Naughty Dog and former Bioware animator Jonathan Cooper has defended Bioware and Mass Effect: Andromeda via a Twitter thread after Bioware's RPG received heavy criticism for the facial animations in the game.
"Folks have been asking so here are my thoughts on Mass Effect Andromeda's animation. Hopefully people will better understand the process," Cooper started. "First though; going after individual team members is not only despicable, but the culprits and choice of target revealed their true nature. Just as we credit a team, not an individual, for a game's success, we should never single out one person for a team's failures."
Cooper then went on to discuss why comparing Mass Effect: Andromeda to something like Uncharted is unfair. "Animating an RPG is a really, really big undertaking - completely different from a game like Uncharted so comparisons are unfair. Every encounter in Uncharted is unique & highly controlled because we create highly-authored 'wide' linear stories with bespoke animations. Conversely, RPGs offer a magnitude more volume of content and importantly, player/story choice. It's simply a quantity vs quality tradeoff."
He then also explains where he thinks the issues lie with Andromeda, saying that he thinks Bioware underestimated the task in front of them, resulting in "the 'My face is tired' meme featuring nothing but lip-sync," and concludes: "The one positive to come out of all this is that AAA story-heavy games can't skimp on the animation quality with a systemic approach alone."
Do you agree with what Cooper has to say? Let us know below!