Ex-Bioware Animator Shares Insight on Mass Effect Andromeda's Facial Animations

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[@YongYea]

Just want to say thanks for the general civility in the comments. I know there are people who have strong feelings about all this, but it's good to see that most of you are reasonably explaining your own perspective. Respect.

[@diegoantoniorosariopalomin4977]

YongYea YongYea as you have said , Many people that know about animation think the problem was tha the animators were incopetent not directly becuase budget constrainst or tecnology

[@MrHrBomb]

Go on Preach Papa Bless

[@totallyradwithjosie3225]

YongYea im trying to be civil bro but its rough out here.

[@krono5el]

foreal, i dont care about the shitty faces, im having fun with the game overall

[@YongYea]

By attacking I mean insulting and threatening, which is what some have been doing. I'm all for criticizing, but attacking just isn't OK.

[@TheFlyinSquirrel]

Sure you have to prioritize some conversations (SLIGHT SPOILER) but when your dad died in the first 5 seconds your character is fucking practically smiling...

[@DeathBringer769]

Yea I remember being weirded out by our main character seemingly not even giving a shit his dad just died. He has like practically no expression/reaction, hell it even looks like a half-smile and he just moves on, lol.

[@roryrevolution2348]

Deathbrewer Fem Ryder default is ALWAYS smiling

[@Elmithian]

RORY REVOLUTION Yeah. She must have some disease that makes her expressions always be the opposite of what she feels.

[@TKUltra971]

And that nonsense is inexcusable i cant take anything this tweet said seriously. They basically hired college interns to handle their AAA flagship franchise due to mostly sjw pandering.

[@xponen]

@crazybongo5 , I don't think it's sjw's doing, I think it's regular people being distracted with online stuff... like you know that feeling when we scroll thru comments & meme again and again, later we realise we have run out of the day, and skip on sleeping? its probably like "dev paid for doing nothing" case.

[@solidsnake497]

The Witcher 3 did facial animation and voice acting right.

[@EthanBradburyVlogs]

Solid Snake Too bad the gameplay was shit. If Horizon Zero Dawn was out in 2015 that Game wouldn't have won GOTY. People only play the game to beat off to the shitty sex scenes

[@denmalmin]

Hahaha, what?

[@saiyaniam]

SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!

[@135Badger]

...and writing and crafting.

[@roryrevolution2348]

Admiral Garrus and everything

[@Ymirec]

The facial animations in *Skyrim* looked better than in Andromeda...

[@Nukestarmaster]

The facial animations in Oblivion looked better than in Andromeda.

[@liquid4762]

Nukestarmaster Yeah because in those games the facial animations actually existed.

[@DRDSkidroW]

Liquidrake I've spent a lot of time in Skyrim + modding it I can tell you that maybe outside a bunch of cinematics ( tho i highly doubt it ) and lip sync the game had like 5-6 fixed sets of facial animations for different moods and that was it. The funny thing is it still worked better than Andromeda

[@Sky_Guy]

The facial animations in Minesweeper looked better than in Andromeda.

[@xt6wagon]

Ymirec Y the comparison I think is elder scrolls Oblivion if you want a near comparison. Skyrim, the eyes never wander around, dialog is fluid and delivered properly.

[@glenmurie]

In my many years working in multiple corporations I can tell you one thing for certain. Corporate culture, and therefore the product a company produces, is top down. Bioware's founders, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, cashed out in the middle of ME3 development, and EA appointed one of their own in their place. The guy they put in charge of Bioware has zero experience with RPGs, he was an online sports, mobile games, and microtransactions kinda guy. People keep saying 'why has Bioware betrayed us?', but it's not Bioware any more. It hasn't been Bioware as you remember it for several years now. ME:Andromeda is the product of a totally different entity. One more interested in multiplayer, DLC, and microtransactions. Lets call it... EAoware. If you commit massive amounts of your developer time to multiplayer, DLC, and microtransactions, then you have less dev time for other things. Like story and animation.

[@thatboringone7851]

Glen Murie I'm glad to see someone say that. I don't think most people realize that the people directly involved in making the game, the programmers, animators, sound design and that don't control what the game becomes under companies like these. The only time they might these days is in indie teams that don't get controlled by a company like EA.

[@Cylume.]

They should make a quick option that forces everyone's helmet (similar to a paper bag) on their head. Then we can just use our imagination when they talk or interact.

[@antonfowler6434]

There's is an option in the settings to have the helmet on all the time when equipped or off during conversations or off all the time

[@Bankstercide]

dlc, coming soon

[@alephkasai9384]

I really want a mod that puts literal paperbag on the head of every single character in the game

[@Grayeques]

Christ, that improved Ryder look from fsm looks a thousand times better and gets rid of that constant smile to boot. I don't understand how a huge team with so much backing and experience are so bad at their job that unpaid modders can swoop in and fix their work in no time.

[@tiimvr901]

ANGRYWOLVES Omg that looks awesome.

[@jakepope4770]

Witcher 3 faced wayy more challenges than ME:A. It had a lower budget, a smaller team at CD Projekt Red than Bioware, and it was actually bigger then ME:A. But Witcher 3 is god damned gorgeous. ME:A also took a year longer to make than Witcher 3. There's no other way of putting it: Bioware got lazy as fuck and messed up this one. As for everyone commenting that Witcher 3 had a bigger production budget, you are wrong. It's production budget was a mere 32 million, the 80 million number is only after you factor in the *marketing* budget into that 32-35 game production cost. www.usgamer.net/articles/how-much-did-the-witcher-3-cost

[@jakepope4770]

Subi_fan That should affect the quality of storytelling and characters, not the quality of the shitty faces and graphics themselves.

[@krantzer42069]

it had a 80 million dollar budget but mass effect andromeda had only 40 million. but i have played both and i like witcher 3 a little more as it feels more realistic

[@jakepope4770]

Krantzer Witcher 3 had a 35 million dollar production budget and a 45 million dollar marketing budget. ME:A's production budget minus marketing was 40 million.

[@EL-ISS]

I blame Bioware Montreal.. had it been with Bioware Edmonton for the full five years with Casey Hudson directing it, it would've been gorgeous. Or at the very least better.

[@Kamfrenchie]

but casey hudson wrote the mass effect 3 story and ending... the pain..

[@kasino007]

I'm glad you are covering this Yong. I'm so sick of other KZbinrs saying that the terrible facial animations "are not a big deal". It's a fucking big deal to me. Especially if you are asking me for $60 for a game.

[@IR-Fan]

TheMatrixHasYou 01010 Yup I mean if we always see our characters interact like that 'my face is tired' meme who wouldn't get upset about it. This is an RPG story telling game for godsake.

