There’s a difference between finding a piece of entertainment personally disappointing and it being objectively bad. Sophomore albums, Star Wars prequels, Andromeda-these things all fall victim to the inability of anything to repeat the past, when it was fresh and new. But they often do it with preconceived notions of what, exactly, “more” looks like, and generally that translates to “more of the same.” It’s natural to want additional time with favorite characters or dance to a familiar beat, but lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice and creators can’t help but grow and change. When something-a movie franchise, a band, a YA trilogy-is beloved, fans always clamor for more. Versions of this scenario have played out dozens of times, and not just in gaming. Frustrations mounted gamers griped, or just gave up.

Fan reaction to the game was so universally bad BioWare canceled its plans to release additional downloadable content and shifted their attention to fixing bugs. But the central argument against it seemed to be that Mass Effect: Andromeda was bad because it wasn’t what people expected. There were absolutely legitimate complaints- Andromeda was buggy as hell when it came out, which made it hard to enjoy. But, frankly, the disappointment had everything to do with what legions of button-mashers wanted and nothing to do with whether or not the game’s developers succeeded in making the game they wanted to make.

Looking back, it’s easy to understand the ire.

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