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[Nydius]

Fantastic read as usual. I sort of expected that an exposé like this was going to come out after the critical reception and the general feeling of "what the fuck happened with this game?" by players and fans.

I had long suspected that Frostbite was the major issue behind the game's troubles but I chalked it up to the team not knowing how to use it. Turns out my hypothesis was only half correct - it was both inexperience with the engine AND severe limitations of the engine itself. Frostbite is great for shooters, racers, and even sports games but it's clearly out of its depth when it comes to open world games with vastly different terrains and textures, complex RPG mechanics, and detailed animations. If anything, this whole episode between DA:I and now ME:A have exposed Frostbite's weaknesses and the fact that EA keeps pushing it as little more than marketing. Despite being impressed with how it improved FIFA17, "Built with Frostbite" has lost almost all meaning to me.

Like others, I enjoyed a bit of schadenfreude reading the procedurally generated planet concept and how they realized it simply wasn't fun no matter what they tried to do, something that Sean Murray and Hello Games never seemed to discover while they kept making lofty promises and delaying No Man's Sky. I wonder if there were some higher ups in Bioware Montreal who watched the release of NMS and its subsequent controversies and thought "Phew, dodged a bullet there!".

My biggest (and most depressing) take away from this is that between ME:A's issues and reviews and NMS's controversies and negative word of mouth, it's unlikely that we'll ever see an large scale space exploration RPG in the future. Destiny will be the only thing close and, unfortunately, Destiny's scale just isn't up to the challenge. It could be if Bungie really worked at it, but I think Bungie is content with making a shooter first and RPG second whereas BioWare wanted RPG first with shooting second.

The Mass Effect franchise is probably dead for the rest of this generation and will likely only ever be revitalized sometime next gen when someone gets a bug up their ass to remaster the old ME Trilogy for modern 4K+ UHD visuals. A sad ending to a franchise that I considered, ending issue aside, genre defining last generation.

 

[Garlador]

Mass Effect deserved better.

Too many Renegade Interrupts during development.

 

[JeffZero]

Great read, Jason. The bits I knew about ahead of time all correlate with what you've said and you've expanded upon them wonderfully -- I didn't feel comfortable asking too many questions about the rough development with the folks I spoke with because it's probably a sore spot.

You added a ton I didn't know about, too, and it's great that it's all public knowledge now. This is the Dragon Age 2 of the Mass Effect franchise, minus the fact that the next entry isn't in immediate pre-production. I can only hope to see the rich Mass Effect universe again in some fulfilling fashion during the 2020s.

 

[Cthuluhoop]

Mass effect isn't dead... Andromeda still sold well and sales are above metacritic scores in regards to deciding whether to permanently cancelling a franchise.

It's just been shelved. Possibly until the other Bioware team is freed up from DA and Dylan. Mass effect is still a money maker in the eyes of EA.

 

[PnCIa]

Frostbite was also a major reason why the last Command & Conquer failed so horribly.
Maaaaaaybe it doesnt make sense to shove unsuited technology into every project just so that you a "powered by frostbite" logo is on the box.

 

[Basileus777]

I wonder if they could have shipped a good game if they hadn't started the project chasing futile dreams of making ME1's exploration good. The whole premise of the project seems to have put the entire game off the rails from the beginning.

 

[Dysun]

Great read, definitely paints a good picture of what was going on behind the curtain.

 

[ElFly]

the article was p great, but doesn't touch much in something that mystifies me; why the animation in DA:I was not as bad?

was it just done in a completely different branch of frostbite

 

[Man Called Aerodynamics]

Good read. I still like the game, and I appreciate that they wanted to do something different and realize untapped potential, but ultimately I would have been happier with a game that just cloned ME2/3's gameplay with current gen graphics and a new story.

 

[General Lee]

Great article! Pretty much what I expected from what I had previously read about the procedural stuff and staff changes. Ultimately it does seem like they just didn't have a solid vision of things in pre-production and wasted two years prototyping their own NMS.