[@shamrockgamer]

TheMatrixHasYou 01010 It's a product. They don't owe you anything. You either buy it or you don't

[@DarthShadie]

TheMatrixHasYou 01010 Realistic looking characters have become the standard. Take that away from us with a game that costs as much as one with accurate-ish animation, and we feel we are getting jipped. This may have passed 20 years ago. Not today, not after DAI, Witcher and the original ME trilogy.

[@AeroBigDick]

Slade okay. I'm sure you hold that standard with other things. If a burger at mcdonalds is undercooked, "they don't owe you anything". If a brand new car has a transmission slipping problem, "they don't owe you anything". A game that focuses on dialogue and story telling should have at least average animation. It's people like you that are the reason company's continuously put out broken and unfinished games and put a $60 price tag on them. If I'm giving them money and the gaming community as a whole is the reason they have a job in the first place, YES they owe us something.

[@justifano7046]

TheMatrixHasYou 01010 I would agree with you if this was a facial animation simulator but it's not there's literally a million other things in this game two bad aspects of a game doesn't make it a bad game. and I'm not saying they get a free pass

[@Gabe_Cross]

No Man Sky - "Nobody can screw up as bad as we did in 2016." Bioware - "Hold my beer."

[@burgerwolfbrown735]

At least Bioware had game play

[@gerardsotxoa]

Actually Mass Effect Andromeda pretended to do something like No Man Sky's, but a Bioware top executive said "hold on, that's too much, we are flopping. Please stick with the old formula - EA's dark lord whispers- and hurry up you suckers!!".

[@FokinDenis]

Bethesda - "Hold my beer...Here we go...Fallout 76."

[@vinnie19971]

Yeah, but NMS redeemed itself in the past 4 years, while EA completely abandoned Andromeda. I like the game actually and it had a lot of potential. But that is the problem. It had potential and never achieved that potential.

[@Zeldakostv]

Still no excuse as to why the Alpha of the game looks better than the final product. If it was already that good looking in alpha stage, there should be no reason for it to be downgraded so much.

[@aceclover758]

Its simple: people will buy the game no matter what, take it up the ass and ask for seconds Majority of gamers now and days are stupid "consumerS"

[@arsenii_yavorskyi]

Half-Life 2 is a staple of facial animation. somehow they made it look realistic without hitting the uncanny valley, which is a problem in a lot of modern games.

[@JohnsDough1918]

Arseniy Yavorśkyi exactly, it should be the golden standard for the artistic quality of facial animations. It was well executed at the time, and still is.

[@rt3455rr2]

Arseniy Yavorśkyi LA Noire had innovative facial animation. I wonder why this isn't seen in most newer games.

[@arsenii_yavorskyi]

how about because it is expensive, and the results don't look much better than manually created animation

[@YongYea]

Woops, I said Trish isntead of Triss didn't I?

[@tiimvr901]

YongYea Yes, yes, you did.

[@NakedAvanger]

YongYea don't sweat it Incredible video nonetheless

[@swiftstalk]

YongYea "After all this time and still you don't know my name!! Uhhh!" - Triss She's pissed bro. I'd lay low if I were you

[@jackuid4474]

Well, there is a white-hair-sword-swinging-hero-love-interest named Trish. I understand the confusion.

[@Nhileishere]

YongYea how could you yong! nah love ya

[@PursuedByAMemory]

Did you know The Last of Us has no facial mocap. Everything is handcrafted! Although they did have cameras pointing right at the actor's faces.

[@kabeltelevizio]

I am pretty sure they did use some form of facial mocap.

[@morpho4368]

Mankeerat Singh They used mocap as a sort of reference. Then everything was keyframed into the game by hand. At least, with facial animations.

[@DeathBringer769]

They still used reference footage of the actors performing, keyframes, etc.

[@morpho4368]

Deathbrewer Yeah, but a majority of the facial animation was perfected by the animators. That's the Naughty dog way, and also probably why Ellie looks nothing like Ashley Johnson, etc.

[@Clockwork0nions]

neither does the Witcher 3, every animation in that game is handcrafted.

[@JamesSmith-uc8nt]

Yeah but this doesn't excuse the 40 million fucking dollar budget and triple A franchise that sells their game at $60

[@zoomoo318]

you make it sound like that is a big budget. it most certainty is not

[@diablo1422]

That's not a big budget... Witcher 3 had a budget of 81 million. ME 3 had a 40 million budget :l EA gave the devs shit all to try and make a game as big as Andromeda (I still don't excuse the faults in the game, but I can understand them when your budget is average by today's standards)

[@cwatson42785]

You guys are fucking morons. Of course 40 mill is a huge budget. Do some research before you talk shit. Yeah Witcher 3 had a bigger budget but name for me some other games over 40 mill. Don't say gta.

[@Cocopuffstuff]

+Chris Watson Destiny - 500 Million COD MW:2 - 200 Million FF7 - 140 Million Shenmue 2 - 130 Million Max Payne 3 - 100 Million GTA 4 - 100 Million Red Dead Redemption - 100 Million Tomb Raider - 100 Million MGS 4 - 70 Million Watch Dogs - 60 Million Want any more examples?

[@Cocopuffstuff]

Plus usually when they show the budget for a game it includes the marketing for the game as well so all 40 million might not have gone towards the game development.

[@sonicbroom8522]

Destiny, Watchdogs, Halo MCC, ME:A, Street Fighter V, the list goes on and on. But whats the ONE THING they all have in common that is the REAL source of shipping shitty incomplete games? Pre-orders. Once pre-order revenue is met, and those funds are in, there it no incentive to actually finish the game. If people want this shit to stop, then they have to fucking stop with the pre-orders.

[@BrokenYamato]

100% THIS ^

[@stocchinet]

I miss n64 goldeneye facial animations

[@danielepson6219]

stocchinet back when faces had corners

[@JonavicH]

I miss the facial animations from the first deus ex

[@Pack-Man199]

Max Payne 1's face was god tier

[@stocchinet]

Edgy technology

[@MonMalthias]

Oh my god JC. A bomb. A bomb! What a shame.

[@vollkerball1]

YongYea its "EA" what would you expect? They have a special division of "lets fuck up this franchise"

[@enriquecabrera2137]

Ricardo Fernandes excuse me? I believe that's the FSU division. Fuck Shit Up Division

[@stryletz]

Actually, EA was willing to push back Andromeda to give BioWare more time to work on it. I guess they learned that from Mass Effect 3's ending fiasco. It was BioWare who dropped the franchise on their less experienced Montreal office, and it was BioWare who rushed it out the door once the team deemed it was "finished". (It isn't, just wanted to make that clear) Unfortunately, BioWare cannot place all of Andromeda's faults on the rEApers this time. This is sadly just another example of the decline in management over at BioWare, which I guess actually could be blamed on EA as they're the ones who started that ball rolling many moons ago. TL;DR: EA caused crap management at BioWare, crap BioWare management negatively affects franchise.

