Learn How To Play Multiplayer In 'Mass Effect: Andromeda'

Whereas recent videos on Mass Effect: Andromeda were focused on the single-player campaign, the latest footage shows off its multiplayer side. With a team of four players, you’ll fight multiple waves of enemies before extracting and earning rewards.

Before you hop into the fight, you’ll need to choose your character. There are over 25 characters to choose from in the roster, and each one has a different set of skills. From there, you’ll have to choose your weapons. As you progress through the game, you can spend the credits earned from each session to buy mods and upgrades. You can also purchase boosters for an even higher advantage in combat. These boosts range from specialized ammunition, such as cryo ammo, to a temporary increase in the amount of experience points gained.

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In combat, teamwork is vital to success. Depending on the skills and weapons that each player uses, you’ll have to communicate and coordinate attacks to stay alive. It’s easy to take out the smaller foes by yourself, but some waves will feature larger enemies or multiple objectives that requires everyone to be on the same page, so to speak.

When your team completes a full session, the experience points and credits earned by each player in the mission are combined for a cumulative total. With experience points, you can upgrade your character to improve or unlock skills and abilities. In addition to mods and boosters, you can use credits to unlock more characters or weapons to use.

The online component has a tie-in to the single-player campaign in the form of strike missions. From your ship, you can order these missions, which can be carried by your Apex strike team in the campaign or by your team in multiplayer. In both cases, completing the missions will earn you rewards that you can use in the main story.

At launch, five Firebases, or maps, will be available for multiplayer. There are also 40 weapons to choose from for your loadout. In the months following release, you can expect more items and maps in the form of downloadable content. For more information about the game’s multiplayer, you can read our impressions from the short demo we played last weekend at PAX East.