A surprise departure from the rest of BioWare’s games, it turns out the male and female protagonists of Mass Effect: Andromeda are not the same person. Brother and sister, the Ryder siblings are both part of the game’s cannon.
Speaking in an interview with PlayStation Access, Creative Director Mac Walters revealed the news, saying, “We’re seeing our male character, at E3 we got to see our female character. What a lot of people don’t know—a little surprise here—is that these two are brother and sister. And they both exist in the game world at the same time. So if you’re playing as the sister, female Ryder, your brother is somewhere in the universe.”
Rounding out the family tale, it also turns out the figure in N7 armor shown in the original announcement trailer is the father of the two protagonists.
The new details come as we got our first real look at the gameplay for Mass Effect: Andromeda at yesterday’s PlayStation Meeting. While not showing combat, the footage instead focuses on the environment as the game runs at 4K resolution on the recently announced PS4 Plus.
Even though Mass Effect: Andromeda is set to release early next year, BioWare has already teased we won’t see more from the game until November 7 (N7 day).