[@Lirah117]

"rEApers." I like that. That was pretty clever of you, Matthew.

[@stryletz]

Little Nagato Well, in all honesty I didn't come up with it. Not sure who coined it but it used to see a lot of use on the old BioWare forums. You know, before BioWare's missmanagement of their community turned it into a toxic cestpit that pretty much drove everyone away.

[@prismaticbeetle3194]

i swear sometimes I think they really have people they pay to fuck shit up

[@TacoTimePablo]

As someone who studied and graduated for game design and development on both the art and design side of things I can say that the "bad quality of animations" are mostly due to the creepy-eye syndrome which you described in perfect detail. It's bad facial modeling and texturing that kinda screwed this up. It especially stands out in contrast because of the environments too, which do look really good. The character facial models feel last gen because they ARE - below what you would call a AAA standard. Even if you do have REALLY BAD animations, through an algorithm or animation by hand, a good detailed model can cover all this up. See the first Mass Effect. I wouldn't argue that the animations are better per se but instead there is less of a contrast between the quality of the environments the characters are situated in and the actual characters themselves. Just look at all the games this guy named that have been worked on with algorithms. The majority of those animations aren't REALLY good or better - The Witcher and Horizon are full of awkward moments that don't really fit. But Aloy's and Geralt's face are better modelled and textured - I'd say Dragon Age Inquisition uses the same system MEA does, but those faces were of higher quality too. They look normal in a resting position (and not like someone suffering from severe PTSD). A basic trick to AT LEAST fix the Staring-Into-The-Abyss-Syndrome, is to let the characters look just SLIGHTLY cross-eyed - like a really really tiny bit. Jim Henson figured this out decades ago with the creation of The Muppets. If you then drew a (imaginative) straight line from Kermit's eyes, for example, they would cross somewhere. That's a focus point, resulting in thinking the puppet is actually looking at you or at some object. If you do the same with Andromeda characters you'll notice they all end up with parallel lines - hence staring into the infinite void of terror, creeping the shit out of everyone.

[@vane909090]

All in the name of arbitrary diversity. It's just insane how they managed to screw up something so basic. The character models themselves (incl. facial textures) are last gen, but I wouldn't give 2 shits if the animations were fine and not so damn stiff. It just reeks of a rookie's handiwork, which has no place in a AAA title. The sad part is how so many people that are laymen in IT or programming instantly picked up on this and could tell. It's that big of a mistake, it's blatantly obvious.

[@hello567ism]

Adam B 've

[@TheAsj97]

Jimi Hendrix It's not mostly the modelling, sure it's bad, but the animations are far worse, and not just facial. Have you seen the walk/run cycles? The way some characters' mouth jump forward while talking? They didn’t even bother properly rotating the gun forward during a cutscene, and in some cutscenes it's attached to the forearm instead of the hand. The whole game is unnacceptably bugged and bad.

[@Papa_Khan]

That's actually a really good comparison with the muppets, I want to see the MEA characters slightly cross eyed and see if it looks any better

[@TacoTimePablo]

Some more info on how it actually works: muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Muppet_eyes

[@whipslash1132]

Imagine your new car straight from the factory worked like this game, you would ask for your money back no? Why are people letting this slide and make excuses for fraud?

[@puddingat4am145]

Gamers have no standards which is why EA gets away with so much shit

[@thepunisher4356]

Whipslash I mean I have a 2010 car that they only found out had a bad airbag about 6 years later so no I wouldn't ask for my money back since then I'd have no car. Believe me, once you start learning about software/hardware development or anything that might be designed you'd be surprised to know how often things slip through the cracks.

[@puddingat4am145]

Yeah but you are talking about 6 years later for your car? A main character being cross eyed and smiling during sad moments can't be compared to a bad airbag. It would be more like you bought a new car but the front bumper and lights were obviously installed wrong.

[@whipslash1132]

puddingat4am Point is it's a shitty broken product and people buy it anyway making everything suck for the rest of us that does care about it.

[@sniperheem6166]

Whipslash can't compare a car to a game

[@leetaylor3141]

It just makes what Witcher 3 pulled off seem even more a miracle.

[@WatchdogGoon]

Man, I just subscribed yesterday and I am already getting rewarded. Nice.

[@wgt3623]

I think EA just didn't want to delay the game. Obviously, they knew the team needed more time but they decided not to delay. Very ironic after what they said before Christmas : "Right now, Mass Effect is tracking extremely well," he said(EA CFO Blake Jorgensen) about Andromeda. "The game looks beautiful. And we're really pleased with its progress. However, as you've seen, we are willing to make moves in launch dates if we feel it's necessary to deliver the right player experience." Apparently, decent character animation is not "necessary to deliver the right player experience" for a game like Mass Effect... very sad.

[@elsariodelmarco8766]

wgt3623 No game should take 5 years to make. Bioware 100% owns this disaster.

[@anirudhviswanathan3986]

Elsario Delmarco Or at least 90%.

[@Tallborn5]

I see that everywhere they post this shit that they had 5 years development. No they didin't . Bioware is renowed to use all the studios when they are working on a game and given the fact that inquisition dropped in november 2014 they had like 2 years and some months.

[@KuhoinX]

Do you have any evidence to back it up or just your guesses?

[@GamingMasterAnthony]

Elsario Delmarco well LATELY, I agree that they gave give bioware leeway on the release dates (and things like that), during ME3s development and before EA had strict deadlines for them. And even removed a year of production for ME3.

[@sonofedis]

Ubisoft is smiling somewhere

[@greensmurf9623]

Is that because their face isn't tired?

[@zeleros71324]

Revan619 still happy I didn't buy that

[@ashertaz]

"Just as we credit a team, not a person" Have you met our lord and savior , HIDEO KOJIMA? He's always credited for the wins, will be blamed for the fails.

[@slackjawedpenguin3306]

if you really play his metal gear games, you would notice that beside HIDEO KOJIMA, there's also YOJI SHINKAWA. The man who creates amazing artwork and concept for the game. but yeah, credits and blames always goes for him. He overwatch everything, almost literally.

[@JoshuaJadeMcCoskrie]

It's corporate jargon. Anyone who has worked at part of a massive team always know that as a front it's a 'team mistake' yet behind the shadows or in private talks with management it's he said vs she said bullshit.

