#Mass effect: Andromeda

[felassan]

Mark Darrah video: 'Dragon Age: The Veilguard Has Shipped. Now What?? #/masseffect'

Video description:

"Dragon Age: The Veilguard has shipped. What happens at BioWare now? BioWare structurally finds itself in uncharted territory as it only has a single Project (Mass Effect) active. Chapters: 0:00 Veilguard is out, now what? 0:22 BioWare Structure and History 1:57 Growth 4:45 Consumption 6:28 Sustain 7:27 Contraction 11:14 Leadership Discontinuity 1 12:48 Leadership Discontinuity 2 14:14 One Project At A Time 16:33 Mass Effect 18:50 Will The People Be There? 22:18 FOCUS"

[source]

Key notes from the vid and the comments underneath:

"Up front I should say that I have every confidence that Mass Effect [5] is in fact being worked on and that that project is going to receive all of the support from EA that it might need."

Slowly and painfully BioWare is figuring out that it simply can't do more than one project at a time anymore. It's now a single-project studio. Mark Darrah expects that both Edmonton and Austin will be working on ME5 together

ME5 effectively paused production for 15 months in order to help DA:TV ship

Right now other than some DA:TV clean up/final patches, everyone at BW is working on ME5

However ME5 isn't yet ready to suddenly have a team of 250-300 people working on it, so while some DA:TV devs moved onto it, some DA:TV devs were moved to/are moving to other parts of EA instead. The ME5 team started, but there is a long way between "start" and "ready to scale" up

The ME5 team is figuring out what ME5 is going to be & its structure, then will get ready to ramp up to a much bigger team size

"BW, for the first time really ever, is able to singularly focus on a single project, is able to put everything it has towards a single goal, which is making the best ME it possibly can."

But it remains to be seen whether BW will be able to get its people back when it needs them and is ready for them. There are a few reasons why this might prove difficult. Alternatively, on the flipside, this degree of focus might be exactly what BW needs to move it into the next phase of its life. "Maybe EA is going to prove to be incredibly effective at moving people around and when ME5 looks to start to grow maybe there will be no troubles".

We will probably have hints of what's going on [with ME5] within the next two years. "I have high hopes for ME. I think that once they figure out staffing, BW being focused on one game at a time is probably great for the studio" (though there may be growing pains to get there)

Does Mark Darrah foresee similar issues in the ME5 dev cycle to what DA:TV had? No, because ME5 hasn't had the same two big directional shifts, and it has had no leadership discontinuity (ME5 paused when they went to help DA:TV i.e. it didn't continue without a leader). But we should only really start counting ME5's dev cycle from today. "It really hasn't been that long with a significant team"

The ME5 teases in recent N7 Days were made by a "very small team"

There are still lots of veterans at BW

Mark Darrah doesn't expect to be involved in what BW makes next

More under cut due to length.

BW has existed in different ways/structures through its history. We're currently entering into an "unprecedented time" for BW

The purchase of BW by Elevation Partners, the purchase of BW by EA, when Ray Muzyka & Greg Zeschuk left BW, and the year 2017 in general are the 4 most important events (not including shipping games) that Mark Darrah feels have affected BW the most in its history

BW's strategy over time could be seen as having had 4 different phases: grow, consume, sustain, contract. In the contract phase, though BW maybe didn't realize it yet, the number of projects it was capable of running simultaneously was decreasing slowly/gradually. Why? Projects were getting more expensive, requiring more people/resources/time, and by this point BW had essentially burned off all its 'reserves' from the growth phase i.e. there was no longer any fat left to burn off

After DA:I shipped, Mark Darrah experienced that it was very difficult to find resources if your project wasn't the next project that was due out the door

DLC is a safety valve for processes and staff; a place for devs to work when other projects aren't quite ready for them yet; a place for the next gen of leaders to be grown. These things disappear as DLC does. Mark Darrah is pretty sure that the move away from DLC is coming from EA

In the contract phase, in 2013-14 Anthem was starved out by DA & ME:A. ME:A was also somewhat starved out by DA. Then when ME:A was in the driver's seat, it consumed most of the resources

