Mass Effect 3 was, for lack of a better word, controversial. Its ending created division among the franchise’s huge player base, leading to a revolt against developer Bioware and publisher EA. Both responded with expanded DLC story packs that somewhat made up for what fans thought were cop-out endings. Simply put, players were frustrated about just how little influence they had over the ending they received, and in some cases flat out hated how cryptic and/or anti-climatic a certain ending was.
Perhaps one of the more frustrating things about Mass Effect 3‘s ending was that players needed to complete certain objectives in the game’s multiplayer component in order to reach specific “galactic readiness” benchmarks, which would in turn lead towards more desirable endings.
Thankfully, Bioware has acknowledged how frustrating this was for Mass Effect fans, and the studio has promised not to make the same mistake twice.
Speaking with Game Informer, lead designer on Mass Effect Andromeda, Ian Frazier, and producer, Fabrice Condominas, have explained that Bioware isn’t going to force ties between the multiplayer and campaign in the same way it did in Mass Effect 3, and that instead it would offer additional features and objectives, but that they wouldn’t be compulsory in order to finish the game a certain way.
“You will have possibilities to send teams to complete kind of side missions, or to do it yourself in multiplayer,” Condominas said. “That’s the idea.”
Once you jump into Andromeda‘s multiplayer, Frazier explains that multiplayer mission “funds” will have “tendrils going out in to the rest of the game”. What or how those funds can actually be used in the game we don’t know, but Condominas’ insisted that they wouldn’t be a forced resource or unlockable.
“If you feel cheated, we’ve done something wrong,” he admitted.
Mass Effect Andromeda is set for release on Xbox One, PS4 and PC in March 2017.