The saga of Mass Effect: Andromeda has seemingly been brought to an end in its video game form. While the game will continue on in a multiplayer setting, planned updates to the single player game are now canceled. This confirms a rumor reported by Kotaku back in June and seemingly puts to rest any future within the Andromeda galaxy for the series on consoles.
Another part of the rumor notes that a planned sequel has also allegedly been scrapped, but no official confirmation from Bioware has been released yet. The announcement about the lack of single-player DLC did receive an official confirmation, though, and marks a series departure from well-crafted single player expansions that have been praised in past entries in the series:
With each patch, you let us know we were heading in the right direction, and we’re grateful to everyone who joined us on this journey. We’re proud of what we created, and we hope you enjoyed it as well.
Early in development, we decided to focus Mass Effect: Andromeda’s story on the Pathfinder, the exploration of the Andromeda galaxy, and the conflict with the Archon. The game was designed to further expand on the Pathfinder’s journey through this new galaxy with story-based APEX multiplayer missions and we will continue to tell stories in the Andromeda Galaxy through our upcoming comics and novels, including the fate of the quarian ark.
Our last update, 1.10, was the final update for Mass Effect: Andromeda. There are no planned future patches for single-player or in-game story content.
The game has only been on the market for five months at this point and faced some mixed-criticism upon its release, something that the studio did intend to address at the time. As Polygon notes, reports indicated that “most of Mass Effect: Andromeda was made in the final 18 months of development” and major portions were either rushed or didn’t come together as planned. This also led to the reported reshuffling of Bioware’s Montreal studio, turning the series developer into a support studio according to Kotaku and placing the entire series on hiatus for the time being.
Andromeda was met with mixed reviews when it was released — we noted that it was a fine game despite this negative cloud floating above it — and faced criticism for it’s animations that spawned its own memes and videos mocking the game. As it stands, the future of the series is up in the air for now. A break could be good for the series following this game, but it is also concerning considering how long the development cycle was for Andromeda.
(Via Polygon / Ars Technica / Kotaku)