Bioware Acknowledges 'Mass Effect: Andromeda' Criticism

Mass Effect: Andromeda has been heavily criticized for its performance issues, animation problems, and other downfalls since its March 23 launch. The game's developer, Bioware, acknowledged those criticisms in a tweet saying that it's trying to figure out how to improve the roving space adventure.

Some of these problems actually showed up before the game's official launch. Some EA or Origin Access players were greeted by a black screen when the game was launched or switched to via Alt-Tab; characters getting stuck in animations and not responding to commands; graphics issues that cropped up on AMD GPUs when HDR was enabled; and other technical frustrations when they got an early look at the game before it was released.

We encountered several glitches ourselves. But as we wrote in our hands-on, the game has shortcomings even when it's running perfectly:

In some ways, this game shows Bioware’s experience with the software, especially with its environments, which were beautiful. However, a quick look at any of the game’s characters showed the developers’ shortcomings. The lack of most facial expressions aside from the occasional smile or scowl was disappointing. In fact, it seems as if Bioware merely imported the facial animation from Mass Effect 2 or 3, which was disheartening when you consider the technological advancements in development since the last game came out in 2012.

That criticism was mild compared to some of the complaints made in popular messaging boards, social networks, and YouTube videos. Now, a week after launch, Bioware responded to all of those complaints with a message posted on Twitter:

It will be interesting to see how Bioware addresses some of Mass Effect: Andromeda's issues. The game is unlikely to be fixed overnight--its problems are too pervasive and its scale too big for that to happen--but incremental improvements are still improvements. In the meantime, Bioware has already added free multiplayer content featuring a new map and character as well as resources for the single-player campaign.