Mass Effect: Andromeda - 22 Random Tidbits

Game Informers lists 22 random tidbits you probably didn't know about for Mass Effect: Andromeda.

1. Ryder is intentionally more of a blank slate than Shepard at the beginning of Andromeda. "Shepard came on the scene, and it felt like they'd already accomplished a lot and they'd done a lot and they'd seen a lot - but I hadn't," says creative director Mac Walters. "That whole universe was new to me, and so there was a bit of a disconnect between me and my player character right from the start. And so, with this, I'd really like us to close that gap as much as we can without going full amnesia."

2. Your companion Liam has a British accent.

3. You find clues about what happened to the other arks. For instance, as you locate asari escape pods, you learn more about what happened to them and their ark, and that thread is eventually resolved in a mission.

4. Some quests take place on the planet where you discover them, and others point you toward new locations. "It's about a 90-10 split," says Walters. "Once you're on a world, you should feel like you can spend your time there and complete the level. The rest are either resolved from somewhere else or send you somewhere else."

5. Despite the series' long history, the move to new hardware and adopting the Frostbite engine means BioWare built all systems, tools, and assets from scratch for Andromeda.

6. All of the systems (though not necessarily all of the content) are currently implemented in the game. Now it's just a matter of "balance and tweaking," according to Walters.

7. Enemies of the same class have different abilities based on their race.

8. Not all of the races from the original trilogy appear in Andromeda, but they may show up in future installments. "We've designed the IP in such a way that they can all show up," Walters says. "For hopefully obvious reasons, they're not all going to show up in the first game."

9. The points you earn by gaining experience are applied to more than just your powers. It's the same currency you use for other kinds of progression, like improving the hover time on your jetpack and increasing the Nomad's speed.

10. The blistering heat of Elaaden is only one kind of environmental hazard. "Another planet you might have ice, or radiation, or another kind of hazard," says producer Mike Gamble. "We're trying to mix it up, and how you survive them will be different depending on the planet. Some might require a different Nomad upgrade, others will take shelter, and so forth."

11. For players worried the scope expansion will dilute the experience: "The key for us has been ensuring that the content is rich and up to BioWare quality standards," Walters says. "Believe it or not, as massive as this is, we've actually continued to restrain the scope as much as possible so we can bring quality to each of these areas and make each one memorable. That's a term I use a lot - I want these places to be memorable. I don't want it to be like, the white planet, the blue planet - I want to remember the names of the locations and the characters I meet."