[@TheFlamingPike]

Also, Tomonobu Itagaki revived the Ninja Gaiden franchise and it died when he left Tecmo.

[@gabrielgutierrez913]

it did, sadly, The Flaming Pike.

[@cloudierbus]

he was blamed for MGS2 being a flop

[@user-ik4nc8ob8h]

i see that oblivion face maker has come long way

[@Acesahn]

Its almost as good as Skyrim now. Inventive of them!

[@user-ik4nc8ob8h]

Acesahn almost

[@ToddHoward.]

lolololol

[@ItsTraviiiii]

Fuck You I subbed, I love your username

[@DarthShadie]

What I don't get is the Day 0 patch that changed female Ruder's face significantly to make her look weirder.

[@Poisonedblade]

It's not just poor facial animations, the game is VERY BUGGY. There is no way a AAA title should ship in this condition. And it's not like the team only had 16 months to make it and they kicked it out the door. This was a 5 year dev cycle. You need to blame the producers for this. I think the Mass Effect Franchise is dead because of this and in the game industry, you need to protect your franchises. Cough cough Zelda cough.

[@TKUltra971]

Witcher 3 face for extra burn.

[@sonicbroom8522]

blame the producers? No. There is only one force to blame here: the pre-order crowd. And its not limited to just ME:A.

[@christopherortega800]

Sonic Broom Yah I fucked up by pre ordering. I as well as the rest of people put to much pressure on the release by date pre ordering.

[@sonicbroom8522]

Christopher Ortega Its ok man. Just remember not to preorder any game ever again. Also, spread the word to your friends not to pre order

[@AnOnlyThird]

I am shocked that someone who is no longer attached to the team would make such wild excuses for their work. I have worked with game development before and these problems are clearly due to a lack of skill, and thus people should be held accountable for it(If animations are the problem who else is at fault but animators?), though not abused. Other medias don't get away with this sort of thing so why should video games?

[@alexander5207]

AnOnlyThird Instead of hiring based on skill they probably hire based on diversity.

[@shinku5463]

I personally know people in the team. They still suck :T

[@alexander5207]

Shinku Toner Yeah there are reviews on glassdoor from people who have worked there 5+ years that give a real insight into the culture at that studio.

[@USSMariner]

Shhh. A former developer CLEARLY has more experience than hundreds of people still working in the industry who've taken giant shits on the game from bow to stern. Sshhhhhhh.

[@orihalchon]

Well not really. His explanation makes perfect sense for me, concerning the sort of procedural-made animation technique . It's easy to blame on the animators since they've "made" the animations. But it could be so many other reasons than just animators (you should've known this); it could be the riggers, who designed the terrible facial rigs. It could be the QC, which probably there isn't any. It could be someone who hasn't converted the animations to the engine properly. It could be the project manager/director, who made poor decision making in leadership - and it shows when they decide fixing the animations was not their priority (which could be due to the problem is so deep-rooted than it is that it could take years to fix all of it).

[@Venserql]

Mass Effect 2 facial animation looks better than Andromeda. There's no excuse

[@looinrims]

Venser mass effect 2’s cinematics in general are the pinnacle of Mass Effect cinematics, just watch the final scene at the end where Normandy escapes the explosion, there ain’t shit that stands up to it

[@ShadesOfKnight]

IMO, Johnathan went a bit off the rails with his "big undertaking" tweet. While he is probably correct, Mass Effect Andromeda is the fourth member of the series, and all of the previous iterations had animations, and they were generally improvements over the prior one. This one went backwards. To say it's a "big undertaking" is true, but it's like saying that the fourth voyage of Columbus was just as hard as the first one. Big yes, but not nearly as challenging as the first... you can at least do as well as the first.

[@ozpain1]

Gamers aren't interested in excuses or explanations for why something is the way it is or looks the way it looks...whatever is said to explain why the facial animations are terrible, all you have to really do is point at the screen and say, "this in unacceptable." Because, honestly it just is...it shouldn't be compared to other games. This is an issue that can be judged on its own without comparison.

[@smoldream2908]

Are you actually Hideo Kojima?

[@NaijeruMizuho]

Smol Dream He's Venom Kojima.

[@onlinemm0911]

NaijMizuho "Punished" Venom Kojima.

[@smoldream2908]

King Bradberry I didn't mean anything racist with my comment, but ok

[@onlinemm0911]

Smol Dream Your comment isn't racist at all. That's probably some troll trying to bait. He/she is implying you meant Yong and Kojima look the same because "all Asians look alike". Which is stupid, because its not true at all. Take Indians & Koreans for example. So, in short don't bother.

[@smoldream2908]

Hugo Stiglitz Mm yeah, I actually considered just replying to that person's comment with "neat", but I decided to make a somewhat more serious (but not really) comment

[@Tobanaman]

"What could have gone wrong?" Three simple answers based on conjectures: 1.EA 2.Release Date 3.Frostbite Engine

[@WHATISUPWORLDD]

Jeboon Just asking, what wrong with the Frostbite engine?

[@Moooniemoon]

Jeboon frostbite engine is buggy as hell, almost every game that ran on frost bite have some buggy features to it and just didn't feel right

[@GmTy]

RFmooonie agree with this. Dislike this engine with a passion. Buggy and limited. Awful for consoles too.

[@Tobanaman]

Probably nothing is technically wrong with the engine but I get the feeling that EA is shoving it down everyone's throat whether it's a good fit for the project or not. It's never a good idea to dictate workflow based on corporate decisions and that's what happened here. EA decided all their developers need to use Frostbite and Bioware was left to try to figure out the engine's quirks AND develop a next gen successor to a beloved trilogy in a limited amount of time.

[@Moooniemoon]

Jeboon wish they would let them use UE4

[@Nawor1996]

honestly i would have been happy with Inquisition quality animations

[@Nawor1996]

and isn't EA is notorious for rushing and otherwise butchering games? pretty sure that's part of why Javik was dlc, despite being almost crucial to the plot of ME3

[@morganmlaidd]

I wondered the same thing.

[@zd4w9]

Sounds like I need to go play Witcher 3.

[@TheMetalGaia]

zd4w9 Yes. YES.

[@walidsulaiman5269]

zd4w9 yeah but itll spoil every other game for you

[@zd4w9]

Walid Sulaiman Lol, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last of Us, and Xcom 2 have already done that for different reasons. If the writing is bad I can't play it.

[@jessicat2906]

+Walid Sulaiman no doubt

[@gamingcritic326]

You should definitely purchase the game. It was the most immersive rpg i've ever played. Its actually got me anxious to see what CDPR does with Cyberpunk 2077.

