Mass Effect: Andromeda will have an entirely optional albeit seamless multiplayer mode when it launches in 2017.
In an interview with Kotaku, Bioware’s producer Mike Gamble said, “There’s a system that we use called the Strike Team, and fundamentally it allows you to go between singleplayer and multiplayer within the game. And it’s packaged around a meta=story of what’s going on in Helios”
“I can tell you that there’s a loading screen—it’s not entirely seamless—but it won’t require you to stop your game and restart in a different mode. Because narratively it’s all connected, it makes a lot of sense.”
Seamless movement between game modes has been a thing in previous Frostbite engine titles—an engine that EA seem to adore recently—with DICE’s Star Wars Battlefront hiding loading screens behind short, end-of-round cutscenes or cutscenes which narratively transfer you to the next area and immediately put you in the action. Whether the integration of this is due to the power of Frostbite 3 or not, hopefully Mass Effect: Andromeda will be the next game to carry on the seamless transition between modes.
Source: Kotaku
Lewis is a games journalist, freelance gaming and consumer-tech journalist. They contributed 344 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: has since served as Editor-in-Chief at StealthOptional and Gaming Editor at MSPoweruser, with bylines at Gfinity Esports and FRVR.