Love how EA insists on crunch time for months at a time, then when the game comes out they’re like “Huh, I wonder why this game is so bad. I mean, it can’t be OUR fault.”

The reason why they changed to frostbite was because EA fully owns it so they don't need to pay royalties to other engines. In short, money.

Working for a medical animation studio years ago, I had the misfortune of having to work under a manager that had just previously worked at EA. He took everyone off hourly and forced them to work salaried, plus mandated 55 hour work weeks as the standard without pay increase. Wouldn't respond to my emails, then publicly excoriated me when I fell behind and blamed my lack of communication. Forced us to use Maya even though I was out performing all the Maya guys with ease using 3ds Max, and eventually fired me when I couldn't reach the same proficiency I had had with Max. Fourteen years at that company, down the tubes. EA attracts and breeds human garbage.

"Let's make lots of procedurally generated worlds." "Cool, but what's the game about?" "Yup. Tons of world to explore." "But what's the story?" "Soooo many worlds."

9:06 "Yeah but your developers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

Report to the ship as soon as possible. We'll BANG okay?

Props to the editor for that transition on "Vertical Slice" and for actually taking the time to make a custom smash match with players named after 2 Bioware studios for the sake of 2 seconds of footage

"Why EA thought this (using Frostbite) was a good idea... I honestly don't have an answer..." Oh dear Matt, it's all so simple. They own the Frostbite Engine. It's their intellectual property by way of DiCE. They wouldn't have to pay anyone else a dime to use it. Using something more robust like Unreal would have meant they would have to pay royalties, and if there's anything EA hates it's paying money. So they cut the middleman - and made a whole mess of things. And, you know, developing a whole new game engine would cost a lot of money, and nobody (at EA, that is) wants to spend that much.

"It's in the game." -Homer Simpson

My face is tired from seeing everybody commenting about how their faces are tired from dealing with...everything.

They did indeed plan for DLC, it was supposed to be based around the quarian ship you hear sending an SOS to you right at the very end. I believe they ended up turning it into a comic instead.

I like how most of the videos come down to parent companies ruining things.

I'm still blown away by the scene where she holds the pistol backwards and shoots it. How could you let something that obvious slip by?

All of the ME games have custom faces, that was one of the major things about it, you could transfer your character between games

"the game just wasn't fun" Couldn't agree more with that, it was my first ME and i played it for the first time in 2020 so those huge bugs wasn't really a problem for me, but the game's pace... oh boy... I'm current playing the remakes and i'm loving it, is like a completely diferent world, so sad to see a company like Bioware like this, i just hope things change with the next Dragon Age and ME...

We just need a Wha Happun for EA itself at this point, sure it would be likely to be hours long but it deserves it.

Do people actually not like Seth Green in those games? I thought he did a good job.

I feel like wwe 2k20 will get it's time in the sun soon

13:58 Every entry in the original Mass Effect trilogy had character creation.

"Why EA thought this was a good idea I honestly don't have an answer" Money. Money is always the answer at EA.

0:31 Honestly, this game might as well be considered to be “Planet Sheen - The Video Game”

My face is tired... But seriously, glad you covered this Matt, I feel so bad for Bioware and how they've fallen.

"imagine no mans sky with bioware graphics and story?" is that a threat?

Changing 3D software so late into development makes me feel physically ill, how could anyone think that wasn't a horrible plan?

Maaan, I remember the years when this game was coming out, my hype just slowly withered out and was completely dead once the game came out. Mass Effect was one of my favorite series, so it makes me sad that it's gotten to this point.

I was a huge fan of Mass Effect but everyone here knows that the day EA purchased BioWare, it was only a matter of time before the franchise was killed off by a buggy mess.

All of that beautiful world building, interesting lore and amazing characters just thrown out the window. I got no anger left for this, only sadness

EVERY ASARI HAS THE SAME FACE, and they all look tired

Very surprised the writing and dialogue wasn't mentioned in this

I’d say they should remaster the original trilogy but they’d find a way to muck that up too.

"But the list of their casualties is even longer" *Sees Bullfrog and Westwood* Mah hart, Mah soul

"All new story" an alien species taking other species and assimilating them and producing combined version of themselves threatening to do the same to the entire galaxy? hmmmm where have I heard that before?

