The second in the Mass Effect: Andromeda "Gameplay Series" of videos takes a closer look at combat profiles, which make it easier to adapt to changing situations in battle, and also some of the abilities of your squadmates, who bring a little more functionality to the party than they did in previous games.
There are seven combat profiles available in Andromeda—Soldier, Engineer, Adept, Sentinel, Vanguard, Infiltrator, and Explorer—each with its own unique blend of bonuses and abilities. Investing in individual skills unlocks higher-level profiles, with more, and more powerful, bonuses as levels increase, and they can be swapped around at any time. In a similar fashion, Favorites are groups of three skills and a Profile that can be switched on the fly in combat. The trailer demonstrates Favorites being used to begin a fight with a long-range loadout, with a cloak and sniper rifle, before switching to a setup more suited to close-range brawling, and then one for combos, and finally one focused on ranged biotic abilities.
Each of your squaddies will have three active and two passive skills, which enables them to fill a variety of different roles in the field. But what's really interesting is that you can team up with them to execute "power combos": One of you "primes" an enemy—say, by tossing a big ball of biotic badness at them—after which the other rushes in to set it off. As squadmates level up, they can be customized with a focus on either priming or detonating power combos.
We recently got to spend some quality time with Mass Effect: Andromeda, and from it we've cooked up a whole hub of pre-release coverage for your reading pleasure, including tales of combat, jetpack rides, and your first hour in a brave new galaxy. Catch it all (there's a lot of it!) right here.
