While all eyes are on Bioware’s upcoming Dragon Age sequel, Dreadwolf, industry insiders have heard rumors that Mass Effect 4 (or 5) won’t be open world.
Good, everyone copying the Ubisoft model is exactly why games have started all being identical. You could even argue that the main issues with Andromeda are grounded in the choice to try and move that direction. I’d prefer small hub worlds and actual missions again, maybe pull an ME2 with the N7 missions and have side quests narratively build off of one another like the Jarrahe station VI -> Mech facility plotline or the MSV Strontium Mule.
At the end of the day not every place needs going back to, and the world will always feel more alive when you have well crafted small hubs and one shot missions set in unique locations. Imagine how boring Thane’s recruitment would have been if it was just reusing the same area and enemies from LotSB’s Vasir fight, cause that’s what open world gets you.
In general, people have this strange idea that the bigger the ground you can personally traverse, and the ability for that to be retraversed, makes the world “bigger.” I disagree, I believe that the larger number of diverse small environments with focused efforts on art direction is what gets you there and ME1/2 really understood that.
Honestly, bit of a shame. MEA’s open world was literally its only redeeming quality.
Combat and class variety was the redeeming quality, the open world made it feel like it was “The Division: Andromeda.”
Really? It was mostly just boring, empty space with collectibles and other standard open-world nonsense to make the game seem longer than it was. The combat was easily a more worthwhile quality, imo.
