When Mass Effect: Andromeda's v1.06 update released earlier this week it garnered a traditional lukewarm response. Sure, it made the game a bit better, but it isn't a big deal, right?
The difference between pre and post v1.06 has been well documented in various videos, perhaps most effectively by YongYea. These differences are wide-sweeping and highly impactful, to a point where a large number of Mass Effect fans are wondering why EA didn't just delay the game to avoid all the trouble.
Comparison footage shows major improvements in lighting, animations, and even performance. A presentation once known for its clear lack of quality assurance now most closely resembles a proper BioWare product. That might be going too far, but there's a point to be made about how this has made the game more recommendable.
What's most telling about how substantial of a patch it is how distracted fans are by its visual and animation changes, despite these adjustments taking up only a fraction of the entire patch notes; balancing, bug fixes, multiplayer tweaking, new graphics options, and more are among the long list of perhaps even more meaningful changes.
Sources have suggested that EA has put Mass Effect on hiatus while it figures out what to do next with the franchise, an outcome that is equally unexpected and concerning, but not entirely unreasonable.
