Many open-world games have slabs of meaningless, vacuous side quests, such as Dragon Age: Inquisition. Some games buck this trend though, and offer up meaningful, and great sidequests, such as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. BioWare -- the developer behind Dragon Age: Inquisition -- is hoping to be on the good side of this trend with its upcoming release Mass Effect: Andromeda, and is actually taking some pointers from CD Projekt Red and The Witcher.

According to Andromeda's producer Fabrice Condominas, BioWare learned its lesson of tedious sidequests with Inquisition (which was well known for its plethora of bad sidequests -- Hinterlands I'm looking at you), and that while it won't discourage the player from adopting a more grindy approach, it is tackling sidequests with more thought that before. Condominas specifically says the following: 

"We are approaching the completionist aspect very differently, because we've done and learned a lot from Inquisition. But we've also observed what other games have been doing, like The Witcher."

Condominas continues by stressing that bigger isn't always better in regards to sidequests, and rather that they must be "meaningful" in order to be impactful. The producer adds:

"And it was very important for us that the quantity of scope doesn't downgrade the quality of whatever your are doing there."

Mass Effect: Andromeda is set to release March 21, 2017 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.