Mass Effect Andromeda has got a major new update on PS4 and Xbox One. The New Mass Effect Andromeda update 1.05 recently released on April 6. It’s set to counter a number of bugs in the game associated with the animation. The most notable bugs reported are the Lip-sync and facial acting during the play. As suggested by BioWare, this update will fix these problems along with several others as well.
The new update patch notes have further confirmed the inclusion of Single and Multiplayer balance changes as well. The option to skip the autopilot sequences in the galaxy’s map is now also available in the game.
BioWare addresses these changes as they are just the tip of an iceberg. In a recent blog post, they have stated that
“Since launch, our team has been poring over your comments and feedback, looking to discover what you like about the game, as well as areas we can evolve or improve,” the post reads.
Over the next two months, we’ll be rolling out additional patches which will go even deeper and look to improve several areas of the game.”
This means that a number of new options have been added to the game’s character creator, and improvements have also been made to the appearance of the characters. Furthermore, more new Romance options for Scott Ryder are added and options for conversation for Hainly Abrams are also added to the game.
Fans of Mass effect Andromeda can also expect several performance stability fixes and loads of new cosmetic items in the game as well.
The Patch Notes for the update have also been made available by BioWare. You can have a look at them below.
Mass Effect Andromeda Update 1.05 Patch Notes
- Improved tutorial placement.
- Single-player balance changes: Ammo crates, armor, weapons, nomad, profiles, attacks, and progression.
- Multiplayer balance changes: Weapons, cover, and enemies (check back for detailed notes on balance changes).
- Added option to skip autopilot sequences in the galaxy map.
- Improved logic, timing, and continuity for relationships and story arcs.
- Improved lip-sync and facial acting during conversations, including localised VO.
- Fixed various collision issues.
- Fixed bugs where music or VO wouldn’t play or wasn’t correct.
- Issue fixed where global squad mate banter sometimes wasn’t firing on UNCs.
- Fixed issue where player was unable to access the Remnant Console Interface after failing decryption multiple times.
- Issue fixed where fast travel is sometimes disabled after recruiting Drack until the player reloads a save.
- Fixed issue where Ryder can become stuck in the start of Biotic Charge Pose.
- Fixes issues related to some saves.
- Fixed issue where objective sometimes becomes un-interactable for players in multiplayer.
- Streaming and stability improvements.
Criticism and the Solution
Mass Effect Andromeda has faced a lot of criticism over the game’s characters and animations. Most of the criticism was majorly about the game’s animations and the lip-sync of characters. Thanks to the new update, most of the issues with the game are now solved.
While addressing the Mass Effect Andromeda’s animations, The Former BioWare and currently Naughty Dog animator Jonathan Cooper suggests that maybe the team has underestimated the process.
Cooper has previously worked on big titles such as Mass Effect 2 and Uncharted 4. He says that
“Andromeda seems to have lowered the quality of its base algorithm, resulting in the ‘My face is tired’ meme featuring nothing but lip-sync. This, presumably, was because they planned to hit every line by hand. But a 5-year dev cycle shows they underestimated this task.
(All this is exacerbated by us living in an era of share buttons and youtube. Getting the lowest quality out to the widest audience.) Were I to design a conversation system now, I’d push for a workflow based on fast and accessible face & body capture rather than algorithms.
“While it hasn’t 100% proved this method, Horizon Zero Dawn’s better scenes succeed due to a use of facial mocap. The one positive to come out of all this is that AAA story-heavy games can’t skimp on the animation quality with a systemic approach alone.”
Hopefully, the new update 1.05 will fix these basic problems. If it is successful in fixing all these problems, the game will definitely offer an enhanced and entertaining experience to all the hardcore Mass Effect Andromeda fans. It’ll also be a great way for BioWare to answer all the criticism. And hopefully, they will be able to stop these kinds of problems from existing in a big game such as Andromeda in future.