Apparently, it greatly improved the pace and gave the story a sense of urgency. I figure if you cut out so the faff, it makes Andromeda about the same length as ME1, which is the length it honestly should have been.
Andromeda was just way too bloated. I liked Andromeda, but they need to have cut all the “find three macguffins scattered randomly on the map” quests, merged the desert planets (did we really need Eos AND Elaaden?), and done another round of editing to the story.
I watched a random YouTube video where the person hated Andromeda but decided to give it another chance and ONLY do the main and loyalty missions, and he said it was like light and day, how much better it was. They bloated the game so they could have more for the sake of more, and it paid for it.
Have you looked at the list of studios - big name ones, like Visceral - that EA has shut down in the past? EA absolutely will close BioWare down if they decide they aren’t profitable enough anymore. Look at how many of BioWare’s substudios they’ve already shut down (BioWare Montreal made the Citadel DLC. Then they made Anthem and POOF, now they’re gone), and all the layoffs they just announced at BioWare Austin and how they’re shifting SWTOR to a completely different, outside studio.
As soon as they said they were trying to copy the combat in the new God of War games, I just had the same sinking feeling I had when they announced one world in Andromeda would be bigger than all the zones in Inquisition.
BioWare long ago lost sight of who they are. Now they’re just chasing trends and doing it badly.
One of the people they just laid off was the writer who created Varric fricking Tethras. I don’t have any faith in them anymore.
I want Dreadwolf to come out just to finish the story they’ve been setting up in the books, comics, and Inquisition, but I’ve accepted we might never get it. They might rush out a book like they did with the quarian arc in Andromeda when Dreadwolf falls through, maybe.