Tempering expectations / what we actually know (Gaming)

by Kahzgul, Monday, February 20, 2017, 16:56 (2833 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

So I watched the trailer a few more times, and as excited as I am for this game, I want to point out a few things that are shown in the video which don't match the hype or advertising:

First: The big one. A "Massive" galaxy to explore. People have fan-theorized this would be like no man's sky. I want to squash that right now. If you look at the galactic map shown in the video, this "massive" galaxy has only 5 waypoints displayed. Now, the clip is super short, and only about 70% of the galaxy is shown, but 5 is not the same as 5 quintillion. It's not even close. I assume they'll release more information about how many explorable locations there are in the future, but based on that clip, I'm going to expect something more like ME3 and less like NMS.

Other stuff: The combat clips do show at least one ranged sniper kill, but for the most part the engagements appear to be in relatively small areas (smaller than ME3's multiplayer maps). Combined with the earlier "playable" trailer, I'm no longer expecting a wide open, free roam world (or series of worlds) to explore. It seems more likely that it will be like Destiny's maps, with very controlled areas you can visit, and the advertising is trying to say that even though the map is a big circle, the fact that you can navigate it in either direction means it's "free roam." Again, we know very very little about the map design, so this is just speculation based on what little we've seen.

We do know that the mako (or a mako analogue) will return, which means the explorable areas are big enough to want a vehicle to navigate, but from what I've seen in videos, this appears to be more like the warthog sections of halo than like the open areas of ME1.

For weapons and abilities, we've seen quite a bit, actually. Snipers give a first person reticle, there are 3 overall classes of weapon (plasma, energy, and ballistic), at least the same five categories within those classes (shotgun, sniper, Assault rifle, pistol, SMG), and multiple guns for each category. There are also grenades, and we've seen many of the abilities from ME3 make a return (biotic charge, singularity, nova, shockwave, all make a return) as well as at least one new power (ground slam a'la strikers), and the ability to jump and hover which opens up new playstyles.

All in all I'm really curious to see the new footage, and it certainly looks like this game fits nicely into the ME series. I just want to make sure the hype train doesn't get totally out of control as it has for so many games in the past.