Mass Effect: Andromeda is getting its first bit of DLC with a new class and difficulty coming to co-op multiplayer.

Revealed in a tweet just yesterday, EA has announced that Batarians will be making their first foray into the Andromeda system. So far the piratical, four-eyed race hasn’t been seen at all in Mass Effect: Andromeda, an absence that many players noted. With the addition of the race in the new multiplayer DLC, we finally have the ridge-faced species back in Mass Effect once again.

Along with the new race, EA is promising a much harder difficulty for co-op multiplayer called Platinum Difficulty. We don’t know much else as to what this entails, as EA has been pretty tight-lipped about the upcoming content for Andromeda. The 15-second trailer featured in the tweet gave us very little to go on. All we know is that things will be harder. Somehow.

EA has been virtually silent on Mass Effect: Andromeda for some time now. There were rumors floating around previously that there may have been a planned single player expansion, however, more recent reports indicate that EA seems to have shelved Mass Effect for the time being.

batarian
via Rock Paper Shotgun

This is a big change from previous entries in the series, which all featured multiple paid DLCs that greatly expanded the universe. Shelving Andromeda so early after launch seems to be an indicator that the game may not have sold nearly as well as previous entries in the franchise, and EA is not confident that DLC will sell well enough to justify their creation.

Adding some credibility to these reports is news that BioWare Montreal has been re-assigned to work on the upcoming Star Wars Battlefront II, due out this November. With nobody actively working on Mass Effect material, one can expect any future DLC to be similarly light on the content.

It seems this may be a sad ending to what was once one of the premiere sci-fi franchises in gaming. One can only hope that a new space opera will eventually take its place. And maybe, if we’re lucky, it won’t be EA that develops it.

PREVIOUSLY: MASS EFFECT WRITER TEASING NEW DLC?