The trailer for Mass Effect: Andromeda shown at EA's 2016 E3 press conference was slight on big reveals, especially for a game that will be out within the year — and one that has shown precious little else to fans since its teaser trailer at E3 2015. But according to producer Michael Gamble, there's still plenty for alert fans to tease out of the footage, so let's see what we can see, shall we?
Here's your new Normandy — the Tempest
A new galaxy full of new planets, new species and new technology demands a new ship, and that ship is the Tempest, which would seem to confirm at least some of the details in an unsubstantiated and leaked survey that cropped up online about a year ago.
Here's your new Shepard — Rider
Or Ryder. Maybe. The framing of this shot, and its place in the trailer, points towards the significance of a main character, and we may already know their name.
When EA released its first teaser trailer for Mass Effect: Andromeda last year, it confirmed that the use of Johnny Cash's "Ghost Riders in the Sky" was deliberate and significant. Previous Mass Effect games have focused on the adventures of Commander Shepard, named after Alan Shepard, the first American in space. From that, fans have inferred that our new Mass Effect protagonist may go by the name Rider or Ryder — presumably in homage to Sally Ride, the first American woman in space.
Update: Gamble has confirmed, on Twitter, that this scene does depict a character named Ryder.
Krogan and salarians and asari, oh my
If the teaser is opaque on who the main character is, it's even less clear on who we'll actually be getting close to (like, really close). Who knows whether any of the characters depicted in the footage will be companions or even leads. But as much as that voice over stresses that we'll be building a new home for "humanity" (what an anthropocentric bag of dicks, right?) we do see some familiar silhouettes.
We get a close up of an asari character's facial animation as it is created, glimpses of multiple krogan characters, a salarian maintaining a bridge console and what looks an awful lot like some turian concept art pinned up in an artist's workspace.
Mass Effect 3 was the first installment of the franchise to depict female characters of the series' prominent krogan and turian races — as a non-player character in the main game, and the same in a DLC pack, respectively. What we didn't see in today's trailer was indication that Mass Effect: Andromeda would continue to widen the depiction of those races. Whether as companions or as an existing character model available to use as random NPCs, either would be first for the franchise.
Notice anything else in the footage? Let us know in the comments!