass Effect was the type of series that benefited from being less open world/galaxy, not more. it needs more tight focus on the story, in my opinion.

while i do really like some of the new characters (i'm a sucker for krogans so Drack is my favorite so far, the pilot, Kallo, is adorable, Jaal is really cool so far, Vetra's pretty badass--hell, i even like Peebee), that's not enough to keep my interest. i found that i'm just not hooked by the story (so far), and i'm not sure if that'll change. i don't find the Kett particularly compelling, i'm disappointed at the recycling of the "mysterious ancient alien civilization/technology," and the whole colonization angle isn't much in the way of motivation for me. nor is the equally recycled "you, player character, are the special human that everyone's going to answer to because you're so special."

i'm still disappointed we couldn't play as an alien in the story. ):

 

[Ishigami]

Hhmm service hu? Not so thrilled about that. Sounds like Destiny/Division stuff. Both games disappointed me.

 

[BrawlMan]

Lets translate this from corporate:

"The design is stunning.

Stunningly bad but who cares, customers will just bicker with eachother over it as usual. Free marketing!

Gameplay mechanics are excellent,

we have brutal in your face 'incentives' for microtransactions that are sure to rake in tons of cash

and the action will be exhilarating.

we're making a shooter cause we can't cope with RPGs anymore.

The game is built around a live service,

Game will be relient on our servers so once new project hits shelves we pull the plug and shmucks have no choice but to pull out their wallets and line up. Money!

and through our creative process, we decided to add more to the disruptive new social design for our players. To accommodate that, we are moving the launch date for this project into fiscal year '19" explained Wilson.

we need more money on marketing and time to actually start creating the game.

Sounds about right. Why do people even bother buying from EA anymore? The last game I purchased from them was NFS: Rivals Complete Edition and never looked back. Making the "reboot" online only hurt their sales, as they did not make nowhere near as much as Rivals.

 

[Dragonlayer]

That's actually a good point, I keep getting that impression too. It's almost paradoxical really, like a half-hearted collection of gameplay styles from each of the originals mashed together: combat that's halfway between 1 and 3, an improved yet worsened Mako substitute (handles better then the Mako but still feels very wonky and clumsy to me, and the lack of armaments - and inability to effectively run people over - turns field trips into plodding stop-out-shoot-loot-in repetition), just about every side-quest reduced to bog-standard fetch-quests (especially painful after all the times preview material said they were looking to Witcher 3 for deep and meaningful side-stuff) and so many goddamn pre-fab structures everywhere! I played 3 over and over and over and over again, but I can't see myself touching Andromeda after the first playthrough is done.

yeah... personally, i felt that Mass Effect was the type of series that benefited from being less open world/galaxy, not more. it needs more tight focus on the story, in my opinion.

while i do really like some of the new characters (i'm a sucker for krogans so Drack is my favorite so far, the pilot, Kallo, is adorable, Jaal is really cool so far, Vetra's pretty badass--hell, i even like Peebee), that's not enough to keep my interest. i found that i'm just not hooked by the story (so far), and i'm not sure if that'll change. i don't find the Kett particularly compelling, i'm disappointed at the recycling of the "mysterious ancient alien civilization/technology," and the whole colonization angle isn't much in the way of motivation for me. nor is the equally recycled "you, player character, are the special human that everyone's going to answer to because you're so special."

i'm still disappointed we couldn't play as an alien in the story. ):

Agreed, I can't really think of anything in Andromeda that made me go "Wow!" on account of the open world mechanics. Quite the opposite in fact, the opening up of the galaxy for exploration was ultimately pointless because scanning 50 uninhabitable worlds is boring as fuck, *and* the pacing of side-quests is made even more painful by dividing them into multiple stages of "Fly to a new world, talk to someone for 50 seconds, fly to another world, do it again".

Eeeeh, none of the new companions really grabbed me, though none earned significant ire from me; they all just felt rather similar with endless lighthearted snark regardless of how serious the situation was (sometimes quite entertaining, sometimes infuriating). I'm also in agreement that the Kett are pretty bland, even after their "shocking" plot reveal, though I do like the look and sounds of the Remnant, poor man's Geth that they are: the Architect boss battles do have a sense of epic confrontation them, especially when you scan their husks in high-orbit and they are only damaged, not destroyed. I wouldn't mind the recycling of the ancient precursor angle so much if they actually did anything with it, but nope, it's just those bloody glyph puzzles! And as for being the brand new Pathfinder, that could have real potential from stumbling into a position of enormous responsibility, without any preparation, real training or allies, forced to make impossible decisions in a hostile galaxy - but aside from Mrs Tired Face, everyone rapidly falls into line behind Ryder who can do no wrong. There's a bit where you have to make a moral choice that impacts Drack, the decision I made got him almost foaming at the mouth in rage and about to jump ship....then five minutes later we're talking like best friends again, so so much for impossible decisions!

Indeed, that could have been a far more interesting perspective to play from! Let me conquer the new galaxy as the glorious Geth Prime!