[@cthudo]

Cooper is using the word algorithm almost like a curse word here, somehow implying that ME:A should still be considered a triumph because of the magnitude of the project, with the small caveat that 100% of the animations should have been done by hand instead of some unknown fraction. The programmers among us will know that's kind of a bullshit claim. Especially systematic animation problems like the chaotic movement model of the eyes and the unnatural twitches are *absolutely* things that can be, and in other games frequently are, managed by algorithms in a satisfactory way. These issues with Andromeda are bugs, plain and simple, and claims about how the result is somehow close the state-of-the-art should be viewed with a lot of skepticism.

[@aolson1111]

Udo Except he never said it was state-of-the-art or "a triumph." Try responding to what he actually said, instead of the things you made up.

[@crimzonempire4677]

A Olson 👍

[@cthudo]

I apologize. When I said "implying" I meant that the comments invoked a certain impression in my mind, and judging by YongYea's video other people experienced variations of that impression as well. Not saying I was right, and I certainly should have worded it better. If you disagree completely on the *larger point* here, that's cool as well, but I stand by my initial sentiment: the choice of having an algorithm arbitrate movement patterns is not the reason for Andromeda's sup-par character animations, nor is the scope of the game.

[@Bob1128]

Cooper only explained how a game should be developing their animations and the priorities that should be set. He did not hint at where the ball dropped with Andromeda. How does $40m budget + over 5 years of developement + well resourced Bioware & EA = Andromeda? Where did the ball drop?

[@Toliman.]

More telling is that by every estimation, everyone who saw this character, Addison, would likely have reported it as a problem to fix before release, but it was ignored more than once as not important enough to fix, or * someone * vetoed the correction for a particular reason. Saying it shipped early or was rushed, is understated. Politics likely got in the way of the QA process, Management / Feedback, or the Leads are incompetent, or All of the above. No amount of time would have changed or fixed a problem like this if it were taken seriously, which speaks to a process or pipeline error, more than a rushed job. The people who stop mistakes in the production pipeline, didn't or couldn't do their job, which should be alarming. So, there was more than likely another reason to deprioritise a major plot character's interactions. e.g. politics or middle-management interfering in the process of getting people to redo work. Obviously, they dropped the ball early with leadership and quality assurance stages. Leads, are the people in the teams that are supposed to catch these problems and reassign people to work on faulty areas like this. How "my face is tired" got through production, speaks volumes on their pipeline, their leadership, the communication problems between departments. The lack of ethics within management to allow this to go gold with such a glaring production and management level fault is galling. As the intro dialogue to a main storyline character, QA would have seen this, marketing would have seen this. Someone, thought it wasn't important enough to fix and gave it a low priority. Again, more than one person saw this, and left it in the game as-is. More than one person wrote and spoke the dialogue in ADR. this passed through a lot of hands, and it wasn't edited out or tweaked, the voice actor read it out like that as well, without note or embellishment, or emotion or nuance. The dialog and scene was imported into the game engine, left in as-is. Many, Many people saw this, and left it in, and apparently, nobody could do anything to prevent it, correct it, or get someone to stop the train from moving forward towards launch.

[@Devine3190]

For a former employee he provided a surprisingly low amount of insight.

[@MMGWsceptic]

Indeed. Since he evidently knows his stuff one wonders why he left - presumerably because they were only prepared to pay their employees peanuts and evidently replaced the animators with a bunch of monkeys. SJW and feminist monkeys by all accounts.

[@Auntiebels]

It is also in ones best interest to not shed TOO much light that could potentially paint a prior employer in a negative light, as one never knows where their work may take them.

[@BlazeBluetm35]

what does SJW or feminism have to do with this?

[@TKUltra971]

of course hes not. hes basically making excuses providing a pr stunt. Less he pisses off his former employer, his name gets put out negativity in the gaming business community and never gets a job again.

[@Quadraxon]

Jake Dugan If someone gets shrouded in negative light and have their future employment jeopardized because they spread the truth, then that only confirms how devious and corrupt our society is. It must change.

[@michahojwa8132]

So 're saying witcher 3 was cheaper while top quality and 5x more content?

[@michaelroche3658]

play it

[@michahojwa8132]

Michael Roche yea, i play and love new mass effect - but still 5mln more expensive than w3

[@michaelroche3658]

andromeda is shit in comparison to the trilogy

[@FancyHat]

www.gamespot.com/articles/this-is-how-much-the-witcher-3-cost-to-make/1100-6430409/ Witcher 3 had about double the budget

[@michahojwa8132]

Yes, thanks for finding it out - the last i heard of it it was 35mln.

[@braddeicide]

Why did he wrote an entire article in tweets?

[@kevynhansyn2902]

braddeicide because all who use Twitter, really have no lives. glad I don't use it. I may not have much of a life but still.

[@robosing225]

Kevyn Hansyn I was just about to agree on how it's dumb so many people use Twitter as a social media outlet. then you said you didn't have much of a life haha

[@Prince_Smugarina]

Cause only SJWs care about Twiiter, so its easier to get pity from those losers :3

[@kambion]

more people read tweets

[@dukes1993724]

Gnartic Warfare Like our President and his most loyal followers?

[@aokoaozaki]

aint nothin like watching a freshly baked 360p video

[@Hwoarang121]

I'm proud to be from Poland because of the Witcher series.

[@diasifec9564]

Hwoarang121 I'd say it's Poland's greatest contribution to the world

[@EthanBradburyVlogs]

Hwoarang121 Too bad the game was Essentially a sex simulator with shit gameplay and decent voice acting

[@bigblueminamiku3679]

I think you're forgetting Nicolaus Copernicus.

[@Hwoarang121]

Paul Walker Well, there are many people and things making me proud to be from Poland. Witcher series is not The only thing. John Paul II for example. :)

[@bigblueminamiku3679]

Sorry mate, I was talking to Martin.

[@circumquentiam]

I like these sit down videos. Anything that lets me stare at those eyes

[@AnotherSWnerd]

Noah Dennis lmao

[@BishounenLuvr]

Creepy, but yes these are nice conversation videos.

[@ColdOneK]

It's almost like...it's was published by EA!!!!!

[@samvimes9510]

Andromeda was made by a team (Bioware Montreal) who have no experience with games, and it shows. To assign a franchise that big to a rookie team was just asinine. When a series is known for heavy dialogue and character interactions, it's going to make bad facial animations stand out _way_ more than if it was in an action game. And even though the devs were rookies, surely they could have just used an existing algorithm from Dragon Age Inquisition or Mass Effect 3. Even the animations in the original Mass Effect were better, and that game came out almost a decade ago. Regardless of whose fault it is, it's inexcusable for a big budget release to have _worse_ animations than a 10 year old game. Nobody in their right might could defend what Andromeda is: a lazy cash grab. Because while the animations are horrible, the writing is just as bad. At best it's boring and cliche, and at worst it's like a bad fanfic. Everyone involved with this game should be ashamed of themselves.

