Some may take it as a bit of an indictment of the games industry that these days we look back nostalgically on titles like Mass Effect: Andromeda and Assassin's Creed Unity, considering their rough launches. However, others see that era as a time where we were much too harsh on big releases that didn't quite live up to our expectations. Tom Taylorson, voice actor for the male version of Ryder in Mass Effect: Andromeda thought he'd get a decade with that character, but online reception meant that future was wiped away in an instant.
Taylorson explained in an interview with We Are Mass Effect: "[It was] hands down one of the best things I've ever worked on. I had an immense amount of fun working on it, made good friends along the way, learned SO MUCH, and while the opportunities didn't always pan out, it did lead to many other opportunities for work down the line. Still one of my favorite things I've ever worked on in any medium. It was a special and challenging time in my life and I'm forever grateful to have Andromeda be a part of that."
While he remembers the work on Andromeda fondly, the launch reception leaves more of a bitter taste in Taylorson's mouth. "It was done dirty by a publisher expecting too much from it, not being fully cooked, forced out the door too early, forced to use corporate's shiny new engine when many of the team didn't know how to work with it and it was NOT suited to the storytelling part of the game. On top of that, it was released to a VERY toxic atmosphere online and elsewhere in the gaming space. It quickly became punching bag of the week for online chuds for views and clicks. Their love of hate sealed the deal."
Taylorson then went onto reveal he'd also worked on Highguard, another game he felt was doomed from the start by online hate. He said that while the decision not to move forward with Andromeda's story sucked, he had to move on quickly. "It hurt most because I knew that was it - Ryder wouldn't be coming back. I, and others, thought we'd have a good decade of playing with these characters in these spaces. And just like that - Gone. Grateful to have made the connection for the audio book production house I worked with a lot, Blackstone Publishing, to the publishers of the physical tie-in books for Andromeda. That got me and Fryda the opportunity to work on those books and play a little bit more in that place we had so much fun in that was taken away from us," he said.
What do you think of Mass Effect: Andromeda today?