Is anyone else starting to worry about ME Andromeda?

[Asriel]

I am a little worried about it, the last two EA/Bioware games I played were Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age: Inquisition, neither of which make me confident about Andromeda, which is a shame, because Mass Effect has a huge amount of potential as a videogame IP.

I thought Mass Effect 3 was far too linear--plot and level design wise--and overall was far too 'Michael Bay Effect'. Now obviously Mass Effect could never really give you freedom of choice, because everything has to fit within the confines of what the developers create, but the first two games (by virtue of their less linear structures, and their more open ended narrative threads) did a better job of maintaining the illusion of choice. In Mass Effect 3, regardless of what choices you've made up to that point, you constantly play the exact same missions with the exact same choices across different play-throughs, with different characters being brought in to fulfill the same roles. Add to that the War Assets system, which was too abstract and not tied into the game's mechanics and structures the way ME2's loyalty missions and squad interactions tied into the Suicide Mission, and I felt 3 was a big step down for the series.

With Dragon Age Inquisition, I thought a good game was hidden beneath far too much fluff, with open, empty areas that were a chore to explore, with too much side content reduced to "do x activity x times", resulting in a game with interesting characters and interesting plot elements strung out across the 70 or so hours I ended up playing. If the game had taken half the time, it would have been far more enjoyable. It's true another RPG I've massively enjoyed followed a similar pattern of "collect x item x number of times", but in Xenoblade Chronicles X, the more mundane fetch quests and monster killing quests tie into an over-arching structure that mechanically offers far more depth and variety than Inquisition. Inquisition presents you check lists for the sake of completing them, Chronicles X uses check list quests as one method of unlocking more quests, items, weapons, mechs, character interactions and in-game real estate. It's similar to the problem I highlighted with Mass Effect 3, which presents you with a way to collect abstract numbers that ostensibly affect your in-game experience, but unlike Mass Effect 2, where there are clear connections between your previous actions, narrative choices and the mechanics of the end-game segment, that link doesn't exist in ME3, nor does Inquisition tie its various side content objectives into an over-arching array of systems and mechanics the way that Xenoblade X does.

I'd like to see Andromeda return to the core of the original vision for the series, with the unique one off secondary missions of Mass Effect 2 combined with some wider areas to explore. My worry is we'll end up with Dragon Age: Inquisition but with a Mass Effect skin. Unless the November blow-out is a big improvement on what little we've seen so far, I will remain worried and expect another delay for Andromeda. Personally I don't think Andromeda needs to have anywhere near the level of content or fluff as Inquisition. Present me with a 15-20 hour main narrative, and 15-20 hours of side content in the base game (as with the first two, at least), and I'll be happy.