[@thatboringone7851]

Sam Vimes Why should everyone involved with the game feel bad? You talk about it as if the average coder/animator has the slightest bit of executive control over the game. They do what they get told to, and try their best with it. You can't expect even the best chef to make a four course, five star meal out of tapeworms if the manager decides that would cut the cost of the restaurant.

[@diasifec9564]

Not to worry, Cyberpunk 2077 (same Dev as Witcher 3) Will be the next "Mass Effect"

[@DeathBringer769]

It'll also be like another "Deus Ex" from what I can tell, except hopefully better.

[@musacan00747]

Martin Herrink nothing will be more immersive then mass effect universe.its just it has so much potential its sad to watch this game go downhilk

[@TheDarkness2204]

Hopefully better then snorefest that was Andromeda

[@Thomyash]

Cyberpunk 2077 can't replace Mass Effect. It's cyberpunk, not space opera. Huge difference.

[@r4nowo]

yea... releasing 2021

[@glacier4286]

I wonder if he was paid for that damage control.

[@axeltenveils6816]

The Witcher series is the loved child of CD Projekt red, while ME: Andromeda was the hastily made toy to give to the ignored child (The consumers).

[@christiannugraha1011]

And that's why we can see a huge difference in quality.

[@veiloftruth8923]

Sounds like a lot of excuses to me. Facts are 1) Mass effect released 10 years ago was better animated. 2) Its Bioware job, they have no other purpose than to produce a good product. 3) If your product is shit don't release it. 4) It's not my job to be understanding of your problems. I should get what I pay for. 5) is there no quality assurance entity within Bioware whatsoever. Bioware needs to spend more time on producing a AAA game and less time on politics and defending deplorable ethics..

[@ocoDOT]

The original Mass effects' animations were minimal but effective. Less is more. I think they tried too much with Andromeda.

[@nohints]

Yup, when you sacrifice quality for sjw retardation, you get what you deserve. Ask Marvel.

[@FerreusNRG]

You ABSOLUTELY can single out one person for failure of the team if the person in question is motherfucking leader of the team.

[@InSecretRising]

That short clip from witcher 3 there made me kinda feel excited... seeing something so natural and realistic after 4 hours of andromeda... uff bad times indeed.

[@edwardoliveira1748]

Trish? who da fuck is Trish?

[@Ozraptor4]

The red haired shorshersessh with the nicsh boobsh.

[@broonoh]

There's no excuse period.

[@dalenixon6981]

Jonathon Cooper should not give excuses for bad quality control and workload. This game was in development for 5 years and had tens of millions of dollars pumped into it. 5 years justifies all the time to make a good game, much less facial animations. It's also physics and AI glitches don't forget.

[@ernsthaft6929]

Witcher 3 is full of content, and it's has much better animations. ...

[@Centurian128]

And had twice the budget.

[@theprideling]

Well, it's more like they have EA to blame.

[@HybernatedBeast]

no excuses ! the witcher was a huge game and there facials were way better !

[@zelohendricks51]

DJ Tecktock it also had a bigger budget

[@shawnl2692]

William Rob witcher 3 did not have a bigger budget

[@HybernatedBeast]

Gg Nnj correct . witcher def had a smaller budget then an ea mass effect game .

[@FancyHat]

Actually CEO said Witcher 3 cost close to 81 million USD to make with advertising. ME:A budget was about 40 million USD.

[@HybernatedBeast]

Fancy Hat What was mass effects?

[@FirstNameLastName-wo7li]

I'm just gonna put this out there i may be alone. But, After 5 years and 40 million dollars Bioware has no excuse for a game to look so bad. I get it's hard to do all of this i really do but I'm tired of hearing excuses for bad animation especially when old BioWare games such as Mass Effect 2 and 3 looks three times better than their brand new game Mass Effect Andromeda. Again no excuse. Good video bud keep it up.... Also don't forget they made the females ugly on purpose. which is ridiculous.

[@FirstNameLastName-wo7li]

Also just want to clarify if someone gets triggered off of what I said. I think Mass Effect Andromeda looks fantastic the game itself looks wonderful the combat is very fun with a decent multiplayer new weapons are fun to play with as well as old weapons coming back. however I still cannot get over the terrible facial animations or for that matter the mass of glitches and bugs that the game has when released as a final product. I mean for fuck sakes there is a seen where peebee shoots the gun backwards i mean what the hell??? Also wtf kind of name is peebee Even for A asari name that's just pure laziness with no creativity just think about it your first asari companion's name was Liara and in Mass Effect Andromeda you're asari companions name is peebee... Really

[@Pagemaster22193]

It's not her real name. Her real name is Pelessaria B’Sayle. She thinks it's a mouthful or something.

[@joereed3643]

Agreed there is no excuses for the bad animation and it looks like Cooper is just trying to protect/play nice/feign support just to keep a good face in his profession. Hell, people were comparing the "my face is tired" character to Ashley from ME1(10 years ago) and surprisingly enough, Ashley did a better job at conveying the little nuances that prevent the dead eye syndrome MEA characters suffer from. o.O

[@FirstNameLastName-wo7li]

Pagemaster22193 I didn't catch that but even still i think her long name is just as poor.

[@deschain1910]

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, especially the weird way they made the female characters less attractive (not even debatable). However, I think you're being stubborn about Peebee's name and the writing in general. There are some bad single lines, but overall there are really interesting ideas in the writing, like the remnant glyphs for example. There's plenty of creativity going on and Peebee's full name is perfectly in line with other Asari names.

[@sopothetocho]

Thats just an excuse, Skyrim has like 10 times the NPC all of them are seen up close talking and thousands of hours of recorded dialog and it looks alright. They just did a crappy job at making their lipsync system.

[@warsaber2117]

Nope there is no excuse for those animation to be they way it is, it was lazy, rushed, poorly done, and the crazy part about it all is that Bioware knew the animations was shit before they released the game. I guess they felt they had all ready made there money from pre-orders so it really didn't matter. To be honest i really shouldn't be surprised by this, getting half ass games for full price has gotten old and i should have known better, but the MASS EFFECT name got the better of me. Your right YongYea, the company is to blame, not just one person, and personally i don't think there getting drilled enough for this crap, maybe they'll think twice next time they try something like this again. I'M LOOKING AT YOU STAR WARS BATTLE FRONT 2 or any other Bioware games, or any other company for the matter, I'll just wait for reviews before i purchase any other games for now on, hell i should've been doing that anyway. lol......Fuck it i need another beer now, sry for the rant, im just sick of the BS.

