Mass Effect Lead Designer Speaks Out
When we reviewed Mass Effect Andromeda we noted the technical missteps, yet at the end of the day we felt the fantastic combat and strong story points far outweighed the issues. Check out our full video review below. Today, we learned that lead designer Ian Frazier had gone on record about some of the negative responses to some elements of the sci-fi sequel.
Released in March, Andromeda was heavily criticized for some strange animations, its lip-syncing and other bugs. The issues have since been addressed in a patch; however, the after effects of the issues are still felt today. When Frazier was asked about the criticisms and how it’s affected BioWare’s post-launch plans for the game, he said an early version of Andromeda was supposed to be a “giant procedural game”.
He said:
“Our intent was to always be flexible because you don’t know how fans are going to react. You don’t know what they’re going to get super-attached to, positively or negatively. So we went in thinking ‘here’s some stuff we’re definitely going to do, and then here’s some stuff we might do, maybe, let’s see how the fans react. So to a large extent I think things are sort of on track, with regards to post-launch plans. Obviously the particulars change, but the overall timetable doesn’t.”
In terms of the negative feedback, he said this:
“As far as my personal reaction. I won’t speak for the other guys, but I spent quite a bit of my time on Twitter and various forums and such. And I won’t lie, it’s hard. It’s hard to see the criticisms, some of the challenges that are out there. It’s difficult because we do want to help, so you’re out on Twitter and forums and stuff trying to troubleshoot issues or give people a hint on something they’re struggling with. But to do that, to help the fans and try to absorb the feedback to better steer what we do next, you have to wade through a lot of crap. And that part is not a lot of fun.”
Despite the negativity, Frazier still appreciates the ability to talk directly to the people playing his games. He went on to say:
“Don’t get me wrong. I don’t enjoy the occasional gut punch, but on balance I think it’s really valuable that things have gone this way. Our ability to get feedback from fans on such a broad spectrum is great. For example, we used to rely heavily on our forums, but now we’ve got several channels of information coming in. You just get a much larger pool, because when you’re limiting it to one channel or two, it self-selects to an extent. You’re only going to get feedback from people who’ll take the time to become a member of that forum, or what have you. It’s been nice having a broad assortment of people give us feedback – good and bad – through channels like Twitter and Facebook.”
Mass Effect Andromeda released in late March and is available on Xbox One, PS4 and PC.