These last few weeks, I’ve been playing the excellent Mass Effect: Andromeda. I unabashedly loved the other games in the Mass Effect series, and I’ve been looking forward to this game for almost five years now. My opinion heading into the game is probably already quite apparent. Andromeda is a 3^rd person science fiction RPG that has a heavy focus on narrative, character choice, and many dozens of hours of gameplay (I have perhaps 40 hours into the game, and I’m probably not quite at the halfway point yet). Gameplay has been sharpened, and amazing environments and side quests are a crucial component of the game’s emphasis on exploration and discovery.

The fact of the matter is, the game is good. It’s really good. I will try not to spoil the story here, but suffice to say, a brave group of humans have traveled to the Andromeda galaxy, and they immediately run into heaps of trouble. The player can interact with other characters (friendly or otherwise) and take on a variety of quests with a personalized main character. This personalization is a crucial part of Andromeda, as the player makes the choice of how their character responds—both in dialogue and in action—to a huge number of difficult decisions. In essence, while there is a main storyline, the player can craft that storyline with their unique approach to how they will play their main character. The developers have included more types of responses to situation than ever before—it’s not just “good” versus “evil,” but there are actual shades of personality traits expressed in each response! This gives the player more freedom to approach the game in their own way than ever before. This bears some similarity to, but is ultimately fundamentally different from, the openness in gamer approaches and goals in playing a game like Zoo Tycoon, as discussed by Stevens et al (2008 p. 55).

Admittedly, everyone plays games for different reasons, even ones with amazing narratives at their core. That being said, when a player is rewarded for completing a quest with experience points and useful items, the greatest pull and reward (for me) is simply progressing (or getting more of) the main story. That narrative momentum, that sense of awe and mystery at what will happen next—it plays into the deeply human trait of storytelling and pulls you along through all of the hours of gameplay.

The game does not have a cooperative mode for the main storyline, but in an RPG of this style and scope, that’s standard practice. There is a new and update multiplayer component to Andromeda, as there was in Mass Effect 3, although I cannot comment upon this part of the game as I’m primarily intrigued by Andromeda’s narrative. Telling a story over the course of many dozens of hours is a huge and incredible feat unto itself, and by virtue of both well-written characters and the amount of time a player spends with the characters (and more options than ever to play the game how the player wants to), a player can make a very strong emotional connection to the game—and emotional contexts can help improve learning outcomes and general recall. This is likely why I can still clearly remember the experience of playing the three other Mass Effect games, and why I know I will remember this one for a very long time to come.