What could have been: Since BioWare’s closure and the cancellation of the next Mass Effect game, several people involved in the project have commented on the plans. Together with a leaked trailer, their comments paint a picture of a spy thriller space opera that would have pushed Mass Effect’s focus on player choice further than ever before.
A Redditor shared a trailer for the next Mass Effect game, called Mass Effect: Universe, shortly after EA canceled the game and BioWare closed. Bloomberg and IGN’s Jason Schreier later confirmed the trailer’s authenticity, and others involved with BioWare added some context.
Created using pre-production materials and intended for internal use only, the footage revolves around a human figure in a trench coat telling an asari that he has left the military to take a new job where he is supposed to “stop fires before they start.”
The asari replies, “I make the fire.” Liara, returning from the original trilogy, then reveals herself saying, “We know,” and a battle ensues with weapons and biotic attacks.
Mass Effect: Universe trailer
by u/Random_Hyabusa_Ninja in Masseffect
Other shots show gunfights, a love scene and a spaceship flying over a frozen planet. Australian YouTuber Dantics, who says he was part of BioWare’s Mass Effect Council, a group of developers who gave feedback to the studio, later explained the game’s setting and how the trailer ties into BioWare’s design goals.
The Man in the Trenchcoat would have been the customizable player character that Dantics described as an “agent” for N7, the special forces program from the original trilogy. The aim of Mass Effect: Universe was to deliver a James Bond-esque spy thriller set centuries after Mass Effect 3.
Players would have used an experimental implant to manipulate objects and the environment around them, which Dantics compared to Cyberpunk 2077’s hacking gameplay. BioWare designed missions similar to the hand-crafted format of the original trilogy, allowing players to choose how to complete them, like the Hitman games or the opening Noveria section in the original Mass Effect.
The description matches a lengthy LinkedIn post from BioWare film executive Tony de Waal, one of the 50 or so people still at the company when EA shut it down this week. He wrote that the team aimed to provide a level of autonomy and choice that no other game had achieved after seeing what Larian and CD Projekt were doing, likely referring to Baldur’s Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3.
Dantics also pointed out that Mass Effect: Universe would retain the series’ staples, such as potential romances and conflicts between companions. He seemed excited about the project because BioWare was making it primarily for its fans and because its small development team encouraged creativity.
The game would have introduced a setting in which, after 600 years, humans and the other races across the galaxy had largely repaired the damage caused by the events of Mass Effect 3, eventually splitting into three superpowers. One consisted of the original races of the Citadel Council (presumably the Asari, Turians, and Salarians), another was an alliance of humans, krogan, batarians, and others, and the geth made up the third.
Dantics described their relationship as a Cold War, with a shadowy enemy working behind the scenes. Player choices from the original trilogy may also have affected the story, and the game would have had a connection to Andromeda.
Although BioWare’s closure ended any hope that fans would play Mass Effect: Universe, some hold out hope that EA might one day sell BioWare’s intellectual property.
While the publisher tends to keep dormant properties like Ultima in its vault, former BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah believes EA could sell them to help pay off the roughly $20 billion in debt from the leveraged buyout that preceded BioWare’s closure.
