Mass Effect: Andromeda Players Report Problems Starting Game on PC

Game Rant

By Anthony Taormina

Published Apr 8, 2017

The latest update for Mass Effect: Andromeda may have fixed issues with animations and matchmaking, but it also has prevented some PC players from starting the game.

Although this week’s Mass Effect: Andromeda update was supposed to fix the game in many ways, it has also apparently created new problems. Some PC players have found that the new PC update for Mass Effect: Andromeda prevents them from starting the game, and no solution suggested by Electronic Arts will solve the problem.

Mass Effect: Andromeda Update Introduces New Problems

On Thursday, BioWare launched a massive Mass Effect: Andromeda update that, among other things, improved the faces and animations of characters, made matchmaking easier, and eliminated some of the progress bugs that were keeping players from continuing their adventure as the Pathfinder. Unfortunately, while others’ paths were cleared, PC players found a new roadblock thanks to the update.

While it is unclear what is causing the PC startup problem for Mass Effect: Andromeda, or how widespread it is, this is no doubt a troubling result for players. To make matters worse, EA’s help page for the problem offers very basic solutions.

Right now, BioWare has three workaround suggestions for gamers that can’t play Mass Effect: Andromeda on PC:

Try to see if an update has not gone through by right clicking and selecting ‘Update Game’ in Origin.
Playing the game in ‘Offline’ mode.
Deleting the Andromeda.exe files and then completely reinstalling Mass Effect: Andromeda.

According to several reports to Game Rant, these solutions do not actually fix anything, but they may help other players having similar problems. At the very least, it’s some comfort to see BioWare acknowledge the issue rather than try to sweep it under the rug. Yes, it may only affect a small population of gamers – we’ve heard from a handful of players about the issue – but anyone losing access to a game they previously had no or little problems with is sure to be a headache.

Faces are Better in Mass Effect

BioWare’s update may have been comprehensive and it certainly fixed a lot of gamers’ major problems with the title – the faces on human characters look much better – but it is by no means the last tweak the developer will make. There is still likely a laundry list of items BioWare hopes to fix or improve in Mass Effect: Andromeda, and players have their own items as well. But hopefully this particular issue can be fixed with a smaller patch – one that comes sooner rather than later.

It’s hard to think about the future at a time like this, but there is likely more Mass Effect: Andromeda content in the pipeline, both additions to multiplayer and DLC story content. However, when exactly BioWare will start talking about that is anyone’s guess.

Mass Effect: Andromeda is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Thanks to Nicolás Scherson.