[@tomminisokwakus]

thank you for covering this in a mature way, respect

[@nevertoooldgaming_Rave]

I could sympathize with the DEVS but then I remember that the game cost 40 MILLION DOLLARS to make. This was no way near a 40 MILLION DOLLAR product. Its not just the animations, the whole fucking game is a mess. The writing is sloppy. The animations are shit. Its horridly buggy. Its an RPG with an atrocity of a story. Sorry, but the DEVS deserve all the flak coming their way. They really fucked the football on this one.

[@lydellb]

Have no fucks to give for the excuses.

[@Darkholow]

The main problem here is that EA let a rookie team work on a new Mass Effect game which is a bigger franchise than Dragon Age which was a big mistake.

[@ikillomega]

What Cooper is doing is essentially blaming the fans' expectations for MEA's bad animations. No. This is a project that failed because it failed. It didn't fail because people were asking for too much.

[@metafis2490]

Yes...similar to no mans sky, where some blamed the fans 'expectations', when in fact, the expectations were set and encouraged by The developer(mostly from Sean "Jim Cary" Murray).

[@holythirteenx1]

Oh my God. She ACTUALLY said "My face is tired?!" Game of the year.

[@tysonasaurus6392]

Speaking of Uncharted 4. The facial animations are like perfect in there. It is phenomenal work, but that is also partially due to the facial mocap. I'm fine with robotic facial animations in big rpgs full of conversations, just not creepy terrifying faces and animations.

[@tysonasaurus6392]

Also ME:1 isn't just years old, it is 10 years old. Like some kid out there was five years old when the first game came out, and now that kid is playing ME:A at fifteen years old. And was really excited to play it, and waited for years to play it. 10 fucking years, and they only regressed

[@docduck5990]

Yes I was a bit let down to hear the team (Specifically one guy lets be honest) making the game used their position as a platform for racism on social media. I was going to look passed the glitches which may or may not have been due to hiring mistakes and quite frankly just incompetence. But after seeing so many different glitches and problems (There are also story/lore/codex issues that spoil the game early) I don't think I can. The game had a huge budget, made by an industry leader (EA). It's being sold for $70 a pop... sad to say it's kind of an easy choice to not buy it myself. Maybe watch a walk through for the story. QUESTION: If they have to use real people for real dialogue and not an algorithm, why can't they animate every voiced npc with motion capture? It can't be that hard, right?

[@thepunisher4356]

Nordan How many voiced npcs are there in the whole game thou? I mean it stands to reason they could of done it, and then spent the time cleaning up the animation after porting it into a program they use to animate their models in. But I'm not sure how long that individual process takes. I've never done 3D modeling so I don't really know how long it takes to go through the process. Plus you gotta send it to your lead and then make any revisions. I don't think you will ever know unless you get to meet someone who was in those trenches.

[@docduck5990]

Right but obviously this isn't the apex of large population animation. What I'm saying is, especially for this company, when its presented with this sort of problem one would expect a software or industry innovation rather than serving it to us as it was. And yeah I agree with you, just wish we knew more.

[@abethecop12]

I'm a really big fan of how this video turned into a witcher 3 love fest. Amazing game.

[@LaurentiuBadea]

I get what Cooper is saying, although the technical mumbo-jumbo is beyond my tether, but I feel he's too defensive about his former team. Sure, animating an RPG is much more complicated than a linear third person shooter, but it's not an excuse when almost every conversation in Andromeda seems like the AI wants to become sentient and break character. Aside from that, the animations aren't glitched, nor procedurally generated, no matter what Cooper insinuates, they're handmade, each and every one, come on, that's the most bothersome aspect. He's saying that parts of the game's animation are left entirely to an algorithm and I don't want to believe that, since these "lowest quality scenes" are prevalent in the game, were covered in official trailers, are among the most important scenes in the game and are the same to each and every gameplay. And I'm pretty sure there's footage somewhere (I think it can be seen in CrowbCat's video) in which an animator works on Peebee's face. No, sorry, I think animation is a big deal in video games, we laugh and make fun of them, but when a game becomes so silly in 2017 that people can safely say a 2007 game had better animations, not just facial ones, than that becomes something inexcusable. I don't blame the animation team, I don't think I can blame Bioware either, even if they lie through their teeth, I blame EA for pushing out a game they know it's not ready.

[@ericksonsouza6479]

Even GTA V has better facial animation...and it is a really big open world.

[@dannejoon]

That bottle of lotion and the HTC vive in the background makes me think Yong's got some "School girl waifu VR" games :D I see you're a man of culture~~

[@NewYorkGameflow]

I stopped pre ordering AAA titles over a year ago... after wildlands, and andromeda, i now see how i need to stop buying games till after i see a good amount of gameplay after release. But i dont blame the game companies, i blame myself for buying (based on hype, and friend influence) without researching.

[@Webhead787]

God I cant wait for Cyberpunk 2077.

[@theedguardian]

Some writer(s) wrote "my face is tired", it got peer reviewed, accepted, and got paid. 😵

[@SkiesTurnedGrey]

Honestly...I don't think the animation quality on the faces has gone "downhill" from ME1-3. I think it's the same. The only reason it appears worse is because the textures and models in Andromeda are so much higher resolution. When you have an ME1-3 quality animation on ME1-3 quality textures and models, it works. When you slap those same ME1-3 quality animations on a character with much higher res textures and meshes (Andromeda), it's going to look awful and out of place. In other words, if you were to take the facial animations in Andromeda and apply them to the character models in ME1-3, it would probably look decent. So the problem here isn't that the animations have "gone downhill". Rather, it's that the animations didn't improve in the same scale that the textures and meshes did (if at all).

[@Dryde85]

wow that Jonathan Cooper guy gave shit excuses.

[@RelativeStrengthFit]

In your last video you explained why the eyes looked weird. I thought about it and then it hit me. I realized what the eyes reminded me of. They look like Mr Bean's eyes. Just Google it KZbin him and you will see

[@MetallicA7X92]

Witcher 3 is also bigger than Mass Effect in size of both landmass and NPC's.

[@valdeiroleer6665]

Thank you for sharing. You have articulated these points very nicely and I have to agree.

