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Now, with that out of the way one of the biggest things that this hits is from a story perspctive, see for those of you who have completed the story, you'll know that the 5th Ark (the Quarians and other minor species like Drell, Hanar, Elcor, additional Volus, Krogan, and Batarians has arriaved in Andromeda, but is at a currently undisclosed location due to issues, presumably from the Scourge that plagues the Andromeda system, and their pathfinder is dealing with the issue. Now this brings forward the question of their fate, and the fate of their ark on the surface, but bellow that it makes us wonder if there are additional threats, or if the Scourge isn't what it appears to be and something is controlling it, and what the interest in the Quarian Ark is specifically. Furthermore, in a post credits scene, a kett known as the Primus, who served as the Archons second in command, is observing Meridian, letting us know that we haven't defeated the kett, especially since we know the Archon was considered a rogue threat who stepped out of line in Andromeda to pursue Remnant technology, as we know the kett only seem to be able to absorb biological material, and not synthetic (possible resurgence of the Geth to fight back at them?) Finally, the third major question left unanswered is the Remnant, who made them, what their purpose is outside of teraforming, is the AI on H-047c related to them in any fashion? And while a few smaller questions are left unanswered (specifically in regards to the Angara and Krogan) they are nowhere as near as important to the above, at least in my mind.
While story questions are all important, we also need to realize what this can mean for Mass Effect as a whole. While Andromeda was never release with a specific plan for the series in mind and meant to be fluid, I doubt anyone ever meant for it to be abandoned, especially considering we have been without a Mass Effect game for going on 5 years prior to its release.Yes, we still have other BioWare games like Dragon Age 4 to look forward to, but they just don't fill the void left in our hearts. Why is this happening? Well from best I can tell it is because of the overwhelming negative feedback focusing on the glitches in terms of facial animations and dialogue, which while I won't say didn't exist, but were never as large of a part of the game as people (mostly those who hadn't touched the game in my experience) would have you believe. See, when something like this happens on a lesser known series, or a game that is widely regarded as a cherished title by the masses, it doesn't get the amount of negative attention that a game like Mass Effect would with its rampant fanbase of overzealous players. For example, Dark Souls has a large number of glitches in their invasion PvP system, ones that will actually break the game and make it impossible to have a fair and balanced game, but the response from the internet is one of disbelief and cries for it to be fixed, not widespread criticism, where Andromeda was laughed at relentlessly for a small glitch that didn't break the game, and by most accounts was less than 1% of the overall experience. Now I'm not saying they both don't need to be fixed, and say what you will for modern release it now, patch it later culture, but the fact that it is an option to be able to fix it is a good them. But we can also look to the response from the communities for the efforts to fix their glitches. From Software spent a large chunk of time investigating and banning players who exploited this glitch, and as of the time of this writing I'm not aware of any patches to fix this issue, only to be met with overall praise from the community for such a proactive approach, while Andromeda was met with disdain and criticism for taking less than 3 months to almost completely eliminate the problem, which I need remind you didn't render entire aspects of the game almost unplayable.
This brings me to my last point of why you should really care. Andromeda has set a prescendence, and not the one they were hoping to. What this proves is that with enough complaints, trolling, rampant meme sharing, and overall shitty attitudes to what really was a solid game, you can effectively bury it and a franchise, because when you complain to an extent and harass a developer you are attacking their heart and soul. Many developers hold these games close to their hearts, as they can be working on them for close to 70-80 hours a week for over 2 years. These games are their children, their babies. They care about them and want to see them grow just as much as we do, but the sheer amount of harassment that Andromeda received, especially from people who never played the game (you know who you are), was too much. This will only serve to tell people that they can keep doing this to other games and series that they either don't like or have some sort of issue they don't like and it is dangerous. Things like this can lead someone to depression, which is a very serious issue, and while I'm not saying we should ignore issues in our games, we should raise those concerns, but we should do them in a constructive way. Positive feedback is much more beneficial than negative, think of the last time both has happened and what the outcome was for you? Now apply that same to these games and their devs, and keep in mind that these games are their passion.
We all love video games, there is no question about that, but the thing is how we address them matters so much more. The issue surrounding Andromeda is a difficult one, but I believe that we need to learn from it so we call all grow, both the community and devs. See you next time.
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