Mass Effect: Andromeda & the Bioware Crisis - Part 1
Originally published April 2017It's been a while since I did one of the multi-part article series about something happening in the video game industry. Now that No Man's Sky has become a distant memory, it's time to look at the new thing that has gamers up in arms and disappointed: Mass Effect: Andromeda!
Mass Effect: Andromeda came out recently, and while I haven't played any of the Mass Effect games since the first one, I've still maintained an interest in the franchise enough to keep my ear to the ground. With Andromeda, I've heard a lot of shots fired about its overall quality. In fact, I'd say it has come under fire from all sides. Critics, fans, and forum monsters all seem to be having some serious issues with the game's presentation and story. Why is this a big deal? There are two main reasons:
Mass Effect is a big franchise established a decade ago that managed to find success almost immediately as one of the best science-fiction video game series. Mass Effect 2 and even the controversial Mass Effect 3 made a huge impact in the last generation of games and are on many top lists of best games from that era.
Mass Effect was developed by Bioware, a game development studio that built up a profoundly positive reputation for creating video games with some of the best stories and characters since the ‘90s.
There are a few other reasons why Andromeda's immediately negative reception is such a big deal, but we'll get to those later.
Part I: For Those Who Don't Know
What is Bioware?
Bioware is a video game development studio that was originally founded by doctors who wanted to make video games with deep, rich, and interesting stories. A wild and unexpected choice to be sure for people who had already dedicated so much of their time to learning medicine. Dr. Ray Muzyka, Dr. Greg Zeschuk, and Dr. Augustine Yip founded the company in 1995. While Dr. Yip departed the company after only a few years, Dr. Muzyka and Dr. Zeschuk continued to push the company forward, and, up until 2007 when Bioware was acquired by Electronic Arts, their studio was one of the most successful independent developers out there.
Their success was due in no small part to the creative efforts behind the teams developing games with engrossing stories, interesting characters, and fully fleshed-out worlds. While some may argue that the plots of their stories were sometimes a little too straightforward, no one could deny the ability of Bioware to build a world full of fun and interesting characters. They started out small but quickly hit it big with a Dungeons & Dragons: Forgotten Realms branded game, Baldur's Gate. Baldur's Gate is an isometric RPG game that garnered praise from all sides for its world and story. Their sequel, Baldur's Gate 2, is often regarded as one of the best RPG games ever made with witty writing, compelling characters, and clever game design.
Image: Bioware
Having proven themselves to be a powerful force in fantasy RPGs, Bioware was given the opportunity to work on another game with the D&D license. They followed up their Baldur's Gate success with Neverwinter Nights. Neverwinter Nights was another big success. This time, they let someone else handle the sequel and worked on some more expansions to Neverwinter Nights until they were finally given the opportunity to make a game with a brand that everyone recognized. This was the game that would essentially mark the biggest moment in the studio's history.
Bioware was given the opportunity to make their own Star Wars game. In 2003 Bioware released Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR). KOTOR is often regarded by many people to be one of, if not the, best Star Wars video game ever made. With just one game release, Bioware had managed to expand the Star Wars universe exponentially by physically exposing the material established in the extended universe. It was clear that the various novels and stories set in the Star Wars past, hundreds of years before the events of the films, played as key inspirations to the material shown in KOTOR.
Image: Bioware
Bioware did what they were known for, and built up the universe with a creative pizzazz and skill. The aliens of the Star Wars universe suddenly had culture and history that were only hinted at in the past. They created some of the most recognized and interesting characters the universe has ever known. Even more importantly, they set a precedent for games in general, by writing a story that many people adored.
If you read my series of articles on storytelling in video games, you might remember how problematic stories in games can be as well as how important it can be in making a good game great or a bad game terrible. Before Bioware came on the scene and blew everyone away, most people didn't expect much of a story in their video games other than the premise provided in the booklet that came with the game. Or, they simply looked to Japanese developers like Squaresoft for their JRPGs, like Final Fantasy, to give them wild adventures and expansive stories. Bioware helped make people pay attention to Western developers when it came to storytelling, and KOTOR was their flagship of success.
