Mass Effect: Andromeda isn’t all bad faces – it’s gorgeous in 4K, so here’s 33 screenshots of it in action

By Alex Donaldson

30 lovely eyeball melters from our Mass Effect: Andromeda play-through.

Yeah, yeah, we know: the human faces. The animation. Mass Effect: Andromeda has it rough visually in these areas, and fans and internet message board pundits have made a pretty big deal out of that over the last few weeks. But here’s the thing: That stuff feels like the exception, not the rule. Generally speaking (and when it’s not bugging out) the game is bloody gorgeous, with art design and technical work in Frostbite that’s enough to make any science fiction fan squeal with delight. Like the rest of the game, if you push past the bad what sits beyond is rather enjoyable.

Your mileage will vary a little based on platform, but from what we’ve seen it’s a looker by the standards of any of its three platforms, with Xbox One the worst looking and the PS4 and PS4 Pro sitting comfortably in the middle. The rough side on consoles comes in performance, with dodgy frame rates and pop-in issues. The best, of course, is PC – provided you have the rig.

I’m lucky enough to have one such rig and I feel like pre-launch discussion of Andromeda has focused a little much on its (sometimes admittedly very crap) faces – so here are 33 4K, ultra settings screenshots I took of Mass Effect: Andromeda. Keep in mind that these screenshots showcase a number of the story-critical planets from the game but are pretty much free of context, so unless the simple fact that the game has a desert planet is a spoiler to you, they’re safe to call spoiler-free. (Two of the shots are of pre-rendered sequences – spot which.)

These shots were taken on NVIDIA’s new GTX 1080ti graphics card, which by all accounts is an absolute beast. This card can run Andromeda at 4K and a fairly solid 60fps, which is how I’ve been playing. Combat is eye-melting on it. You should be able to reach close to this visual fidelity at 1080p on a regular 1080 or 1070, too.

Anyway, screenshots! If you want to see them at full 4K, save them or right click and open in a new tab once you click the shot in the gallery below.