It's been a wild 24 hours for fans of BioWare, the renowned game studio behind such culturally influential hits as Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Yesterday the news broke that BioWare's parent company, Electronic Arts, was closing the studio down after more than 30 years making groundbreaking games that pushed storytelling forward for the medium. This came as part of wider layoffs which effected around 400 EA employees, but BioWare's closure hit the hardest.
Since then, fans have been commiserating online, while other game studios have been spreading the word about the effected developers or sharing heartfelt messages about how much BioWare's games have meant to them over the years. There's a feeling of shock and grief in the gaming community, because BioWare's titles have meant so much to so many people for so long. It's strange to think about the modern RPG space without them.
It stung even worse because BioWare was currently developing a fifth Mass Effect game, which held the promise of righting the ship for the popular sci-fi franchise after the divisive release of 2017's Mass Effect: Andromeda. The new Mass Effect was canceled as part of the closure, leaving fans to wonder just what we might have missed — as well as why the game lingered in "early development" for a full five years after it was first revealed in a 2020 teaser trailer.
It's then that things got very interesting. An EA employee responded to questions about the long early development cycle on Reddit, claiming that they had actually seen a finished trailer for Mass Effect 5, which the company had been sitting on for months. And now, that claim seems to have borne out, as a former BioWare employee posted the trailer, once again to Reddit, via a burner account today. And as someone who deeply loves Mass Effect, it makes me so sad that we won't see this game come to fruition, because the trailer looks like exactly the return to form we'd all been hoping for.
EA has not yet responded to the leak, but I wouldn't be surprised if the studio tries to suppress it eventually. But for now, the trailer for the so-called Mass Effect: Universe is spreading like wildfire through the fandom. Check it out:
Mass Effect: Universe trailer is exactly what fans have wanted
The trailer shows a new N7 agent with a cyberpunk-esque duster heading into a seedy space bar, where he's approached by an Asari. She asks about his background, which leads to him talking about why he left the military — and how now he goes around stopping problems before they start. As the Asari gives him a warning that she's the exact sort of person he's trying to stop, a figure behind her throws off a hood, revealing series mainstay Liara T'soni, older but no less deadly. Liara and the new N7 agent — presumably a Spectre like Shepherd — easily take out the Asari's forces.
There are plenty of other cuts throughout the trailer, showing various environments from battlefields to the deck of a new ship, all rendered with the game's internal engine. It's still a conceptual trailer at heart, but it gives us a much clearer idea of the tone and feel of this game than the 2020 teaser, along with a perfect bit of sci-fi electronica music that calls to mind the original trilogy.
While Mass Effect: Andromeda had its fans, myself included, it was largely divisive within the fandom because it took place in an entirely different setting that was much more barren than the lived-in galaxy of the beloved original trilogy, had a notoriously glitchy launch, and failed to have the same level of intricacy in its storytelling. It's still a fantastic game, but it's understandable that many fans longed for something closer to the trilogy's experience.
Mass Effect: Universe looks like it would have delivered on that, at least based on this first impression. At the very least, it's clear that the original trilogy is much more of a reference here than Andromeda. And if it was also able to tie together some of the plot developments from the Andromeda Initiative's voyage, as the "Universe" subtitle implies, then all the better.
Is Mass Effect 5 canceled?
It's heartbreaking that this game is no longer in development. At the time of BioWare's closure, there were only 50 employees at the studio dedicated to working on Mass Effect 5, many of whom had been shuffled around to help complete other projects in the preceding years, like Anthem and Dragon Age: The Veilguard. That's pretty much a skeleton crew for a AAA game like Mass Effect, which goes a long way toward explaining why this thing was still in the earlier stages of development, rather than full-blown production. For context, CD Projekt Red's team working on The Witcher IV consists of over 500 people at the time of this writing.
BioWare's closure isn't expected to be the last blow to EA's portfolio, after it was purchased earlier this year by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. Industry experts expect more layoffs to follow as the corporation seeks to offset around $700 million. For now, the official word is that Mass Effect 5 is canceled.
Mass Effect petition begins fan campaign to save the series
All that said, with the amount of attention BioWare's closure is getting, including this new trailer for Mass Effect: Universe, I have a feeling we haven't heard the end of this story quite yet. A live-action Mass Effect TV show remains in production at Prime Video, so the property is certainly not dead. Time will tell if this new trailer is the last we'll ever see of the games, or a stepping stone in its eventual rise from near-destruction.
Whatever happens, fans haven't given up hope yet. A petition is already underway to save the series, in hopes of finding a way forward. Check it out here if you want to learn more, or add your name to its list of supporters. #SaveMassEffect.
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