I think listening to fans about exploration, set in future, open world etc. was probably not a good idea. The First Contact War idea was actually something I thought up too on my own as a great alternative, and that could easily fit the exploration part too. The problem with that would of course be that it doesn't really progress the story of ME universe, which is part of why people wanted the game to be set in the future. Setting the new game in another galaxy 600 years in the future made the idea of it being a "sequel" meaningless since the ties to the trilogy would be weak at best. First Contact would end up having far more relevance to the trilogy, and could even use some of the characters easily. I think it could still be done next, but perhaps that would be the death knell to Andromeda sequels.

At this point DA4 is the only thing I'm remotely interested in from BW, but that's probably still years off. Dylan seems to be a Destiny-like half-MMO, and goes directly against what I want from Bioware.

 

[Dynasty]

I had long suspected that Frostbite was the major issue behind the game's troubles but I chalked it up to the team not knowing how to use it. Turns out my hypothesis was only half correct - it was both inexperience with the engine AND severe limitations of the engine itself. Frostbite is great for shooters, racers, and even sports games but it's clearly out of its depth when it comes to open world games with vastly different terrains and textures, complex RPG mechanics, and detailed animations. If anything, this whole episode between DA:I and now ME:A have exposed Frostbite's weaknesses and the fact that EA keeps pushing it as little more than marketing. Despite being impressed with how it improved FIFA17, "Built with Frostbite" has lost almost all meaning to me.

EA switching all there studios to Frostbite is them playing the long game. Yes in the short term it has caused issues but after Andromeda I imagine Frostbite is much more capable of developing a open world RPG. I fully expect Bioware Project Dylan to have a much smoother development cycle.

 

[JeffZero]

the article was p great, but doesn't touch much in something that mystifies me; why the animation in DA:I was not as bad?

was it just done in a completely different branch of frostbite

Inquisition's facial animations were slammed at release, actually, but relative to Andromeda's launch fare they look pretty good.

 

[Darkstorne]

Amazing article. Thanks for sharing their story, Jason.

My biggest issue with Andromeda was the confusing lack of ambition. It was like they were trying too hard to emulate a popular series from the previous gen, instead of taking the approach Mass 1 did of thinking "how can we advance sci-fi RPGs for a brand new hardware generation?"

Procedural planets are definitely a good way to advance things, and would have felt like a next gen introduction to the series. It's such a shame they couldn't pull it off, but you'll still find plenty of gamers who think No Man's Sky failed there too. I guess we'll have to see what Star Citizen can do on this front, and there's always Starfield from Bethesda that could experiment with this. Reading the article makes me sad that Montreal won't get another shot at making this work for a sequel though. I'd always suspected forcing them to switch to an engine designed specifically for first person shooters was causing big issues with an RPG framework (inventory management has been awful in Bioware RPGs since this change, and that tactical camera in Inquisition was... yeah), but I had no idea it was causing this many issues.

Inquisition's facial animations were slammed at release, actually, but relative to Andromeda's launch fare they look pretty good.

Yep. It also had the "it's a cross gen game though" excuse.

 

[Silexx]

the article was p great, but doesn't touch much in something that mystifies me; why the animation in DA:I was not as bad?

was it just done in a completely different branch of frostbite

More like it was done by different studios who were probably not sharing their tools to one another.

 

[JeffZero]

EA switching all there studios to Frostbite is them playing the long game. Yes in the short term it has caused issues but after Andromeda I imagine Frostbite is much more capable of developing a open world RPG. I fully expect Bioware Project Dylan to have a much smoother development cycle.

Everyone said this about Andromeda after Inquisition shipped, too. Frostbite just isn't a great lock for RPGs.

 

[Buckle]

So not only did they hand off their biggest series to a B team who had only worked on DLC but they also cut them off at the knees with limited resources.

What the fuck.

 

[SeanBoocock]

Great reporting as always Jason! Your account lines up with my experience and that of former colleagues still at Bioware. I think it is important to emphasize in stories like this that everyone - from the business people, those working in marketing, to the various development disciplines - can be well intentioned, skilled and trying to do the "right thing", and yet the project doesn't come together in the end. I hope Bioware and EA take some good lessons from the experience.

