It goes without saying that one of the most controversial releases of 2017 was Mass Effect: Andromeda, a game that carried the heavy weight of expectation on its shoulder the moment it was announced. Unfortunately, the finished product didn't exactly live up to the hype and a little bit later the entire series was shelved by BioWare.

In lieu of putting in some serious work on new Andromeda content, much of the development staff has recently been shifted to EA Motive. Today, Mass Effect Andromeda lead designer Ian Frazier has confirmed that he is one of those developers.

While it's expected that many of the former Andromeda team will work on Star Wars Battlefront 2, Frazier announced over Twitter that his post-merger role at EA Motive has him working on an unannounced intellectual property. He's not the only Mass Effect developer who had made the jump to an unknown entity, as it's something former Mass Effect writer Drew Karpyshyn did ahead of Anthem's announcement. While the latter is now a known quantity, nothing is known about Frazier's latest project.

Frazier's announcement also dashes any hopes of upcoming Andromeda DLC, which one would assume needs its lead designer and other staff members. The studio had planned to immediately begin production on an Andromeda sequel following the launch of the game, but its lackluster reception has forced BioWare to take a new direction while trying to figure out what all went wrong with the project. In any event, it's all in Frazier's rearview mirror now.

The Purdue University graduate got his start in the video game industry with Iron Lore Entertainment after he'd spent years working on an Ultima 5 remake. From there, Frazier spent some time with both Big Huge Games (Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Next Big Thing) and Epic Games (Infinity Blade: Dungeons) before being recruited by BioWare in 2013, where he was put to work on the Mass Effect franchise.

In any event, it'll likely still be a significant amount of time before his next project will be publicly listed on his impressive CV, and we wish him the best of luck in his new workplace.

Mass Effect: Andromeda is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.