16:10 EA busting through the door wielding an axe: "It's in the game" Me: "Ahhhhhhhh!" Yeah, that sums up my feelings about EA perfectly.

I loved the whole Mass effect trilogy minus the last 10 minutes, and honestly, i was fine with that

It's so interesting to me how this game is still talked about to this day. It may not have been great, but it certainly wasn't forgettable...

Me: The earlier a bug is fixed in development, the cheaper it is to fix. EA: Let's change the core engine mid production! 'facepalms'

Wait... what's wrong with Seth Green?

I would love to see a episode focused on Star Wars Battlefront 2.

Mass Effect started with Unreal Engine, should have stayed that way.

13:15 To be fair, in development circles, that's usually caused by an absence of automated tests and a codebase that's just too tightly coupled (and untestable in the first place)... EDIT: If you value your QA team's sanity that is... at least use regression tests to reproduce the bugs and confirm they're fixed...

3:30 that episode of SpongeBob where he says "actors"

These are great videos, very well edited and fun to watch many times over. I'm not sure why really but your vaporwave outro makes me like them even more (the part that advertises Patreon and other vids). Thank you Matt, and everyone involved!

I've recently discovered that procedural generation was planned even in ME1, but Bioware soon gave up on the idea because it was impossible to make back in that time.

Watching this makes me so sad. Even in its broken state, the game had promise. The final moments of the game offered a lot of interesting mysteries that could've led to something amazing. But thanks to poor management, something that has become a staple with modern-day BioWare, we'll likely never know what could've been.

Also the fact that you still couldn't romance a Krogan is BULLSHIT and makes this game even more depressing.

I missed Tali, Garrus and Liara. I don't even remember any of the characters names from Andromeda.

I would definitely be interested in a Wha Happun for Spyro Enter The Dragonfly!

Thank you for this very clear and concise explanation, Muscles. It was very insightful. You presented the overall story and just the right amount of detailed information.

Man, this was such a sad way to see one of my favorite franchises die Alexa, play Leaving Earth

It’s time for SONIC to FORCE his way into this show again

Frostbite not having proper tools for animation is probably why all those things are prerendered in the bf games, not even sure if in engine.

17:10 Dude. That was like a graveyard of my childhood.

Can't help but recognize that Steins;Gate music

Moral of the story: Never negotiate with EA

I didn't realize Andromeda and Horizon Zero Dawn came out at almost the same time. Ouch!

After that recent starfield trailer, announcing 400 planets, I’m expecting the same shit

Love the use of the Va-11 Hall A soundtrack at the end!

I tried Andromeda out for the first time this past spring. 2 years from launch and it's a decent title. Still a bit janky at points but I had fun with it. Honestly, I'd be up for Bioware taking another stab at it, especially since they can now focus more on the game and less on getting Frostbite to play nice with the RPG elements of the game.

As someone with Maya experience from majoring in game development I'd like to add something(for whoever cares enough to read the comment). Just kind of a further reason switching to Maya towards the end of development was an awful idea. What I have learned about Maya is that it is a decent software. If you start and end in it. Maya also has some lovely animation features that make it wonderful to work with if you learn your way around. Here's the thing, MAYA IS NOTORIOUSLY BROKEN. Sometimes it just doesn't like your hardware for a day and will fix itself later, or sometimes it just doesn't want to read files correctly for a few hours or a couple attempts, or sometimes it just corrupts your preferences for no reason, or decides to save a file somewhere you didn't even know existed on your computer. Don't get me wrong, it is some amazing software, if you use it right you get Destiny and Destiny 2 which were modelled in Maya and look gorgeous, other times you get this schlock. If anyone read this far I appreciate it, but I figured I had some random insight I could add to a small portion in the video that may have been too off-topic to elaborate on in it, so I would toss it in the comments.

Oh man, the glitches in this one still crack me up every time.

i knew you were a tester as soon as i heard you mention "sku", not many people know that out of testing. I myself was a game tester for a while until i jumped ship to start programming

This series is really well done Matt.