After KOTOR put Bioware on everyone's radar, people were looking for what the company would do next. While many expected them to continue riding the success of KOTOR, they seemed to look elsewhere for their next big game. They released a game shortly thereafter, Jade Empire, which did well enough and gained a cult following, but it didn't quite reach the peaks of KOTOR or grab the interest of the masses in the same way. Finally, after several years in development, Bioware released a game for the Xbox 360 that was going to be the start of a new trilogy and one of their most ambitious projects yet. It was called Mass Effect.
What is Mass Effect?
Mass Effect marks the first attempt by the studio to create a full trilogy from scratch, and build it from the ground up with its own unique story and even its own game physics engine. They were going to make a sci-fi fantasy world that didn't depend on pre-existing material like Star Wars or Dungeons & Dragons. It was also going to be a story that would build and change over the course of three games. From the very start, Bioware made promises that the decisions players made in the first game would stretch and impact events throughout the rest of the trilogy; a promise that would come back to haunt them.
At the start of the last generation of game consoles, they managed to make an exclusivity deal with Microsoft, and the first Mass Effect was released on the Xbox 360. It was marketed well, it sold well, and it was well-received, for the most part. There were plenty of things about the first Mass Effect that people didn't like:
There were moments when there was some significant slowdown in the frame rates.
The AI of enemies and friendlies was really troublesome at times.
The load times between areas were criminally long.
There was a stupid moon-rover vehicle that sucked to control and use.
Countless bugs scattered the game and caused some weird errors along the way.
Nonetheless, Mass Effect was still an overall success. The combat mechanics were competent enough and the story more than made up for many of the various imperfections along the way. It's the only Mass Effect I've played and I loved it at the time. I saw the same imperfections and issues of the game's performance and design, but I was willing to look past it for the fact that Bioware had successfully crafted a deep and intriguing universe filled with a variety of unique species of aliens. Besides, I have a high tolerance for games with significant performance issues.
Image: Bioware
Even if you never played any of the Mass Effect games, you may still remember the first one for the controversy surrounding it. Since Bioware has consistently tried to tell more interesting and compelling stories in their games, and since those stories include complex characters, it only makes sense for love stories to be involved too. They had accomplished some simple love stories in the past, but with Mass Effect, the developers wanted to push the envelope and show that video games could be a mature and artistic medium for adult subject matters. Thus, a sex scene was added to the game, allowing players who had cultivated a relationship with one of the particular characters on their team to take it to the next level. There were brief clips of nudity and some background music that woefully lacked any saxophone. It was a brief scene, used a lot of fade-to-black cuts, and resembled the ten-second-barely-see-anything sex scenes you see in romance films. Yet it caused a big stir when the game came out.
Why was the addition of a sex scene so controversial? I don't know. It's the usual nonsense of people who don't want to think and would rather have things censored, or have the government involved in their parenting methods, so they don't have to look at warning labels on the products they're buying their kids. Or, it could have been the fact that the sex scene didn't have to be between two straight people. It could be between the human protagonist and an alien, or the protagonist and another human of the opposite or same sex. Again, why was this a big deal? I don't know.
Image: Bioware
They didn't show much, regardless of whether you chose straight, gay, or bi. In fact, the scene in question looked quite silly to me. Nonetheless, that didn't stop outraged parents and useless news reporters from causing a big fuss about it as though sex was this horrific new discovery, though, it didn't matter much in the long run. Mass Effect still did well, and the negative attention it got probably contributed to those sales more than it hurt sales. Ever since then, Bioware has managed to—either inadvertently or intentionally—keep up the tradition of controversy in their games.
This doesn't just apply to the sex scenes in their games, though. The controversy isn't just roused by the prudish parents or government snobs who throw hissy fits at Bioware either. With the release of their most ambitious and anticipated entry in the Mass Effect franchise, the company would come under fire from the people who claimed to love them the most.
Next time...
Next time, we'll discuss the previous big crisis Bioware faced as a game developer, which was big enough to alter the trajectory of the company for years to come.
If you enjoy reading my lengthy articles about video games, I wrote about the No Man's Sky debacle and how it was a case of history repeating itself. You can view the different pieces about it here:
Do you agree or disagree? Tell me what you think in the comments below!
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