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BioWare Producer Says Release Timing May Have Hurt Mass Effect: Andromeda
Did Breath of the Wild and Horizon affect Andromeda reviews?
Mass Effect: Andromeda was not as critically well received as past entries in the series, and one BioWare producer offered his insight into one aspect he believes may have contributed to Mass Effect: Andromeda's review scores.
In a Twitter thread today, BioWare Executive Producer Mark Darrah wrote that he believes Andromeda suffered somewhat from releasing in the midst of a crowded schedule. Nier: Automata, Nioh, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild all released mere weeks before BioWare's sci-fi RPG. Darrah sees this as a "crowded" release environment, noting he believes each one of those games "does something better" than Andromeda, which he admitted to be a "flawed game."
To Darrah, this meant Andromeda's "pretty decent" systems were being judged just as critics and players had the systems from other games fresh in their minds. Darrah clarified he completely understands a release timed away from these other games wouldn't have increased scores dramatically, as he believes Andromeda "is a deeply flawed game. Especially at launch." Despite that, Darrah does suggest there could be a chance Andromeda's scores may have slightly gone up given distance to comparable, and more favorably received, titles.
"As a result [of the crowded review environment], even systems that are pretty decent get scrutinized against superiorly implemented ones. Does launching in a different window turn 72% into 90? Certainly not. 72 into 77/78? Maybe," Darrah wrote.
Darrah said that potential five or six-point difference in Metacritic scores likely had at least "some" effect on sales, but word of mouth is also a tremendously important factor in selling games theses days.
"You launch the best game you can," concluded Darrah. "[Andromeda] has a lot of problems and got lapped by genuinely better games."
Reception to Andromeda reportedly caused BioWare to put the entire franchise on hold. The developer is now focused on delivering a great story experience in Anthem after the perceived shortcomings with Andromeda. Of course, Anthem is more than a new story it's also a whole new world.
Nick Santangelo is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia. He loves video games and sports, but not sports video games. Follow him on Twitter.