Now, leaving that aside, it is possible to get invested in a smaller scale and stake conflict. Or to summarize, an earned dramatic moment. The Reaper invasion of Earth as Commander Shepard watches in horror at what could have been prevented. In comparison, the entire population of the Andromeda Initiative wouldn’t be a blip on the radar. One really can’t just turn that off when they are put back into the same universe. The original trilogy, and especially the third game, forced us into the mindset of thinking of entire planets as “acceptable losses.” The entire, fully populated galaxy, was at stake. They could even try the Initiative again in a couple of centuries. If the Andromeda Initiative fails and everyone aboard the Nexus and Arks die, humanity, turianity, salarianity, asarinity, even kroganity still lives back home. So, what? The entire Milky Way galaxy is still there and thriving. As callous as it sounds though, a question does arrive whenever the issue of survival comes up. The Ark ships taking the Salarians, Asari, and Turians to Andromeda are unaccounted for, there’s infighting among the leadership, planetary colonization is not yielding results, and the equipment and life support they do have can only last so long. The Andromeda Initiative is off to a bad start. Stakes are important especially in this kind of setup. Even if the characters don’t encounter another inexplicable, hostile race bent on the destruction of anything that isn’t them and can’t be negotiated with, it will still be bound for new adventures, right? The idea of answering, “where to go” with, “to another galaxy” works in theory.
where exactly do you go from there? I mean once you stop a threat to all sentient life in the galaxy anything after that is not going to seem as serious. What started as an interplanetary manhunt ended with a climactic final battle ostensibly for Earth but really to liberate the entire galaxy of the Reapers. The story that began with the first game was finished, the galaxy had been saved. Fighting for home versus fighting for the futureĮven if the ending of the third game was oft criticized, it at least was an ending. But just as a story guy, I think the lack of investment goes even deeper than that. After all, it is hard to put yourself in the mind space of accepting the characters as real living people when they behave like malfunctioning action figures and no one other than the player acknowledges it happening. So, what exactly has left people feeling so cold or passionately frustrated at a game that should be a fresh start in so many ways? Well, I’m not going to act like bad presentation can’t kill immersion and/or irreparably damage a willing suspension of disbelief. Granted, in a narrative and character heavy space opera trilogy, having a bad ending could mean faceplanting at the finish line but you’ll find few who say that Mass Effect 3 and the trilogy on the whole was a bad race. (And comparatively, has a metascore of 94!) Even the often mocked third game’s critiques are mostly limited to the ending. That is a long way to fall for a new chapter in a franchise who’s first game was met with great praise for its writing and world building and who’s sequel ranks among many gamer’s favorite games of all time.
While by no means a commercial failure, Mass Effect: Andromeda has mixed reviews at a 70 on Metacritic with a damning 4.7 userscore. Getting familiar vibes? Again, not a good thing.
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