The following is a transcription of the texts in the chapter "The Making of Mass Effect: Andromeda" within the book BioWare: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development, published in 2020 and written by Ben Gelinas.
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Note: this anecdote is from the previous chapter.
Among the products BioWare has officially released over the years are Andromeda-themed tiki mugs, a remote-control Nomad, Mass Effect thumb drives, and a collector's edition of Dragon Age: Inquisition that included a war table map with hefty decorative markers, Orlesian coins, and a lockpick kit that for legal purposes isn't a lockpick kit.
Also, a Garrus body pillow. The pillow began as an April Fools' joke, but was put into production after the demand for the item proved anything but a joke.
Charting a New Course for Mass Effect[]
It took a new team to take Mass Effect beyond the Milky Way in Mass Effect: Andromeda. Led by BioWare Montreal, the ambitious project introduced players to a new protagonist: a Pathfinder named Ryder who was tasked with locating habitable "golden worlds" in the Andromeda Galaxy. Massive transport ships called arks populated with salarians, turians, asari, humans, and quarians made the risky jump to the galaxy's Heleus Cluster, fleeing a mounting Reaper threat between Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 as members of the Andromeda Initiative.
The distance between galaxies meant it was a one-way trip. The Initiative reached Andromeda in 2819, more than six hundred years after the events of Mass Effect 3.
The Family that Relays Together Stays Together[]
While BioWare studios in Edmonton, Montreal, and Austin had previously collaborated on other projects, Andromeda was the first game that BioWare truly codeveloped across three studios.
The bulk of the game work, especially in the early days of development, was done at BioWare Montreal, a studio composed of a handful of BioWare Edmonton expats and heaps of experienced developers who joined the studio from elsewhere specifically to bring a new Mass Effect experience to life. Series veterans in Edmonton then came on to contribute writing, cinematics, design, and quality assurance, along with leadership from creative director Mac Walters and the core Production team. BioWare Austin writers and level designers also joined the fray.
"A lot of people in Montreal joined BioWare as fans of the franchise, so they just had this passion, and it felt like it was more like the days of Jade Empire, where a smaller team, a younger team, gets to do something new for the first time," Mac says. "Even though it wasn't necessarily a new IP for me, it felt fresh and it felt new because of that. The team was just super excited to be working on it."
Exploring New Worlds[]
Early plans for Andromeda saw players exploring hundreds of worlds. Planets would be procedurally generated, allowing for a near infinite variety of experiences. But as development wore on, it became clear that the game narrative required more specific, hand-touched level design on each world to keep the experience engaging and the story focused.
One challenge of Andromeda was defining what Mass Effect meant without Commander Shepard. Care was given to include many of the trilogy's key species. Ryder recruited krogan, turian, asari, and salarian followers. Ryder was also human, and like Shepard, represented humanity's hope for a peaceful coexistence among aliens who had long operated without human contact. Andromeda added new alien species: the angara and kett, the latter a threat to peace in the galaxy.
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By creating a new Mass Effect story in a new galaxy, the team was challenged to put their own visual on the game while keeping it true to the franchise. Being the first Mass Effect game on a new generation of consoles meant far more detail.
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Beginning with Andromeda, the team decided that with few exceptions vehicles in Mass Effect have six wheels. Early Nomad concepts were bulkier, with later iterations focusing on the rover's ability to move over its ability to protect itself from hostile fire, underlining themes of exploration in the game.
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German concept designer and automotive futurist Daniel Simon was contracted to create Andromeda's signature Tempest ship and Nomad rover. A wide variety of ship styles were flown. The finalized Tempest's design took inspiration from the real—world Concorde commercial airplane.
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During the early stages of Andromeda, the plan was to give players numerous uncharted worlds to explore. Designers worked hard to come up with procedural elements that would make each planet special. Eventually, the team made the difficult decision to abandon the procedural planets in favor of more memorable hand—touched alien worlds, each with a specific story fo tell.
BioWare Service Awards[]
Long-serving BioWare developers are recognized with handsome, heavy statues of iconic game characters. The awards, which stand about the height of a common Chihuahua, are given out for every five-year period a developer has worked at BioWare, with different characters signifying each milestone.
Five-Year Award: Varric, the iconic Dragon Age dwarf, with his trusty crossbow Bianca.
Ten-Year Award: Krogan warlord Wrex, from the Mass Effect trilogy, in an action pose with a Graal Spike Thrower shotgun.
Fifteen-Year Award: Female Commander Shepard, known to most Mass Effect players as FemShep, with an M-8 Avenger.
Twenty-Year Award: A high dragon from Dragon Age, roaring and perched upon a rock.
Twenty-Five-Year Award: At the time of printing, some developers are nearing the twenty-five-year milestone. It remains to be seen what character will properly represent a quarter century of service to BioWare. A Citadel keeper, maybe?
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Mass Effect: Andromeda was the first Mass Effect game to use EA's Frostbite engine and the first in the series to be released on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which were then next-generation consoles. The team took full advantage of the more powerful tools available to push lighting and textures to their limits.
Real Tales of Development: Mordin's Cut Cameo in Andromeda[]
Just as Shepard must decide who lives and who dies in Mass Effect, game developers must decide what content lives and what content dies as games near their deadlines.
Despite being set a galaxy away and some six hundred years after Mordin's death, there was a time when the Normandy's salarian doctor had a cameo in Mass Effect: Andromeda.
Mordin's unlikely appearance wasn't cut because the team ran out of time, though. It was the drug references. Writer John Dombrow explains:
One day, I had to write a small quest for Kadara. I thought it would be amusing if these two guys living in a shack way out on the fringes were growing plants for, uh, "medicinal purposes" and needed Ryder's help with it.
It occurred to me: Wouldn't it be amusing if Ryder had the option of actually trying the "medicine" to see what would happen? And, I thought, what if it turned into some amusing hallucination that somehow involved SAM—like maybe SAM would sing?
But why? How could I motivate that?
Then it hit me. Who else in the Mass Effect games sings unexpectedly? MORDIN. Back in ME2, Patrick Weekes had given Mordin this great little quirk where he breaks into song.
So as a nod to our favorite salarian, I wrote SAM singing Mordin's favorite tune, "Modern Major-General."
It got even better when our cine designer John Ebenger wanted to take it even further. Bless him, he came in on a Saturday to do a special hallucination scene showing Mordin himself.
It was great. Until the fateful day we were told ME:A had already been submitted to the ratings board. That's when you declare things like drug use in your game. Mordin fell under that category. Which meant it was a no-go. We were too late.
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These drawings explore visual options for Andromeda's player character, the Pathfinder.
Shepard's signature dark—armor look in the Mass Effect trilogy was contrasted here with experiments with cloth, asymmetrical design elements, and white armor.
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The new alien species required for Andromeda needed to fit visually within the Mass Effect universe while still feeling a galaxy away. Though there are notable exceptions, humanoid figures are the standard in Mass Effect, and this persisted in the fourth game.
Designers explored numerous ways (opposite) to create aliens who looked properly alien, with striking lines and textures, while still being able to show emotions instantly recognizable to human players.
Back to Space: A Look at the Next Mass Effect[]
Note: this section is found further in the book at the near-end.
On the heels of a long-awaited remaster of the Mass Effect trilogy, BioWare now prepares its epic return to space. A veteran team is hard at work envisioning the next big Mass Effect game. Expect amazing new worlds to explore with memorable characters buoyed by the series' signature choices and consequences.
"There's an incredible universe of history to draw from, and many more stories for us to tell," project director Mike Gamble says. "We're focusing on creating something truly for the fans."