Mass Effect: Andromeda‘s multiplayer won’t have dedicated servers and will instead utilize peer to peer connections just as its predecessor did, producer Fernando Melo has confirmed via Twitter (via VG247). Why should you care? Well, for those not interested in the technical side of how the wonderful world of online gaming works, developers either opt to use the aforementioned structure or dedicated servers, one of the major differences being that the latter provides a central hub for players to connect to rather than each other.
crossplay not in the current plans, sorry. and mp is peer to peer (same as me3)
— Fernando Melo (@DiscoBabaloo) January 27, 2017
While both types of connection are stable enough for online play, peer to peer connections are often seen as inferior to a dedicated server due to the prevalence of certain issues. Top of that list is likely to be distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which are considerably easier to pull off if those attempting to use them are targeting another player rather than a huge server able to handle large amounts of traffic. Destiny developer Bungie has often been criticized for opting to go down this route, with players of its high stakes competitive multiplayer mode Trials of Osiris having frequently reported being victim to such attacks.
With that said, Andromeda‘s multiplayer component is a largely non-competitive affair, so it’s highly unlikely that certain unsavory types will try to gain the upper hand by flooding the host player with unwanted connection requests. Let’s just hope that BioWare has opted to include host migration, otherwise, players heading online could well be in for a rough time.
Mass Effect: Andromeda launches March 21 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. In case you missed it, check out last week’s gameplay trailer right here.
