Now before you begin to judge me on my ability to report on something other than Mass Effect: Andromeda just know that some pretty cool stuff was revealed during a livestream at PAX East today. Creative director Mac Walters had a few things to say about his upcoming game, most notably, how it shares some similarities to Mass Effect 3.

During the live stream it was revealed just how lucrative and massive this new game will be. In Mass Effect 3 he referred there being something like 670 unique characters spread throughout the game. In the live stream however, he revealed that they took things to a whole new level by including nearly 1,200 characters who will be speaking. “When you look at the dialogue options, we’re basically the equivalent of Mass Effect 2 and 3 put together”.

In the embedded video below you can take a look at exactly what happened during the live stream from the Twitch Panel. The Mass Effect: Andromeda bit comes around at around the 2:57:00 mark and does not disappoint. We get a look at some dialogue and other aspects of the game that some lucky people at PAX East are able to play.

Watch live video from Twitch on www.twitch.tv

The dialogue options were discussed briefly as well and it was reiterated that the choice to go without Paragon and Renegade options allowed for more depth within the game.

We also got to see Ryder land on on of the planets, Eos, where Mac revealed that each planet you first go to you will start out on foot and explore a small area before it opens up and allows for you to travel wherever and however you see fit. By exploring and scanning new things, players will get research points to help pay for research projects and obtain new items.

Players will also get Viability points that will allow players to wake up more colonists from cryo sleep which will increase the population of the Nexus. There is also the added benefit of bringing up planet viability levels that, once high enough, allow for outposts to be established. This will make new areas, quests, people, and shops available to players the higher up you can get.

Mass Effect: Andromeda’s release is just a few weeks away now so keep a close eye on this one, from the gameplay shown above, it looks like it could possibly give its predecessors a run for their money.