 

[ViciousDS]

so basically when EA says built on frostbite.......they really mean that anything other than shooting guns in an FPS or driving a vehicle it required an insane amount of fucking work just to get the game to run appropriately.

To me using frostbite seemed like a very, VERY unwise move in this game and the game probably should have been made using UE4. I mean we already saw the problems with inquisition and Andromeda bumped the fact that RPG's shouldn't be made using the engine even more.

 

[Pennywise]

EA switching all there studios to Frostbite is them playing the long game. Yes in the short term it has caused issues but after Andromeda I imagine Frostbite is much more capable of developing a open world RPG. I fully expect Bioware Project Dylan to have a much smoother development cycle.

Project Dylan is also pretty long in development now and we don't exactly know what kind of game it is.
So I suppose they also had to build alot of things from scratch.

 

[Yopis]

Cool read, what a nightmare.

 

[Sad Affleck]

Great article. 18 months of crunch, those poor people.

 

[Phionoxx]

Great read. Interesting to learn more about all of the issues behind the scenes that impacted the development. I love the Mass Effect series and am sure I will give Andromeda a shot at some point, maybe in a couple months before the holiday rush picks up.

 

[Gator86]

Mass effect isn't dead... Andromeda still sold well and sales are above metacritic scores in regards to deciding whether to permanently cancelling a franchise.

It's just been shelved. Possibly until the other Bioware team is freed up from DA and Dylan. Mass effect is still a money maker in the eyes of EA.

Simply not losing money means nothing. It's about opportunity costs. Why spend money on ME and take risk just to not lose money when you could put out a Star Wars game and make bank? How confident are they in the brand after Andromeda? It's more complicated than just "Andromeda didn't lay waste to our earnings this year."

 

[eagledare]

Great article. I feel genuine sadness after reading that and hearing how hard many of those folks, particularly the animation team, worked during those last 18 months in hopes of salvaging the game. Now ME is being shelved as a result. Shitty situation all around.

 

[Cels]

since frostbite sucks so hard for making RPGs why did bioware have to use it for DAI and mass effect 4?

no animation system out of the box? dafuq?

 

[Darkstorne]

so basically when EA says built on frostbite.......they really mean that anything other than shooting guns in an FPS or driving a vehicle it required an insane amount of fucking work just to get the game to run appropriately.

To me using frostbite seemed like a very, VERY unwise move in this game and the game probably should have been made using UE4. I mean we already saw the problems with inquisition and Andromeda bumped the fact that RPG's shouldn't be made using the engine even more.

I imagine it will be fine if they can sort out all the tech during pre-production and nail down what will work and what won't. Frostbite is definitely a problem, but it seems like Andromeda went so wrong because many things hadn't been nailed down even when the game shifted into full production, tech systems kept changing, and the game's scope and direction completely changed part way in.

 

[Garlador]

I get the impression EA doesn't understand that there's not a "one size fits all" method to game development.

"All games need to be online!" SimCity suffers.
"All games need multiplayer and microtransactions!" Dead Space suffers.
"All games need to use Frostbite!" Mass Effect suffers.

Game development rarely goes well when elements are blugeoned into a series that thrived in other areas.

 

[Fbh]

Good read. Sounds about how I imagined the development for this to have been like.

Honestly, seems like the core problem is that from the very start they were building the game around a bad idea.
Their original vision for the game sounds even worse than what we got.

Frostbite was also a major reason why the last Command & Conquer failed so horribly.
Maaaaaaybe it doesnt make sense to shove unsuited technology into every project just so that you a "powered by frostbite" logo is on the box.

I have to wonder how many people even care about the engine.

Does anyone go to a store, pick up a game and go like "powered by frostbite? Hell yeah I'm buying this!!" ?

 

[Primethius]

A lot of this also basically flies in the face of what Shinobi was saying in his impressions IIRC.

 

[Koozek]

Fantastic read. Thanks Jason!

 

[TransTrender]

You guys do realize that Dylan is a different, unannounced game right? Edmonton is working on Dylan, Montreal worked on Andromeda.

Yes?
You have one studio that's driving to be creative, innovative, and make great games, then you have the other studio that makes DLC for games they didn't work on. Seems clear they were destined to failure.