In late 2016/early 2017 during the push to ship ME:A, as part of that BW began to experience leadership discontinuity. As the DA leader, Mark Darrah led a team of DA people onto ME:A to help it ship (the Dragon Age Finaling Team) for a few months. this sort of thing had happened at BW before but this was the first time when senior leadership moved off the projects they led to do this. this caused a change in philosophy in terms of the way that projects were run

When ME:A shipped and Casey Hudson came back to lead BW, there was then a much much larger leadership discontinuity with Anthem. The Montreal studio was supposed to move over onto Joplin to help kickstart it but it ended up getting taken away and given to the leadership in Montreal. but even if this had happened as it was supposed to, BW may not have been able to be in a place where it was going to be able to ship Anthem and Joplin simultaneously

Three quarters of the senior leadership on Joplin moved to Anthem or left BW. DA continued and became Morrison. The discontinuity had massive consequences for DA4

In 2021/22, this happened again in the opposite direction. The leadership team moved onto DA to help it ship, though rather than leaving some of the team in place, everyone moved. The other project (next Mass Effect) effectively ceased to exist for 15 months in order to help DA4 ship. In 2023 for the first time since 1995 BW was only working on 1 project (DA:TV) & there was nobody working on ME5 or remasters or side projects at that time. Now that DA:TV has shipped, apart from some people on cleanup and final patches, there is no plans for DA:TV DLC and "there is only Mass Effect". "Everyone at BW will be working on Mass Effect."

DA:TV being a 'direct sequel' would have been an unlikely path

With BW now focusing on a single project, Mark Darrah does worry that EA will get "itchy"

It'll be a [long] while to DA5 [hypothetically speaking, if it gets made]

MELE involved a lot of external devs

Shadow Realms was BioWare Austin and was due to: "partially places for people, partially a desire for Austin to get something new."

Mark Darrah expects that the devs are hearing everything being said about DA:TV

BW focuses more on consoles because of sales numbers

Unreal Engine 5 (which ME5 is on) is moving onto other EA projects as well, which may help

There are reasons why DA:TV is the way it is

BW has had external consultants on leadership and structure over the years

Mark Darrah expects that the next Dragon Age will once again be pretty different to the last iteration

BW Austin were brought in to help make Anthem. "What didn't happen (that should have) is that they should have had more directional control over the live service direction."

BW has had difficulty learning from previous games because at least one title was too far along TO learn. but a single game leads to staffing issues

Mark Darrah pitched a dev structure back in 2016/17 which would have had "3 fast follow games then a period of retooling"

EA doesn't really sell IPs

Chance of DA:TV DLC? "That's an EA question. And I expect EA's answer to be no". "I don't think we will see DLC. A new DA would be in the future."

"DA has been looking for larger audiences in every iteration. EA has never understood the franchise"

Remake DA:O or ME1? "While I think it would do well, I don't expect it to happen at any time soon. Also the skillsets required don't really over lap"

"The 3 previous games DAVe was are leaking through in places"

Diagram from the video which shows the flow of people throughout BW's history, made by a member of Mark Darrah's community.

[source]

[sweeetestcurse]

Vetra Nyx 02/??

[leafy-yezi]

Testing a harder brush for lineart part, and somehow doodled Jaal & my Ryder, I really miss that big pink cat alien

[mnasthaii]

knowing jaal’s intimate scene was originally meant for solas makes me want to crash out. especially these lines.

[lukaskyle]

Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017) dev. BioWare

[hyperions-light]

Hello! It is Saturday, January 11th, 2025, and it is BW Fanfic Comments Saturday! I am renaming this Bio(ware)feedback, thank you @uchidachi for the name <3

How it works:

Reblog this post and add a link to your fanfiction from the Mass Effect or Dragon Age fandoms (other BW properties are also fine, but I don’t know them as well)

I will reblog your addition for reach, read your fic (for multi-chapters, I only read the first one), and leave kudos + a comment

Guidelines:

All ratings, all pairings are fine, but please warn me if you are sending explicit stuff, especially if your fic is somewhere other than AO3.

