In the case of Bloodborne and Persona, the procedural dungeons were balanced by some exquisite, well designed content- which was not the case for No Man’s Sky, where everything was procedurally generated. Procedural generation is a useful technique- but it needs to be balanced with actual, hand crafted content, or its problems become amplified. Some very acclaimed games, such as From’s Bloodborne or Atlus’ Persona 4, have featured procedural generation. There is nothing wrong with procedural generation in and of itself. The question then is, in the wake of No Man’s Sky‘s failure to resonate with the market, is this something that Bioware should even be going for? The short answer to this is: yes. Specifically, how do Bioware plan on offering that many planets to explore to the player without resorting to procedural generation? In fact, not just the planets- it is not unreasonable to suppose that the quests on them (and there would have to be quests and objectives on them, otherwise they’d just be empty and pointless filler) would also have to be procedurally generated (a bit like the Radiant quests that Bethesda have included in some of their games?)?
#Mass effect andromeda deluxe edition vs reddit series
We’ve discussed previously why this is ultimately a good direction for the series to take.īut at that time, we did not address the elephant in the room that remains ever more pertinent in the wake of No Man’s Sky‘s release (and the subsequent uproar it generated, owing to the final product not being what was promised): how in the world would the game offer a galaxy worth of exploration, without resorting to the kind of unsatisfying tricks that No Man’s Sky used? Mass Effect Andromeda is supposed to be, as we have discussed previously, a return to the style of game that the original Mass Effect was, over the relatively more linear and funneled storytelling that its sequels offered.