Mass Effect 4 Andromeda: 8 Big Risks Bioware Must Take

4. Do Not Compromise On Quality Over Quantity

Part of what has given Bioware the edge over Bethesda, at least in my opinion, is their commitment to making quality encounters over quantity. In Skyrim, you can do a billion different things, but you can only really do them a couple of ways. In Mass Effect, there are fewer things to do, but many more ways to do them. We can probably expect an open world for Mass Effect 4, it makes it much easier to immerse players for all of the reasons mentioned in the vehicles point. The problem with this, is that it becomes very tempting to pepper such a world with cookie-cutter quests. There's no point having an open world if it feels empty (Here's looking at you, Elite: Dangerous), so it's tempting to make very simple 'fetch this thing' or 'kill this dude' type quests to fill it with, rather than meaningful interactions. If Mass Effect 4 is going to be any good, it absolutely must not do this. Bioware has managed to keep its slate pretty clean with the Mass Effect series on this count so far, but if you look at their other works you can see it starting to creep in. Dragon Age - especially the second game - is far too transparent, with players even recognising reused pieces of dungeons for certain areas. And that, is simply not good enough.