If you've been wondering what's up with EA and BioWare's next project, "Mass Effect: Andromeda," because there haven't been any major, concrete updates at all, you'd at least be glad to know that the developers are hard at work making the game.
There hasn't been any big news or reveal surrounding "Mass Effect: Andromeda" outside of a new teaser trailer that was premiered at this year's E3. All we have to go on this month is just a tweet from BioWare's creative director Mac Walters, reported by GamingBolt, saying that the team is putting in so much hard work into the early builds of the game that "he doesn't have time to review it all."
At the very least, that non-update is a sign of things getting done—whether or not you choose to believe they really are working on it. What we do know about "Mass Effect: Andromeda" is that there will be a new protagonist (just named Ryder), it happens way after the original "Mass Effect" trilogy (but none of the choices players made in the original trilogies will matter), it will be set in the neighboring Andromeda galaxy (which is actually on a collision course with our Milky Way galaxy in about 4 billion years).
The sheer size of the Andromeda galaxy, which contains 1 trillion stars, should be enough—with the right amount of processing power—for BioWare to produce a varied amount of different settings and cultures within the game. If BioWare wants an open-world "Mass Effect" game, then the Andromeda galaxy is the perfect setting.
BioWare and EA are targeting a "Mass Effect: Andromeda" release in early 2017. More updates and looks at the game are bound to come the closer we get to the new year, and we'll report them as we get them.