Why Mass Effect: Andromeda Is Dropping Paragon And Renegade Conversation Options

Paragon and Renegade conversation choices have been a mainstay of the Mass Effect series since it launched, but that's all about to change.

In an interview with Official Xbox Magazine (via GamesRadar), Mass Effect: Andromeda creative director Mac Walters said Paragon and Renegade are gone, "because they felt very Shepard--they were very tied to the Shepard character, so they didn't really make sense if we weren't going to have Shepard as our main protagonist."

"What we have now is based more around agreeing and disagreeing," he continued. "The reason I like that is because in the trilogy it’s like, 'I'm gonna play Paragon,' and then you know which way you're moving the stick on every conversation. You don’t have to think about it, because you're just going to hit Paragon every time."

Players of previous Mass Effect games will know if you want to make the best version of your character stats-wise, you have to pick Paragon or Renegade and stick with it, nuance be damned. This new system is designed to get away from binary moral choices, to encourage players to actually pay attention to conversations, and choose dialog options that make sense for their character. "With agree and disagree it changes by the circumstance and it changes by the character you’re talking to," Walters said, "so you have to actually be more engaged in what's going on, to know if you're going to do that."

The new system also includes four different tones of voice, which "basically allow other types of characters to express them[selves] in one of four different ways, and sometimes one of two different ways," Walters confirmed. "And I think that gets back to that more traditional role-playing sort of feeling which is less about 'Do I want to be good or bad,' and more about 'How do I want to express myself?"

Speaking of expressing yourself, if you're interested in producing fan art or cosplay of Mass Effect: Andromeda characters you might want to check out the character kits BioWare released this week. The first multiplayer gameplay footage was included in the latest trailer for Andromeda, and the game will not allow for crossplay, but will have an uncapped frame rate on PC.