BioWare Debuts Mass Effect: Andromeda at E3

The new Mass Effect game has been given its first trailer, and a name, at E3 yesterday. Mass Effect: Andromeda takes us far from the Earth and the Citadel, and Commander Shepard, and flings us into another galaxy. BioWare announced the title of the game at an EA press conference during E3, followed shortly by a blog post by Aaryn Flynn and Yanick Roy, Studio General Manager and Studio Director, respectively, of BioWare Canada/Montreal:

When we wrapped up the original Mass Effect trilogy with Mass Effect 3: Citadel in early 2013, planning and design on Mass Effect: Andromeda was already well underway. We knew we wanted to start with a foundation composed of the best parts of any Mass Effect game: exciting new worlds to discover, great characters, and intense action. At the same time, we clearly wanted to expand the definition of what you should expect from a Mass Effect game.

While we aren’t ready to go into too many details just yet, as you saw in the trailer and can tell by the name, this game is very much a new adventure, taking place far away from and long after the events of the original trilogy. You will play a human, male or female, though that’s actually not the character you saw in the trailer (more on that later). You’ll be exploring an all-new galaxy, Andromeda, and piloting the new and improved Mako you saw. And through it all, you will have a new team of adventurers to work with, learn from, fight alongside of, and fall in love with.

We built this trailer in Frostbite™, our game engine, and it represents our visual target for the final game. We are thrilled by what we’ve already been able to achieve in bringing Mass Effect to Frostbite and by putting our entire focus on PC and current gen consoles. With the time remaining in development, we’re excited about the possibility to push things even more.

Thank you again for all of the support you keep showing us, and we’re looking forward to sharing more details with you near the end of the year. Until then, the teams in our Montreal, Edmonton, and Austin studios will be hard at work creating an entirely new adventure for you to lose yourselves in.

The trailer reveals little, but we do get a glimpse of the infamous Mako, some brief battle scenes, and an intriguing shot of buildings emerging from the ground and assembling themselves. The structures bare a resemblance to the towers seen on Eden Prime in the first Mass Effect game. Are the Alliance terraforming alien planets, perhaps?

Mass Effect: Andromeda is due for release during the Holiday season of 2016.