IGN gave Mass Effect: Andromeda a 7.7. BioWare Montreal was dissolved four months later.
The Original Review
“Mass Effect: Andromeda is a great-looking and frequently fun game that proves the franchise still has a future, even if this first entry stumbles a few times on the way.”
Let's talk about the numbers. IGN's 7.7 places Andromeda firmly in 'flawed but worthy' territory. Metacritic user score: 4.5. That's a 3.2-point gap — in most industries that's called a product liability issue. IGN gave the original Mass Effect trilogy a combined average of 9.2. Andromeda's 7.7 is not a score for a disappointment. It's the numerical equivalent of saying 'sure, whatever, sixty dollars is fine.' BioWare Montreal apparently took a different view of the situation, since the studio was effectively dissolved four months after launch. The math ain't mathing.
Here's what IGN chose not to put in the headline: Andromeda shipped with facial animations that immediately went viral for being anatomically incorrect. Sara Ryder stares through you like a dial-up modem connecting to the void. The phrase 'my face is tired' entered gaming canon. NPCs blink in patterns that suggest they are sending distress signals. IGN's response to all of this: one bullet in the cons list reading 'character animations can look rough.' One bullet. For a franchise whose entire emotional architecture was built on faces. That's not a review. That's a diplomatic incident.
The financial timeline is also worth running. EA is one of IGN's top advertising partners. Andromeda was an EA-published, heavily promoted title with a full embargo until launch day — meaning IGN published before anyone could independently verify their claims. The score lands at 7.7: high enough that EA doesn't pull future access, low enough that readers don't feel actively deceived. This is not a number that was arrived at. It was calibrated.
Six months after publication, BioWare Montreal was quietly absorbed and its staff redistributed across EA's org chart. IGN did not issue a correction. The review still reads exactly as it did on launch day: cautiously optimistic, structurally intact, 7.7. Metacritic's 40,000 paying users — who had no advertising relationship with EA — averaged 4.5. At some point, one of these groups has skin in the game, and it isn't the one getting review copies and event access. The math ain't mathing.
