Mass Effect 4: 12 Brand New Features You Need To Know About

7. 'Recover The Artefact' Strike Team Missions Return

So it's all mining and resource-management?

Of course not, but at the same time it one of the worst parts of ME 3 is making the leap to the new game; the 'go grab this artefact, then defend the position' quests.

You could tell back in 2012 this was Bioware's attempt at ensnaring a wider trigger-happy audience, and maybe with all this extra explorative stuff on the side it'll make a few moments of going hog-wild with a shotgun more fun, but still - they feel pretty out of place in a game whose interactions with the world are based more in talking to it as oppose to blowing its head off.

Still, these missions can be tackled solo, with friends in a Dark Souls-style multiplayer or given up to a real-time counter if you want to set your team away on one and do something else for half an hour or so. Either way it looks like the heavier action focus from 3 isn't going away, and it's going to be up to you whether that's a good or bad thing in this new context.