I will reblog fic/fic posts here on Tumblr, but please link them in your reblog for convenience.

This is intended primarily to bring exposure to fics that don’t have a lot of it/have been overlooked. If your fic has over 700 kudos or comments, I am going to respectfully ask that you send a different fic or sit this event out.

I am scheduling this post for 12 p.m. MST, and submissions will be accepted until 12 a.m. MST. Check the time here!

If you include more than one fic and have a preference for which one I read/comment on, please indicate it.

If you want to submit a fic you’ve already submitted, that’s completely fine! I think you should promote your work! However, I will prioritize fics I haven’t read before for comments. (I’ll read/comment on another chapter, though!)

I know there are a lot of fantastic writers in the BW fandom whose stuff gets overlooked because of the sheer volume of content/the relative popularity of pairings, so I just want to give people a place to promote their work. You don’t need to follow me or agree with me or anything to participate in this— just please be polite! Thanks so much for sharing your work!

[convito]

I like Mass Effect: Andromeda because it makes me smile and has a spiky girlfriend.

[biowarescreenshotsdump]

| M A S S E F F E C T : A N D R O M E D A |

Sara Ryder | Pathfinder | Vanguard

[voulez-vous-a-ha]

If I had a nickel for every time Katy Townsend voiced a cute lesbian character with ginger hair and bangs, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice

[dirtboy-merc]

mass effect: andromeda was not a bad game and i will DIE on this hill.

it was doomed from the start because of the original ME trilogy. like, how the fuck can you follow up on that? three games where we become attached to these beloved characters. more time to build up and flesh out a story (reaper story kinda sucks though not gonna lie) and ryder just had no chance when they're put up against shepard. ryder was an inexperienced kid who was barred from the alliance due to the AI research alec was doing, and then was thrust into a role of leadership with zero training. of course they're going to struggle and flounder, and OF COURSE they're going to try to be as diplomatic as possible. who wants to start a war immediately upon arriving in a new galaxy and your people are dying? they're not a 'goody-goody two-shoes,' they're just a kid trying to salvage this disaster they were thrust into after the loss of their father.

SAM gets a lot of flack too, just because he isn't EDI. i find SAM to be really charming and adorable. he's almost childlike in his evolution as he grows with ryder and their experiences together. i loved their bond.

yes, the game launched badly with glitches. yes, the facial animations can be goofy as hell (i personally adore it, they make me laugh) and yes, some of the writing is questionable. but it really wasn't the shitshow people make it out to be.

also the combat is hands down some of the best in the franchise, and even in the genre in general.

[felassan]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard - Game Informer pages from issue 367 (the cover story from June 18th) [source, two]

Text reads: "Spotlight - Cover Story - Dragon Age: The Veilguard. It's been ten years since the last full-fledged game in the franchise, but BioWare is finally ready to pull back the curtain on what's next for the fantasy world of Thedas. We visited the studio, spoke to the game's creators, and discovered what's changed in the highly anticipated new installment."

[sweeetestcurse]

Scenery in Mass Effect: Andromeda 04/??

[leafy-yezi]

Watching my friend play ME Andromeda, and we agree Reyes would make a sexy Turian

[fiendsandfangs]

The 2024 Fiends & Fangs Fanwork Exchange blessed us with a trove of monster fanworks. Here's a fic we think you'll love. 💕

The Midnight Before

by @kalliesa ※ Ao3: kalliesa

Mass Effect: Andromeda ※ Kaetus/Sloane Kelly ※ (3,977 words) ※ Explicit

Summary:

Sloane and Kaetus know that Kadara never truly rests… and sometimes, neither do they.

✨ Check out this work on Ao3! ✨

[lukaskyle]

MASS EFFECT: ANDROMEDA ⇢ Squadmates

[randomlymad]

Sara "What do you mean, a sniper shouldn't have orange hair, it's what this sword is for" Ryder