Mass Effect Andromeda, the upcoming entry in Bioware’s massively popular space RPG series, has been delayed from its holiday 2016 release date into Q1 2017, according to EA’s CFO.
During the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, & Telecom Conference in San Francisco, Blake Jorgenson was asked about EA’s upcoming non-sports releases. While listing the upcoming titles, Mass Effect was mentioned for EA’s “fourth quarter.”
We’ve got a great year ahead… we’ve got our Battlefield first-person shooter game coming in the third quarter, and our third-party title that Respawn, our partner, built, it’s called Titanfall, it’s the second title that they brought into that brand. Both of those are first-person shooters and will be targeted around the fast, action-driven shooter market, as well as the strategy-driven market in that quarter… We have our Mirror’s Edge runner game this first quarter, and then we have Mass Effect, which is a sci-fi action game, in our fourth quarter. So big year ahead and we’re pretty excited.
EA’s fiscal year ends March 31st, putting Mass Effect‘s possible new launch sometime between January and March of 2017.
Mass Effect Andromeda seems to have been troubled from the start – a recent setback being the project’s senior development director, Chris Wynn, announcing his departure from Bioware on Twitter.
Lead writer Chris Schlerf also confirmed rumors that he had departed the project several months ago.
In order to fill some holes caused by key departures in the past few months, Bioware has posted a listing that states the company is looking to hire Senior Gameplay Designers in Edmonton, Montreal, and Austin. Bioware is looking for someone to “work with a team of gameplay designers and design leadership through all stages of development,” and makes several mentions of “[setting] and [maintaining] the gold standard” for everything from 3rd person shooting to controller input and camera movement.
The project has faced sizable leaks as well – last April, survey leaked on Reddit, where a user claimed to learn about everything from the new galaxy players will explore to the main character’s purpose and title.