‘Mass Effect Andromeda’ Release Date Revealed, No Plans For Nintendo Switch


The upcoming video game Mass Effect Andromeda seems to have an exact release date, based on the information displayed on the Microsoft Rewards page according to GameZone.

The Microsoft Rewards page says that members who purchase certain upcoming games digitally would receive extra rewards credits. One of those games is Mass Effect Andromeda, and the webpage indicated a March 31 release date for the game. Although Microsoft has since removed the date from the image, indications remain that the March 31 release date is still likely. The offer is valid from January 1 to March 31, and all except one asterisked game listed have release dates for within that range of dates. The game with the asterisk, Ghost Warrior 3, must be pre-ordered by the end of March to qualify for the promo despite coming out in April. All other games should come out before then.

[Image by BioWare]

BioWare, Mass Effect Andromeda‘s developer, had originally announced for the game to come out earlier in 2016, yet a few delays pushed it back to this year. According to a blog post on the game’s official website, Aaryn Flynn, general manager of BioWare, states that needing “the right amount of time to make sure [they] deliver everything the game can be and should be” is the reason for pushing the release date to 2017. However, developers have implied that if there are further changes that they feel they might need to make if they see additional room for improvement, they would be willing to delay the release date even further, according to GameSpot.

The Mass Effect Twitter account also recently announced that there would be more gameplay footage highlighting the game’s environments at Nvidia’s CES 2017 keynote presentation. Whether or not officially revealing Andromeda’s release date was in the plans is difficult to say, but with the information that came out today, it is something that might come to fruition sooner rather than later.

It also seems that a release date on the soon-to-be-released Nintendo Switch is very unlikely. Michael Gamble, a producer with BioWare, said that there are no plans to make a version of Mass Effect Andromeda for the Switch. “Yeah, not right now, no,” he told Stevivor. “We’re not planning on it. If the Switch launches and everyone’s just yammering for Mass Effect, who knows. We never want to close doors like that.”

So a release on the Nintendo’s upcoming system Switch is not completely out of the question, but there will need to be some real convincing from Nintendo’s fans for BioWare to change its mind. Third-party video game developers make games mostly for the PlayStation and Xbox systems, and they seldom make those games to be available on Nintendo systems. This is mostly due to Nintendo systems’ hardware being different from its PlayStation and Xbox counterparts. Additionally, Nintendo likes publishing its own games, focusing specifically on its own target audience.

[Image by BioWare]

Mass Effect Andromeda has won two awards in 2016: the Golden Joystick Awards 2016’s Most Wanted Game award and the Global Game Awards 2016’s Most Anticipated Game award. A successor to the Mass Effect trilogy, Mass Effect Andromeda will be the first of the series to bring about an open-world environment. The Mass Effect series is known for its universe-building, storytelling, and the ability for players to make choices that effect events in the game. Andromeda’s creative director Mac Walters told Game Informer that he encourages those who have played the other Mass Effect games to keep their save files, so that they may hold on to some of their past story elements that can potentially transfer over to new games.

Mass Effect Andromeda was officially announced on June 15, 2015, during the Electronic Arts press conference during that year’s E3 event.

[Featured Image by BioWare]

Share this article: ‘Mass Effect Andromeda’ Release Date Revealed, No Plans For Nintendo Switch
More from Inquisitr