 

[ViciousDS]

I imagine it will be fine if they can sort out all the tech during pre-production and nail down what will work and what won't. Frostbite is definitely a problem, but it seems like Andromeda went so wrong because many things hadn't been nailed down even when the game shifted into full production, tech systems kept changing, and the game's scope and direction completely changed part way in.

couldn't a lot of the change in direction due to frostbite tools not being ready? I mean the maps alone sounded like a nightmare to work with as well as streaming issues due to the engine not even being built for it.

 

[- J - D -]

Wow a truly good piece. Jason continues to do some great work.

As for Andromeda, despite how it turned out I still want to visit it someday, if only out of morbid curiosity. It's a shame that 5 years of work ended up like this, though.

 

[Admodieus]

I get the impression EA doesn't understand that there's not a "one size fits all" method to game development.

"All games need to be online!" SimCity suffers.
"All games need multiple and microtransactions!" Dead Space suffers.
"All games need to use Frostbite!" Mass Effect suffers.

Game development rarely goes well when elements are blugeoned into a series that thrived in other areas.

Agreed.

 

[obeast]

That was a great read, but made me feel vicariously stressed. It must feel like a special circle of hell to toil frantically to pull a game together, all the while suspecting that you're going to get savaged when it actually releases. Hat tip to the author, though - fascinating reporting.

I have to say I'm baffled that anyone thought it was a good idea to attempt a Mass Effect game with hundreds of procedurally generated planets. I'm no game developer, but I can't see how you could ever make a happy marriage of the ME series' defining elements (cinematic storytelling, deep dialogue trees, varied and well-defined characters) and that kind of scope. I liked the exploratory elements of ME1, and hoped ME:A would build upon them, but I never imagined that anyone would even attempt to generate hundreds of big, unique worlds. A neat idea for a totally different kind of game.

And man, it sure sounds like Frostbite has been an albatross around the neck of a generation of Bioware RPGs. In retrospect, I wonder what DA:I -- another game with important elements that felt badly rushed -- could have been if developed in a different engine. I'll bet that's a fascinating story as well. I think I'll buy the author's book...

 

[hank_tree]

Mass effect isn't dead... Andromeda still sold well and sales are above metacritic scores in regards to deciding whether to permanently cancelling a franchise.

It's just been shelved. Possibly until the other Bioware team is freed up from DA and Dylan. Mass effect is still a money maker in the eyes of EA.

Andromeda 2 is dead. Theyll let the franchise lay low for a while and maybe bring it back in 5 years.

 

[Nydius]

I have to wonder how many people even care about the engine.

Does anyone go to a store, pick up a game and go like "powered by frostbite? Hell yeah I'm buying this!!" ?

Not at the store, no. But don't underestimate how it's used as a marketing tool in the lead up to release. It's not so much what you said as much as it's "it's built using [insert engine here]?! that engine was great on [insert game here]! this is going to be amazing!"

Crytek is guilty of it with CryEngine, Epic is guilty of it with Unreal, and now EA is following that trend with Frostbite.

 

[JeffZero]

And man, it sure sounds like Frostbite has been an albatross around the neck of a generation of Bioware RPGs. In retrospect, I wonder what DA:I -- another game with important elements that felt badly rushed -- could have been if developed in a different engine. I'll bet that's a fascinating story as well. I think I'll buy the author's book...

It seems like Jason will have a lot to say about Inquisition's production period in his book, too, so you're in luck. A ton of resources were spent on getting Frostbite to work right, and I do mean a ton.

 

[Darkstorne]

couldn't a lot of the change in direction due to frostbite tools not being ready? I mean the maps alone sounded like a nightmare to work with as well as streaming issues due to the engine not even being built for it.

Frostbite itself was ready (just needs major tweaking for RPGs), and the Inquisition team had produced some fantastic large maps with it already. This article makes it clear that the huge worlds themselves did work, it's just that the team couldn't find a way of making it fun to play. So while flying through space manually, landing on planets, and exploring them sounds amazing, it's tough to create core systems that keep that engaging when you repeat it hundreds/thousands of times. They didn't nail those systems down in pre-production, started everyone off on full production, and then changed direction later, eventually shrinking the game down to only seven worlds. I dread to think how many art assets went to waste as a result of that...

