'Mass Effect: Andromeda' Endings: Everything we know about the game's unresolved threads

Impact

Mass Effect: Andromeda, BioWare's newest chapter in the long-running space epic, has a sprawling plot full of side quests, romance and planet scanning for your character, the pathfinder, to experience in the Andromeda galaxy. If you're reaching the end of the game (nice work — it's been out for only a week), you might be wondering when you'll be getting resolution on a lot of these side quests you've been completing. Will it happen after the big final battle on Meridian? 

The answer, to avoid spoilers, is: not really, no. If you'd like to know more about why there are so many unresolved plot threads in Andromeda, however, read on.

Mass Effect: Andromeda ending: Why are there so many unresolved plot threads?

According to a Forbes article written by Paul Tassi, there are two reasons why plot lines get left unresolved in Andromeda. Tassi spoke to Andromeda producer Michael Gamble about some of these inconsistencies in order to get a sense of what he'd missed over the course of the game.

The first reason a plot thread might feel "unresolved" in Andromeda: glitches or bugs. Sometimes things don't activate correctly and a quest seems unresolved at the end, such as in a side quest where you have the option to take an ancient AI into a SAM node on the Nexus, or another quest where you try to set up a movie night for a couple of your crew members on the ship. So if it seems weird that a quest didn't have a resolution, it might've simply glitched out on you.

However, Gamble was also quick to point out that the other reason plot threads might not have resolutions is because BioWare is still crafting the overall narrative of what he called "the metastory of the MEA saga." A lot of these plot threads, like the identity of the mysterious benefactor who shows up in Ryder Sr.'s memories, or the remnant Abyssal on Eladeen that you don't ever get a quest to fight, are pretty clearly being seeded as content for sequels, downloadable expansions or other media.

If you're new to the Mass Effect universe, this might be surprising, but BioWare tends to leave at least a few choices in each of its major series (Mass Effect, Dragon Age) that affect choices in later games, so it's not that surprising that we might be seeing more games in the Andromeda series before too long. What those games will look like, it might be too soon to say. But if you're feeling a little disappointed that a lot of these choices in Andromeda you probably agonized over won't be resolved within the game's narrative, that's understandable. 

However, it's also par for the course for BioWare at this point, so we wouldn't expect that facet of their games to change all that much in the future, especially if Andromeda continues to sell well.

More Mass Effect: Andromeda news and updates

For more on everyone's favorite space opera, check out the rest of what Mic has to offer. Here's an essay on the troubling history of colonialism in Mass Effect, a story about the horrifying harassment campaign carried out against a former BioWare employee, a look at the #MakeJaalBi fan movement and an overview of the historic lack of gay romance options in Mass Effect.