Mass Effect Andromeda: 9 Overlooked Positives Nobody Wants To Admit

6. An "Open-World" Mass Effect

Andromeda introduces an open-world system to the series for the first time, inviting players to explore a series of sprawling planets at their own pace and take their time engaging with each distinct locale.

It's a tremendous amount of fun navigating the likes of Kadara and Voeld with little pressure to return to the core quest-line. Want to knock off that long list of side-quests filling up your journal? Go nuts. Want to just drive around and soak in the world? Not a problem.

By the standards of most open-world games this is a fairly restricted, curated one, and a lot of the side content boils down to repetitive fetch quest fare, but these planets do make Andromeda feel more ambitious and varied than its predecessors in many ways, even if BioWare can certainly take it much further next time.