The first Mass Effect, while not the best RPG, much less combat sim, had a interesting setting and decent story that could lead to interesting developments and situations.
Also the universe was a very rich one, with TONS of races, planets, societies and politics.
The best of all, this universe is entire interconnected, so you could go full crazy on anything of this.
Unfortunately in the middle of ME2 the main writer, Drew Karpyshyn, was replaced/fired/left the boat.
And worst, he left AFTER he write almost the entire setting, with Marc Wallace finishing the rest and changing what he thinks needed to.
While Karpyshyn isn't the most proeminent nor inventive writer of our time, he was the lead writer who had to work with other 5 writers responsible for different worlds in the game and was responsible to make sure the style was consistent across all different areas.
Wich he succeeded.
There's a problem when you switch or replace main writers in a game that it's universe is heavily dependable of the writing and story: the substitute may not have the same ideas of his predecessor regarding the plot and had to board the train already running; even if he has the same ideas, he needs time to know the - some - already developed characters, locations, factions, races and politics.
It's blatant the change of some characters and locations in ME2, like they have dual personalities or are suffering from psychotic disorder.
But he create the setting, the most proeminent characters, and made sure the politics of ME and some locations were consistent across the game.
It's like Avellone writing the entire story of FNV and then, when the game entering production, is replaced by someone entirely unknown to Sawyer, Gonzalez, Staples and all the crew.
Mass Effect Andromeda suffered the same fate: the lead writer left the house AFTER the story and universe was almost finished and the game was entering production stage, with a new writer.
Of course this will not be good or it will cause bad interference in the story.
If you want to see this in action, watch World War Z, the film suffered from this: until the plane arrive at South Korea is one writer, after they travelled to Israel is another writer and in the middle of the final section of the movie they changed writers and rewrite the script AGAIN!
The result is a unstable main character and the movie pace is deeply affected.
Wich is a shame, because there is a shortage of fantasy sci-fi RPGs or even good fantasy sci-fi games in the market.
Or CoD in space is what it's considered "sci-fi" now?