Jesus, ya didn't warn me about the snu snu scenes. I'm watching this on my laptop in school. In other words, R.I.P me.

such a great video! I was waiting for you to cover this.

Advent Rising! I personally thought it had so much potential, and I still remember it so well to this day....including all the game breaking bugs.

Love that Swtor cantina music at the beginning!

Always good to watch again

These videos are the greatest. Homer Simpson pulling a the shining then saying "it's in the game" had me rolling.

3:13 That's gotta be a mod...

I'm replaying it now on PC in 2019 and the vast majority of the bugs are fixed. That doesn't justify the game's state at release, but it did become some fun in the end.

I never had any issue aside from enemies glitching here and there. My issue is they bailed on it for the crappy Anthem.

Damn shame. I just replayed it today on patch 1.10 and it was great.

I was looking forward to this from the moment I discovered these videos.

200k subs! Congratulations Matt

I hope they can make another ME game. Weird glitches aside, Andromeda left a lot of unanswered questions with the Angara and it has potential for an interesting story.

Ive seen everything on thus topic, but i was curious about how you would do it. First video of yours ive seen and, i loved it, really enjoyed your format. Look forward to watching the others n future vids. Subbed.

I've been waiting for this one!

Also after playing the Legendary Edition trilogy, it makes literally zero narrative sense for a voyage to another galaxy.

What blew me away right out of the gate was the fact that it was impossible to make a fair skinned character. Look I’ll admit I’m pale enough to probably serve as an extra in Twilight without too much makeup so I tend to make pale characters in RPGs(unless there’s non-human options then I always go for fantasy/alien races) and the default character creator literally didn’t have a fair skinned option. I actually had to find a mod to let me make a pale character. Let me just reiterate, I needed a mod to have access to a completely natural skin tone for a human in an RPG that known for touting how important YOUR character and his/her choices are to the story. That’s damn near unacceptable.

Do Spore, that mess has an interesting story to it from what I remember.

Oh man I’ve been waiting for this one

My first thought was "Hey, SWTOR music."

Yeah, boss, I'm gonna need the source for that Tali and Liara clip for research.

17:23 Look at all these companies that EA buried in their underbelly on their lust for money. Rest in Peace. Your games will be played not by our hands and mind alone, but in our hearts.

Almost 200k!! 🍾🥳🎉

15:59 was so perfect lol

I think that my absolute favorite bit of Andromeda lacking polish is the fact that at launch in character creation you couldn't make Ryder have a pale skin tone.

Ooooooffff that reference to Dead Space 3 earned you your like.

That 11:35 Cpt Crunch throwback. (Scrambles for old cds box) still got it

I love your work man!👍👍

Any chance that we get to see everything that happened with PlayStation All Stars?

Ahhhhh I’ll still never forgive that EA killed Visceral Studios and by extension Dead Space.

Sorry if it's already been covered, but I would love to see something on Telltale. Wolf Among Us was one of my favorite games. I found this channel through the Mother's Basement video and I'm loving it so far!

Thankfully, two years later, we have a quality remaster of the original trilogy with stuff backported from Andromeda *AND* a confirmed fourth/fifth game on the horizon, so all is not lost for the Systems Alliance. Also apparently after patches Andromeda might actually be playable now.

I would love for Ea to sell bioware. Please let them live and create gems

Mass Effect: Andromeda - Making you miss Sheppard and the Normandy crew one massive bug at a time. (Side story, I have a friend... acquaintance, who loves Mass Effect so much that he STILL loved this, so promptly asked "What's wrong with you?" Ge said "It's a bit buggy, but it'll be fixed later." ... It did not.)

I knew the story behind this failure, but hearing it in detail just begs the question of how did EA not see this coming.

When i see people talk about this game I feel like I played an entirely different game. I got ME:A on launch day on pc and had 0 animation or gameplay bugs. I was a little irritated because I felt like the characters were ugly, not in a graphical way but in an aesthetic one, but otherwise I was pretty happy. I guess I am the one guy that this game was made for lol.

frostbite's animation system is incredibly robust and impressive. When done right

This entire episode summed up in one sentence: *Aight, I'mma head out.*