There’s good news and bad news, Mass Effect fans. You know how this goes – you get the bad news first. The bad news is that Mass Effect: Andromeda is delayed until “early 2017.” The good news is that, well, we basically already knew that, annnndddd we have strong reason to believe that Andromeda will arrive no later than March 31, 2017.
How do we have that date pinned, exactly? Well, during today's investor earnings call, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen included a Mass Effect: Andromeda release in the forecast for fiscal 2016, which technically ends March 2017. Yahoo Finance confirms that EA’s fiscal year ends on the 31st of that month. With that knowledge, we can deduce that Andromeda’s release date will arrive just in time for the beginning of April.
There’s an additional silver lining as well: in an official blog post, BioWare confirmed that an “update” for Mass Effect: Andromeda will be showcased at EA’s E3 press conference on June 12. More than likely this presentation will include the first official gameplay footage of Andromeda, which would certainly soften the blow of a delayed release date.
BioWare also teased some new features in today’s blog post:
“More Freedom: One of our biggest ambitions is to give players an unprecedented level of freedom for a Mass Effect experience –where you’ll go, how you’ll get there, and how you’ll play.
New Uncharted Worlds: We’re leaving the Milky Way behind and headed to Andromeda, where we’ll meet new allies, confront new enemies, and explore fascinating new worlds.
The Next Great Mass Effect Experience: Mass Effect: Andromeda will be the first Mass Effect game for today’s consoles and the first built on the Frostbite engine. We’re pushing the technology to deliver visuals, story, and gameplay that have never been done in franchise history.”
All of that sounds pretty good to me. Let’s hope we see these features in action during EA’s E3 presentation. Stay tuned for more Mass Effect: Andromeda updates as they come.
