Mac Walters Interview with GameSpot: Cinematics, Exploration, Nomad
GameSpot recently dropped their interview with Mac Walters, the Creative Director on Mass Effect: Andromeda. The whole interview is a goldmine of tidbits, and can be seen on the GameSpot site, but here’s a few tidbits of worth.
Cinematics are still work-in-progress until release.
...it means it's one of the last things to get polished, and something we work on up until the very end. Ultimately, as this was a gameplay trailer, we made the decision to show 'in-game' footage—not pre-rendered. But rest assured, it will look great by the time we ship. And we'll be sure to share more of the characters, stories, and cinematics before then.
Each world has a distinct story, and if you want to survive each world, crafting will help out a lot.
Each world has its own main narrative, with a central storyline throughout, and key decisions that impact that planet for the rest of the game. All of the sidequests and adventures on a planet tie into that story, or the main game story in some way.
[...] If you were to just follow the main story missions, you don't really need to engage in it at all--unless you want to. But it can give you an advantage, and if you want to fully explore all the planets, and survive all their challenges, you'll need to dig in to the crafting system a bit more.
On the up-in-the-air release date...
We're very confident. Bringing Mass Effect to Frostbite and a next generation of consoles has had its share of challenges. But the team has handled them all and is fully focused on finishing what we started.
