Bioware revealed their latest Mass Effect: Andromeda trailer at CES 2017 during Nvidia’s keynote presentation. It showed off combat and plenty of upgrade trees that made the RPG fan in me very happy. Andromeda is set for a March 21st North American release and March 23rd global.
The trailer opens with thoughtful piano and sci-fi ambience over CGI of the ‘TEMPEST’ darting through an asteroid field. It moves a lot more like a fighter than a capital ship, rotating at extreme angles very quickly. How does everyone fit on there? And those stabilizers must be pretty powerful to avoid everyone getting space-sick.
The Tempest begins to land on an arid looking planet with either two moons or planets in the background.
The tempest lands on the planet. Again, this all looks pre-rendered. The soundtrack is very Star Trek with slight tension and patient horns starting to pick up
We then see the first of many menu screens. It’s on the skills tab, showing what look like PC folders for Ryder’s individual skills: Combat, Biotics, and Tech, as well as the SQUAD skills (insert squad goals meme) folders for Cora and Peebee.
The selection moves to Peebee and we see her animated avatar. There are three spaces under “Current Loadouts” on the right, with only one filled in and highlighted: “Invasion”.
The player chooses to auto-level Peebee (filthy casual), and that fills in the other two Loadout spots, adding “Pull” and “Shockwave”
We finally see some boots on the ground as Ryder walks up to get a nice view of the planetary version of Purple Rain. It’s cloudy, the sun looks like it’s dealing with a solar eclipse, a small ship passes by, jagged rocks and lava dominate the landscape, and there’s a massive building off to the right we don’t get much of a look at.
Ryder wants a message relayed to the Tempest that they’re stranded but alive, with no choice but to investigate Peebee’s signal.
The Profiles screen is loaded up with several options on the left: Soldier, Engineer, Infiltrator, and Explorer are available, while Adept, Sentinel, and Vanguard are greyed out. RPG fans should be happy to see the full breakdown of % bonuses listed on the right for each Profile. Ryder chooses the Engineer Profile and gets down to business
Back to the Skills section, specifically Tech, which appears to serve the same purpose as previous game’s Biotics.
The player cycles way down to the bottom, so we see the whole list of:
Overload, Incinerate, Assault Turret, Cryo Beam, Energy Drain, Tactical Cloak, Flamethrower, Remnant VI, Invasion, Team Support, Offensive Tech, and Auxiliary Systems.
The player chooses to upgrade the Flamethrower tech power, and we see a new screen detailing its own upgrade tree. Each upgrade rung describes the effect with text and % increases.
The player then assigns Flamethrower to one of the three loadout slots
After purchasing the Flamethrower upgrade, this opens a new Profile. Technical Overseer is unlocked and the Engineer profile reaches level 4
Ryder blasts the first enemy, an Assembler, with one shot from his gun, a grenade launcher type.
Ryder roasts a bigger robot called the Nullifier that has a hexagonal segmented shield around it. Using the Flamethrower causes the UI on the bottom right to flash and then begin a cooldown process that lasts a few seconds.
Ryder performs his first dash that moves extremely fast to the side. I didn’t see any meters reflect the use of the dash, so I would assume it’s unlimited.
Now we see what the Flak Cannon does. Ryder fires a shot at a flying Observer and the Flak Cannon UI blinks like the Flamethrower and begins its own cooldown.
Ryder then fires up his third Tech like Ryu about to unleash a level three Hadoken.
A Raiden-like lightning bolt comes out instead. Ryder still needs to finish it off with a gunshot.
Ryder switches guns, leaps into the air, and then air dashes like a friggin’ gundam
Under heavy fire, Ryder shows off a much higher vertical jump, slight hover, and then another air dash moving him forward
He then attacks the much larger Destroyer using all the techniques we had previously seen.
fin.
This trailer only shows robotic enemies though I’m sure the Andromeda Galaxy will provide a wide variety of problems to deal with. The robots appear to be this game’s version of the Geth (even sharing the name Destroyer).
The extensive RPG upgrade system is fantastic to see as many fans criticized the over-simplification from ME1 to ME2. The combat looks snappy with plenty of mobility and attack options.
A successful trailer overall.
What do you think?
