Simon Cox Blog: When 'Mass Effect Andromeda' Bombed, I Had to Rethink Humility

Tuesday, 18 April 2017

When 'Mass Effect Andromeda' Bombed, I Had to Rethink Humility

Watching a beloved video game franchise crash and burn challenged my gut reaction to disappointment.

Everyone’s passionate about something. For you, maybe it’s golf or cars or crocheting or music. For me, it’s video games. And of all the games out there, those in the spacefaring Mass Effect series are my favorite of all time.

You can imagine, then, how I waited for the newest installment, Mass Effect: Andromeda, with gleeful impatience. The footage I’d seen from trailers on YouTube looked amazing. The characters looked compelling and relatable. The glimpses of far-flung worlds to be explored were, even in brief previews, breathtaking.

Then, shortly before release, news of the game’s glitches started hitting the internet. Gamers across the globe had a field day trashing Andromeda for its slow performance, uneven writing, and many animation problems. As one reviewer stated, “For the most part, all of the characters are just alarmingly emotionless. They have this constant blank expression on their faces that just isn’t conveying anything.”

Surely, it couldn’t be that bad, I thought—I hoped. Maybe everyone was complaining about nothing. People love to complain on the internet, after all. Right?

When I started playing, though, I realized they were right: My beloved franchise was having issues. I was annoyed with BioWare, the company that developed the series, for not putting their A-team on the project. I’d loved all their games in the past, but their inattention to detail and lack of consideration to their fanbase made me angry.

After the explosion of criticism hit the internet, however, BioWare did something unexpected—and, from a Christian perspective, remarkably admirable. They didn’t run away with their tails between their legs. They didn’t ignore ...