Mass Effect: Andromeda Learns a Lesson from The Witcher 3

Bigger isn’t always better – you can go ahead and thank Hello Games for cementing that principle – and it’s something that applies to games in just about every genre. For example, Dragon Age: Inquisition had a whole lot of optional content and side missions, but most of them were rather dull and felt more like padding than an exciting little adventure you could enjoy between main stories. Well, According to Andromeda producer Fabrice Condominas, in an interview with PC Gamer, Bioware has learned its lesson from their earlier games (and some other titles) and is better prepared to provide more engaging optional content in, you guessed it, Mass Effect Andromeda.

“We are approaching the completionist aspect very differently, because we've done and learned a lot from Inquisition. But we've also observed what other games have been doing, like The Witcher."

He continued to say that the side quests should be meaningful and impactful, and he praised the Witcher 3 for providing side quests that were both important and a whole lot of fun. Then he said that those were the caliber of quality they’re looking to emulate with the upcoming Mass Effect game.

Now, emulating The Witcher 3 is pretty much a good idea in any situation, but for a Bioware game, I feel it’s even more important. I would say there have been some pretty engaging and cool side quests in Bioware RPGs in the past: but they’ve typically been blocked off as DLC. Bioware has the chops for it, they just have to be willing to make an in-game sidequest that amounts to more than “talk to NPC” or “collect 8 things and give them to the guy”.

That said, to Inquisition’s Credit, all those optional areas were pretty cool. I had no idea some of them existed in my first play through.