During the 10 hour trial for Mass Effect: Andromeda, available now on PC through Origin Access, I tried out a couple of rounds of multiplayer. What I was able to play seemed like it would be enjoyable in ideal conditions, building and expanding upon everything that made Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer so fun and addictive. Unfortunately, my experience was severely hampered by lag. My character and the enemies were rubber-banding all over the place and it only seemed to worsen when a fourth player joined the match. There are no dedicated servers in Mass Effect: Andromeda, which instead uses peer-to-peer connections. This means if the host is on the other side of the planet or has a poor connection, the rest of the players suffer too.
Thinking perhaps I hadn’t selected the right region, I went back to the multiplayer lobby and searched for some sort of filter. What I discovered is that there’s currently no way to queue up for a multiplayer match by region. Today I reached out to Ian Frazier on Twitter, he’s the Lead Designer for Mass Effect: Andromeda and has been quite responsive to any questions sent his way. He promptly replied with the following:
So there you have it. It may come further down the line, but at the launch of Mass Effect: Andromeda, if you want to play a lag-free match you’ll just have to cross your fingers and hope the matchmaking throws you in with fellow Australians.