Early review: Mass Effect: Andromeda is Dragon Age: Inquisition in space

I got the press review code for Andromeda on a Saturday, and the game unlocked that evening.

“Perfect,” I thought. “This will give me at least six days to play. Plenty of time to beat the game, write the review, and have it edited and scheduled to run when the embargo lifts!”

I look back on my stupid optimism with chagrin. My (dumb) impression was formed by my experience with Mass Effect 3, which I beat in a caffeine-fueled two-day marathon (and then immediately re-played for another two days). I thought I had so much time that I opted to do some family stuff and run some long-overdue errands on Sunday, blowing most of the day adulting. “Plenty of time,” I thought, settling in on Sunday evening and loading the game up.

Now, as I write this, it’s six exhausting days later and I’m 30% of the way through a game that’s even longer and more packed with stuff to do than BioWare’s previous epic, Dragon Age: Inquisition. I’ve got about 30 hours of game time committed so far, and, based on a quick bit of back-n-forth with BioWare General Manager Aaryn Flynn, I have probably 90 more hours to go before I really finish the game. That, more than anything else, should help answer one of the biggest outstanding questions about Andromeda. Yes, it’s big.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves—let’s back up and take this from the top.

We are come to this great stage of fools

Warning: Light spoilers for the first hour or so of the game follow.

Review system specs
Operating system	Windows 10
CPU	Intel Core i7-6700K, 4-core @ 4.5GHz (OC'd)
GPU	Nvidia Titan X (Pascal) @ 1835GHz (OC'd)
Memory	32GB Corsair DDR4 @ 3,200MHz
Storage	500GB Samsung Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD
Motherboard	ASUS Z170-WS ATX
Power Supply	Corsair 860W
Cooling (CPU)	ARCTIC Liquid Freezer 240
Cooling (GPU)	EVGA GTX hybrid kit
Monitor	Acer XB271HU 27" 1440p (G-SYNC)
Other	Complete list at PCPartPicker

Mass Effect: Andromeda puts you in the shoes of either Scott or Sara Ryder, a “Pathfinder” for the human portion of an initiative to colonize the Andromeda galaxy. The initiative (called, appropriately enough, “The Andromeda Initiative”) is the brainchild of eccentric billionaire Jien Garson, who aims to push forward the evolution of all sentient life by sending a colonization expedition to the Andromeda galaxy. By utilizing some advanced technology to turn mass relays into long-range faster-than-light telescopes, the Andromeda Initiative was able to locate seven habitable “golden worlds” in a region in Andromeda called the “Heleus Cluster.” That’s where you and tens of thousands of hopeful colonists were sent.

Dispatched in 2185, shortly before the events of Mass Effect 2, the expedition’s colony arks arrive at their destination in 2819 only to find that the “golden worlds” have all changed (or been changed). In the last 630 years, they’ve gone from idyllic life-rich worlds to barren hellish nightmare rocks. Humanity’s colony ark takes damage after colliding with an energy cloud they name “The Scourge”—which may or may not have something to do with the golden worlds’ conditions. The Initiative’s central hub—a huge space-based structure called the Nexus, almost as large as the original trilogy's Citadel—turns out to have arrived early and has been waiting for you and the other arks for 14 months. The Nexus is starved for resources and has lost a chunk of its population to a rebellion (the rebels have been exiled, but you’ll run into them eventually). Worse, none of the other arks—one each for the turians, salarians, and asari—have shown up.

The game opens with your father, Alec Ryder, ordering you into action. Alec Ryder (voiced by Clancy Brown) is the human ark’s Pathfinder—sort of a combination of lead troubleshooter and emergency governor. The Andromeda Initiative’s rules state that if things go sideways, each ark’s Pathfinder is given effectively unlimited power to figure out how to un-sideways them—and since things have definitely gone sideways, Alec steps up.

Of course, Andromeda wouldn’t be much of a game if things went off without a hitch, so Alec is quickly killed off in the game’s tutorial level, leaving you as the new Pathfinder. See, Alec designed a super-fancy artificial intelligence named SAM (for “Simulated Adaptive Matrix,” which is about as clunky a backronym as “Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer”), and SAM connects directly to the Pathfinders’ brains via a neural implant. SAM sees and experiences what each Pathfinder sees and experiences (every ark has a SAM, but the human ark SAM is special and more sophisticated). And because you have a neural implant similar to Alec’s, the whole thing falls onto your shoulders when he dies.

Wait, what? Aren’t artificial intelligences outlawed in the Mass Effect universe? Yes—and Alec Ryder created several of them anyway. The set-up seems deliberately designed by BioWare to provoke audience questions about what’s going on and why, and the pat “for the good of the universe!” answers each question gets in-game are nowhere near enough. Troubling mysteries swirl about the genesis of the Andromeda Initiative and the people behind it.

Speaking of people, you have a twin—you are one of two Ryder kids, which is how the game handles giving the player a choice of gender. And the Ryder twin you don’t choose to play as is conveniently knocked into a coma that lasts for the entire first third of the game. So that problem takes care of itself.