 

[Yeul]

I'm really appreciative for this article and was hoping something like this would come from Jason sooner rather than later so thank you! Even though it was as I suspected (management, conflicting visions, and what have you) it's always nice to read about it.

As others have said, it's basically the DA2 of the ME series, but even then it is likely not to get DLC and is on hiatus as of now. I am looking forward to seeing what Dylan is during E3, but I really am looking forward to DA4. I hope the same issues don't plague the Edmonton team on its development. You really wouldn't wish that on anybody and it's a shame that the MTL team had to go through it for so many years.

 

[Kill3r7]

I get the impression EA doesn't understand that there's not a "one size fits all" method to game development.

"All games need to be online!" SimCity suffers.
"All games need multiple and microtransactions!" Dead Space suffers.
"All games need to use Frostbite!" Mass Effect suffers.

Game development rarely goes well when elements are blugeoned into a series that thrived in other areas.

Their financials over the last few years clearly say otherwise.

 

[KarneeKarnay]

I think this article is far too kind on EA. I don't need a rage fest, but the Frost Engine seemed like something EA would do, rather than Bioware. Anyone worth there salt knows how tough it is to to make an engine do what you want. It is far better to use an engine that can do what you want in the first place. Limitations be damned.

That said it's probably not the authors fault. The only people who would know are in no way going to speak to a journalist.

 

[Garlador]

Their financials over the last few years clearly say otherwise.

Not to the underperforming games that flopped.

Some games DO benefit for online, multiplayer, and Frostbite! Those games then sell well.

But it's as silly as DC going "Batman is dark and successful so obviously the answer is to make ALL heroes dark and violent too".

One-size doesn't fit all, but one-size can benefit the one that wears that size.

That's what EA doesn't understand, and their finances would be better with more games that also performed to or exceeded expectations.

 

[yrba1]

Excellent read, comfortable enough to hold the dev team accountable for some the shortcomings due to being overly ambitious. Audacious enough to still express my utter disdain for EA due to their lack of understanding of how complicated game engines interact with certain mechanics. Hope other devs and publishers are taking note of this so they don't make glaring mistakes.

 

[sleverfunk]

Rip mass effect
At least cyberpunk will fill the hole in scifi rpg.

 

[Kill3r7]

Not to the underperforming games that flopped.

Some games DO benefit for online, multiplayer, and Frostbite! Those games then sell well.

But it's as silly as DC going "Batman is dark and successful so obviously the answer is to make ALL heroes dark and violent too".

One-size doesn't fit all, but one-size can benefit the one that wears that size.

That's what EA doesn't understand, and their finances would be better with more games that also performed to or exceeded expectations.

Correct but what major third party publisher is taking the approach you are suggesting? If there aren't any then you have to ask yourself why not?

 

[hydruxo]

Definitely gonna read this when I get off work, but man Jason Schreier stays killing it with these types of articles. Just quality work all around.

As a massive fan of the first three games, I think Andromeda ended up being the biggest disappointment I've had ever had in gaming. I still haven't finished it yet and I don't know if I ever will. I just completely lost the desire to keep going.

 

[Plasma]

That was a really good read and it explains a lot.

 

[Garlador]

Correct but what major third party publisher is taking the approach you are suggesting? If there aren't any then you have to ask yourself why not?

Variety? I can name dozens of publishers that stay flexible.

Square Enix, 2K, Rockstar, Bethesda, Capcom, Etc, etc, all have offline games, games lacking microtransactions, games without multiplayer, games using multiple engines, etc.

 

[Severance]

That was such a great article to read. It helped ease my confusion after playing Andromeda. I was such a huge fan of the trilogy and felt so disappointed in Andromeda. It seems crazy to me that the main engine of a huge developer such as EA is missing animation functionality all together. Also, I had no idea the main team behind the trilogy is working on a whole new IP, that gives me some hope for the future of Bioware. Andromeda being developed by a secondary Mass Effect DLC team explains a lot.