BioWare is leaving behind the passé Milky Way for its next sci-fi role-playing game, but it isn’t leaving behind old marketing tricks.
Publisher Electronic Arts and BioWare have released a new trailer for Mass Effect: Andromeda today, and they have also announced a program to reward fans for embracing their excitement. Mass Effect 4 is coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC in March, but you can join the Andromeda Initiative starting today. The Andromeda Initiative is a newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on info related to Mass Effect, but BioWare is also treating it as part of the fiction of the series. Andromeda picks up generations after the events of the original Mass Effect trilogy, and getting players excited for the new characters and places is likely one of the challenges EA and BioWare will have to overcome. The Initiative seems like something that could help with that.
Here’s how the companies describes the newsletter:
“The Andromeda Initiative is currently seeking recruits. Registered recruits will be among the first contacted to receive critical mission information, special training opportunities, and will also be eligible for reward upon program completion. Orientation begins November 7.”
And here’s the Andromeda Initiative trailer:
Oof. Gotta love the voice of Carnivàle and SpongeBob actor Clancy Brown.
While the trailer takes the Andromeda Initiative seriously, this newsletter is a way for EA to stay in contact with the biggest Mass Effect fans. The upcoming sci-fi epic is easily one of the publisher’s most important releases yet for the current generation, and it wants to maximize its return on investment. And one of the ways it thinks it can do that is by embracing the lore and world-building that BioWare has done.