Mass Effect: All ten potential new Exotic Species of Andromeda have been cut due to budget, reach and cosplay

Mass Effect: Andromeda could have had up to ten new exotic species, but they were cut due to budget, scope, and … cosplay considerations.One of the biggest criticisms of Mass Effect: Andromeda was the lack of news exotic species, especially when the Mass Effect Trilogy introduced us to the Krogan, Asari, Drell, Batarian, Salarian, Turians, Quarian, Prothean, Hanar, Elcor, Keepers, Volus, Collectors, Geth, Reapers, Vorcha, and more.

In our Mass Effect: Andromeda Review, we said, “What’s weird is that BioWare went to the trouble of shipping us 2.5 million light-years away to introduce just two new alien races (plus a few robots) out of over 50 hours of campaigning and great side missions, and only one local joins your crew. “

Apparently this was not the original plan, and many Andromeda developers have recently spoken The player to discuss why these new alien species never made it to the end game.

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“I think it was a project that couldn’t have lived up to expectations,” said Neil Pollner, who was a senior writer on Mass Effect 3 and wrote parts of Andromeda. “Not just the high bar from the original trilogy, but the logical expectations everyone would have from Mass Effect to a whole new galaxy. Because the scope of [the first] Mass Effect was so incredibly massive, there was an inherent promise that you would get a massive new experience with a ton of new things in it. [what was supposed to be the first] Mass Effect Andromeda – new species, new lore, a whole new galaxy at your fingertips, etc.

“But we only got the budget for two new species, plus Remnant. Not to mention that we couldn’t even include all the species in the Milky Way. And we weren’t going to be able to let you travel across the galaxy. This meant that we had to develop the story around some pretty glaring inorganic limitations. So not only did you get something that felt (and was) a lot smaller than what you had before, but almost everyone who played the game probably had something they really liked about Mass Effect and that just wasn’t there.

Pollner went on to discuss how they had big plans in pre-production, including expanding the “first contact” experience with new aliens, but most of that work wasn’t even used.

Chris Hepler, another longtime Mass Effect writer, discussed how he came up with five or six new alien species, and ex-Bioware writer Jo Berry also came up with a few that “were awesome”.

Dorian Kieken, who was the design director of the franchise when Andromeda began development, explained that some of the early alien concepts were “pretty out there” and were deleted because one of the goals of Mass Effect Andromeda was to make it easier for fans. cosplay the characters from the game.

“One of the strengths of the original Mass Effect trilogy is that you can actually cosplay most alien characters – with the exception of the Hanar, although I don’t underestimate the creativity of some cosplayers,” Kieken said. . “The intention of Mass Effect Andromeda was to introduce new breeds that would still be in the cosplay realm, which is probably why crazier concepts were dropped.

Kieken even said that the two alien races that managed to join Andromeda gradually moved to “cosplay safe territory” with the team trying to avoid the “jellyfish” types of aliens.

Although one can hope that some of these models will find their way in the next Mass Effect project, fans of the series can hope interact with the original set of aliens in the legendary edition of Mass Effect in May.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news editor for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Tic.