On Wednesday, October 21st, EA announced the devastating news that the video game publisher would be shutting down the beloved role-playing game developer, BioWare, laying off all of its staff and subsequently canceling development of Mass Effect 5.
This announcement was a shock to developers and gamers worldwide, as BioWare was known for creating some of the most popular RPGs as seen in the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect series, with the latter series having planned to make a triumphant resurgence following the mixed received Mass Effect: Andromeda.
However, BioWare's shuttering isn't all doom and gloom and may turn out to be a bittersweet event to some fans, as many former BioWare developers have now come forward detailing information about the canceled Mass Effect 5, including info on the direction of the game and an in-engine trailer complete with a reveal of the game's official title: Mass Effect: Universe.
Mass Effect: Universe's Posthumous Revelations
About a day after EA announced the shuttering of BioWare, an unidentified former BioWare developer posted an in-engine trailer online of Mass Effect: Universe.
This trailer was later confirmed to be a real BioWare product by gaming journalist Jason Schreier of Bloomberg News, who was the original journalist to break the story of BioWare's shuttering and the cutting of 400 positions from EA.
According to Schreier and a former BioWare employee by the username rasengo727 on Reddit, the Mass Effect: Universe trailer was finished months ago but was on hold from a public reveal for some unknown reason, possibly suggesting that EA had planned to close BioWare for months now, likely as a response to Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Anthem's commercial performances.
According to Schreier and a former BioWare employee by the username rasengo727 on Reddit, the Mass Effect: Universe trailer was finished months ago
Rasengo727 further noted that only about 50 people were working on Mass Effect: Universe, with the small team being a result of EA restructuring and downsizing BioWare following the disappointing launch of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
It's currently unknown when exactly this trailer was produced or when EA would have planned to publish it to the public, but for now, it remains as players best look into what Mass Effect 5 might have been and potentially could still be should EA decide to sell BioWare properties such as DA and ME to other gaming publishers or development studios.
Mass Effect: Universe's Star Wars-Coded Trailer
The trailer begins with a bit of text detailing how this trailer was made using in-engine, pre-production assets before transitioning to a bar called Pit 55 on what looks to be an Interstellar Republic world, with Pit 55 appearing very similar to Coruscant's Outlander Club from Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones.
In front of and inside the bar, fans can see many familiar alien species, such as Turians, Asari, Quarians, Drells, Krogans, Salarians, and of course, humans, with the camera following one particular human man as he wakes his way to the bar's counter, catching the eye of one particular Asari.
This Asari walks up to the unnamed man, presumably Mass Effect: Universe's protagonist, and asks if he served in the military before transitioning to a flashback of the man serving in what appears to be the Systems Alliance military against Krogan forces.
The man explains that he left the military because nothing changed, and he kept on fighting one battle after another before joining a new line of work.
The trailer then depicts a montage of presumably the man's ship flying by a Mass Relay, the ship's bridge with a Krogan crew member bringing up a hologram of the galaxy, the man meeting with authorities on another unknown planet, the man attacking a Salarian, the man sleeping with a woman, the man analyzing what appears to be some form of Reaper-like alien, and the man attacking a few Turians.
During the montage, the protagonist claims to be stopping fires before they start in the galaxy, but the Asari responds by saying they start fires before a hooded figure sitting behind them is revealed to be Liara T'Soni from the original Mass Effect trilogy, leading to both her and the protagonist to attack the Asari and her Turian and Krogan goons in the bar and the trailer concluding with the reveal of the Mass Effect: Universe title.
While Mass Effect: Universe appears to be more of what made the Mass Effect trilogy great at first glance, it seems that the game would have had players embody a more freelance, undercover cop-type role as opposed to the more militaristic role Shepard embodied.
In a way, Mass Effect: Universe looked to be tackling a story fairly similar to Star Wars Zero Company, with both games following military groups that follow their own path to thwart galaxy-ending threats.
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