[@Andy_Paris]

I like this guy, very well spoken & dropped a fair amount of good points, my first time seeing him too so that's saying a lot. I did have a bad personal experience with the games facial animations, & when I ranted online about it I practically got accused of "jumping on the hate wagon" when I didn't even know so many other people were experiencing the same issues at that time, and wanted to express my concerns because I am a huge fan of the franchise. The experience was so bad I couldn't even pay attention to the dialog because all I could think was "why does my character look so freaking awkward!?" I literally spent 6 hours in the EA early access trial creating my character over & over to finally find one that I was truly happy with & that worked with the facial animation bugs. And wow what a difference! To the point that I am now enjoying the game. This game still needs a lot of work as I have encountered quite a few glitches, but in the end it's still an enjoyable game & hopefully they can fix most of the glitches to make it even better game.

[@joseguilarte87]

Exactly. The wicher 3 was epic! Everything EA touches turns to crap

[@burgerwolfbrown735]

Maybe EA is filled with Harry Potter Demontors that just fly in and suck all the good out

[@MrWulfric1]

The Witcher 3.

[@2cents4u]

All I heard was "Blah blah blah, My excuses for not taken more time to animate the characters faces" Come On EA! I swear they used a full computer algorithm in order to move the facial animation, cause it looks just that "Robotic" not human.

[@UnoriginalEpinom]

Brilliant, thoughtful commentary. Looking forward to more of this level of analysis. The industry should pay attention to this channel.

[@elestromusicgamesfun1101]

RIP Bioware. Will always remember the good times.

[@BouArmy]

Exactly, both Witcher 3 and ME:A are both RPGs, both have a huge number of characters and other aspects are similar as well, difference is the settings and other stuff, so if Witcher is fantastic in the animations department, then of course we should expect similar results from a game of the same genre. If a smaller developer can do great, why not a multimillionare studio like Bioware?...Also: Fuck Manveer, witch hunts are totally justified against that asshole.

[@anirudhviswanathan3986]

BouArmy However, not everyone has the luxury to devote 100% of all resources and eforts towards 1 IP for more than 11 years. Other devs have publishers and what not to worry about. Almost no one in this industry gets to work with 0 external influence like CD Projekt Red.

[@BouArmy]

Of course. Though when it is a franchise as big as Mass Effect, they should. People expect a lot for a big developer such as them, specially when they have already shown they can in the past, both recently and from almost 10 years ago. People expect at least some level of standards and care when it comes to animations. Doesn't matter if it's realistic or not, but at least credible. But I agree.

[@anirudhviswanathan3986]

BouArmy Not saying Bioware is innocent though. They screwed up big time in animations and asset loading after having 5 years to work on it.

[@Fudge65x]

these are good vids, I like the talk and backing up your talking points. now subbed. my question is do you think bioware and ea are going to stick to their schedule with addons and expansions and the like or do you think they are going to step back listen to the backlash and maybe try to fix the animations with patches ?

[@YongYea]

Thanks! I think with how big this debacle has become, they might actually try and patch it, but hard to say for sure.

[@Aramey44]

Ok, let's be honest - Shepard's animations weren't that good either. His squadmates and crew - yes, but Shepard was always a stiff bland robot to me.

[@13igorsm]

really good content and analysis of the situation , we need more channel like that

[@spectreshadow]

I have no problem with someone having any view as long as they use facts in their argument. This is why I really like your videos.

[@elsariodelmarco8766]

Bioware also skimped on story, esp. dialogue in ME:4.

[@zelohendricks51]

Elsario Delmarco the story is fine

[@pdpMASTERP]

just a bunch of bullshit explanations. bioware has been extremely successful with animations in the past. The team that made andromeda are just lazy

[@GhostCell47]

Not lazy. Inexperienced.

[@HullLynX]

Thats what happens when you do a game with EA. They make you save more and more time and money und as a result quality drops significantly.

[@TheRealTanSeeker]

I do remember being impressed by the realism of characters while talking in the older Mass Effects. It made a big impact on the game. Loved all 3 (apart from that ending lol)

[@Lambatross]

CD Projekt Red publish their own games though, if they have a publisher pushing a deadline on The Witcher 3 it might've been a very different result. I get the feeling Bioware were putting all efforts into building the environments and combat but had very little time in the end to complete the animations, purely because I've noticed that the more cinematic moments in this game have far superior facial animations compared to conversations you instigate yourself on the Tempest etc.

[@Bronwyn031]

His tweets albeit candid are nothing more than fluff to hide the fact that Andromeda's animators have a tremendous amount of student loan debt to the "University of Fuck'n Up" that needed to paid off! Gemeranx compiled a video of some the the most inexcusable glitches and animations to be shared from this tripe of a game. I nearly lost it when a NPC during a SCRIPTED cutscene actually fires her gun model BACKWARDS! Not only is Bioware's reputation on the line but so is EA's. I'd rather they delay the game till the holiday season versus pushing out what is clearly a unpolished, un tested, un quality assured steaming pile of iguana poo that is Mass Effect:Andromeda =( Bioware had better not mess up the next Dragon Age entry or I may just abandon them as a competent game maker!

[@Miromoto]

lmao I love that opening joke, I'm going to borrow that some time. But yeah, they done goofed.

[@Centurian128]

It's important to note that Witcher 3 had twice the budget of Andromeda.

[@Xport9]

Which is fucking sad, because EA could've funded them more. However, people has a theory, ever since the exile of Casey Hudson and following key members of original BioWare. EA somehow waver their concerns behind the company, knowing full well that the development team isn't what it used to be; which is a potential possibility why they fund them so little.

[@psyc0m4nt1s6]

But half of the team behind ME

[@XS69]

It had not. Witcher 3 did have a budget of about 30 million. There was about 50 million $ worth of marketing that added up to the 81 million $ of complete costs of Witcher 3. With ME:A you have 40 million $ just for the development and at least 50 millions marketing costs as well, if not more (50m is at the low end for an AAA title marketing campaign).

[@cjayem013]

hmm, personally, I'm not sure budget is always the best gauge.. Maybe if devs didn't try to hype up a game so much that they can't push back the release date or just wait to say release date altogether, then game's wouldnt be unbearably incomplete. It's not like this is bioware's 1st game.. Sad that even the game industry seemingly needs regulating now....

[@Centurian128]

It is this particular team's first game though. This was Bioware Montreal, they've not made a full game before. I also doubt that it was the devs responsible for all of that hype, but I'm not an avid follower of game news anymore. Typically hype and the like are the in the region of the publisher, in this case EA and we all know what they do to game devs.

[@aerohk]

Even Fallout 4 is better then Mass Effect.

[@fabriziol8769]

The witcher 3 budget: 70mln Mass Effect Andromeda budget: 40 mln So you can't compare the two animations, or, if you want to, you have to know what you are talking about. More money, more quality. Preatty simple and logic.

[@masterfubar23]

they probably put that line in specifically for the shoddy animations.