Mass Effect Andromeda: 12 Critical Reactions You Need To Know

2. Player Choice Has Been Mostly Removed

"Having finished the campaign, however, very few of these no-win choices have come back to haunt me in the ways I’d hoped for...If colonizing and improving the viability of the worlds I’d visited made a difference, it’s unclear what that might’ve been. And there’s no major choice at the end that might make your ending significantly different from mine...There’s no 'Do you let the council die?' moment here." - IGN

"Unfortunately, many of the key dilemmas recycle well-trodden conceits from the original trilogy and RPGs at large - yes, the salarians and krogans are still at each other's throats over the genophage, and yes, you'll be asked to decide the fate of a possibly innocent convict. Other decisions are revealed to be of small import in hindsight, which reflects both the relative weakness of the writing and a broader structural shift - away from the flexible yet impactful narratives of previous games and towards the spineless, anything-goes tepidity of an open world." - Eurogamer

After the PR s***storm that followed Mass Effect 3's release, perhaps BioWare decided that trying to give the player much creative freedom just wasn't worth the hassle.

As it turns out, Andromeda largely strips player agency out of the equation altogether, a few brief moments aside, and many reviewers noted that despite the inclusion of an open-world, the game feels decidedly more linear than previous titles.

It's a damn shame considering how much choice (or at least the illusion of it) was such a core principle of the earlier games, if not massively shocking after the ME3 controversy.