More details surrounding Mass Effect: Universe or Mass Effect 5 pour in, following EA’s decision to close BioWare.
The video game industry enters its second week of mourning for BioWare, and the latest details reveal the newest Mass Effect title would have had plenty of choices for players. The next entry was to be called Mass Effect: Universe, based on the leaked trailer that came out late last week. As EA essentially cut 400 employees from the entire BioWare staff (50 are from the Edmonton, Alberta office), more ex-employees are posting about what could have been in the game. The latest updates came from the technical director and a YouTuber who was on the “Mass Effect Council.”
Technical director Romain Toutain was on a livestream with Kotaku and IGN, discussing why they chose ‘Universe’ to be the title. Essentially, the title was meant to reflect how every choice the player made from the original trilogy would affect how the player saw Mass Effect: Universe. “All the choices made in the first Mass Effect games were taken into account. One of the reasons why it was called ‘Mass Effect: Universe’ is that you had so many choices,” Toutain explained. “You could plug your saves together to create parallel universes, to keep it simple. It’s not exactly how it worked. You had different timelines, basically.”
Later on, Toutain jokingly said, “You have no f**king idea just how great it was…It’s more like, you can make decisions that might contradict things you’ve already done or things you have to do, and so it would create plot ‘points’ in the timeline. I mean, that was the theory. It worked, in practice.” Even though he may not have shown how it works, it does make sense with how the Mass Effect games have been building up to.
Toutain went on to explain the game design, but could not talk about everything in greater detail: “I’ll tell you about the tech one day because it was really exciting. We got worked up, f**k. Everything in the game. Everything was stateful, and at any time, you could stop the game—I mean, you could pause it—and ask a system that solved logical equations, ‘Is this valid?’ And if it isn’t valid, what conditions must be met for it to be valid?”
To add, YouTuber Dantics claimed the cancelled Mass Effect: Universe was supposed to be set more than 600 years after the Reaper War. He posted about what he knew about what the game would have been, beginning the post on X with “I can finally talk about Mass Effect Universe. Apparently, Dantics also provided feedback during development. He noted how the game centered around a “galactic Cold War” between three major factions, aside from the traditional Reaper-style invasion. Humanity, the Krogan, the Batarians, and others would have been one faction, with the Council races forming their own alliance, and the Geth being the third.
Dantics also mentioned Mass Effect: Universe would feature Geth-built megastructures, connections between the Milky Way and Andromeda, and a “shadowy adversary.” He noted that players would play as someone who was “a cross between John Wick and James Bond” rather than “a walking gun rack.” The main character would also have had experimental technology implanted, giving them the ability to hack and manipulate the environment, see through walls, identify systems, and remotely trigger hazards. The missions were described to be handcrafted ones like in Mass Effect to Mass Effect 3, but with more of a Hitman-style of freedom in completing the mission.
Dantics also listed brutal close-range executions, squadmates who could clash with each other, romances that weren’t “sanitized”, and Shepard’s legacy being preserved regardless of which ending players chose. Many would have been happy to know Squad member Liara would also have returned—only now as an “incredibly powerful Asari Matriarch.” None of what Dantics has been confirmed by BioWare or EA, but this outlined list of details can somewhat corroborate the details Toutain was hinting at—along with what was seen in the leaked trailer.
While the exact details about BioWare’s closure remain sparse, some across the industry are requesting that other major publishers buy BioWare from EA. It is unclear whether EA is axing the developer as a whole or looking to potential sellers. Either way, the employees who have spent years toiling on Mass Effect: Universe are the ones who are unemployed now. Some of the employees are still under the BioWare staff page on LinkedIn and are seeking out new jobs now. We at CGMagazine wish all the BioWare staff the best in finding a new home through these turbulent times in the games industry.
There is also an open petition to sign, in hopes that Mass Effect 5 or Mass Effect: Universe can get the funding it needs to finish development. Dantics put it best at the end of his X post: “From what I saw, BioWare was making Mass Effect for us, the fans, not for people who don’t exist. It looked incredible. And now we may never get to play it.”
