In Mass Effect: Andromeda, your pilot is a salarian and there are no loading screens on your ship

Mass Effect: Andromeda speeds up your post-mission NPC interaction runs.

If you played Mass Effect like I did, you'd check in with every NPC every time you advanced the story even slightly, on the off-chance they had something new to say - can't miss those flirt and side mission opps, can you?

This ended up being pretty tiresome because sometimes you'd wander all over your ship, enduring a stack of loading screens, only to find nobody had anything new to say. Mass Effect: Andromeda speeds things up by getting rid of loading transitions inside your ship, the Tempest.

That's according to GameInformer's latest Mass Effect: Andromeda feature, which also notes that there'll be a smoother flow between being onboard ship and exploring planets, and that party members and other NPCs don't just hang out in one spot all the time.

The feature reveals the pilot in Mass Effect: Andromeda is a salarian - I sure hope they make wisecracks like Joker did, in that rapid-fire salarian voice - and I was also interested to read that the view from the Tempests's windows changes to reflect your current position in space.

Sadly, it's now fully confirmed that you cannot manually fly the Tempest in Mass Effect: Andromeda. You do have to check in at the bridge to navigate, though, instead of regularly forgetting the pilot exists and having to reload your save to check for missed dialogue. That might just be me.

Mass Effect Andromeda launches next year for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. I for one am pretty excited to get back to Mass Effect, and looking forward to seeing Mass Effect: Andromeda gameplay at The Game Awards next month.

Be right back, I have to go do a little "Mass Effect: Andromeda is coming out in a few months" dance.