‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’s’ Multiplayer Will Affect Single Player Campaign

Bioware is bringing back multiplayer in Mass Effect: Andromeda, and like Mass Effect 3, the multiplayer component will affect the single player campaign.

Mass Effect 3‘s multiplayer section, while well rated by those who enjoy co-op modes, affected the end-game of Mass Effect 3 more than a lot of players who only wanted the solo experience preferred. It appears Bioware has listened to feedback, and the new multiplayer segment for Andromeda will be a much smoother integration.

Bioware has officially labeled Andromeda‘s multiplayer as “Strike Team,” which makes it sound a lot like the Strike missions from Destiny. The Strike Team missions will still focus on the galaxy around the planet Helios where the the story takes place, but solo players will still be able to access the multiplayer portions of the story without being forced to partake in socializing.

According to Bioware producer Mike Gamble, “‘There’s a system that we use called the Strike Team system, and fundamentally it allows you to go between singleplayer and multiplayer within the game,’ says Gamble. ‘And it’s packaged around a meta-story of what’s going on in Helios,'” reports PC Gamer.

The main issue that Mass Effect 3 saw with its multiplayer component was the difficulty involved with getting the “best” ending for the game, where the player saves all of humanity from the Reapers. Without being able to take part in the multiplayer component, solo players struggled to get that ending on their own. If a player did not have a good internet connection or desire to socialize, finishing the game that way was an unwarranted, undesirable challenge.

Fortunately, Bioware looks like it is fixing the problem. Not only that, it looks like Bioware is really upping the ante for open world games.

Gamble told Kotaku, “We have designers going throughout these open worlds and placing small little adventures, small little bits of narrative and visual story telling that we hope the players will explore to find…. They’re not career path stuff, they’re not even usually side quest stuff, they’re little self-contained things. They’re for the folks who want to go every square meter of a planet, they’re going to get a lot of enjoyment about that.”

So both the single and multiplayer aspect of Mass Effect: Andromeda appear to be giving a loving treatment worthy of the series. The solo players will get everything without being forced to go multiplayer, and the coop players will get to feel more of the meta story by participating in it with other people.

The methodology applied feels a lot like a variation on Destiny and Borderlands2. Of course, Destiny requires multiplayer strikes to really get a feel for the overarching story going on, and even the trick of finding players outside the game to finish the raid content with. Borderlands 2 featured some sharing aspects, where players could drop into other players’ games. You could play Borderlands 2 entirely by yourself, but the zaniness of the game really comes out when you play it with good friends. Especially if one can do a good Claptrap imitation.

The Mass Effect: Andromeda multiplayer beta is expected to come out sometime early this year, a couple of months in advance of the game’s actual release on March 21. Rather than an open beta, which is often expected from big name games, it seems likely that Bioware will be running a closed beta for Mass Effect: Andromeda.

So what do you think of the upcoming Mass Effect: Andromeda? Will Bioware get the multiplayer/solo hero balance right? What do you hope they keep/or add to the series? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below!

[Featured Image via NVIDIA GeForce]