Additional details about BioWare’s canceled Mass Effect game have leaked online, revealing a story that would have taken choices from the Commander Shepard trilogy into account if EA hadn’t shut down the studio.
The long-awaited and currently canned follow-up for the sci-fi RPG franchise, which was working under the title Mass Effect: Universe, was built around decisions made in the original games, according to comments shared by former technical director Romain Toutain during a recent livestream (via Kotaku). As more details about the project leak, there’s no telling exactly how thorough this system would have been, but he did his best to give fans an idea.
“All the choices made in the first Mass Effect games were taken into account,” Toutain said (translation via Bluesky user @loustica-lucia.bsky.social). “One of the reasons why it was called ‘Mass Effect: Universe’ is that you had so many choices. That 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.”
Mass Effect fans know how crucial the series’ overarching story is, especially when it comes to Commander Shepard’s first three installments in his/her fight against the Reapers. Outside of the ill-fated Andromeda follow-up that launched in 2017, players were able to carry major choices from each entry over to the next, resulting in a trilogy of games with a highly personalized story.
Relationships, major character deaths, and even the fate of an entire species are just a few of the ways Shepard can be steered to shape the galaxy, and although whether it was all worth it in the end is still up for debate, it seems Mass Effect: Universe would have offered an opportunity to right some wrongs. Toutain said they had plans for those who just prefer to experiment with the story and its many, many branches, too. He likened the freedom to “generate timelines” to Spike Chunsoft’s 2016 video game, Zero Time Dilemma.
“You have no f**king idea just how great it was,” he continued. Then, responding to a fan asking whether Mass Effect: Universe would have featured systems similar to what was found in Dragon Age: Inquisition and the series’ lore-tailoring Keep application, he said, “kinda, yeah.”
“It’s more like, you can make decisions that might contradict things you’ve already done or thing you have to do, and so it would create plot ‘points’ in the timeline. I mean, that was the theory. It worked, in practice. 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?”
The ideas Toutain teased sound ambitious and complex, and unfortunately, they will likely never see the light of day. EA announced last week that it had shuttered the long-running RPG developer and canceled what would likely have been called Mass Effect: Universe, with additional plans for the franchise’s future in games on hold, too. Fans have already erected a #SaveMassEffect movement in the aftermath, with a petition garnering an unreal 185,000 signatures at the time of this story’s publication.
Other highlights from Toutain’s stream include the revelation that the Reaper-like hand featured in recently leaked footage was named Billy, as well as the idea that the developers were hoping to craft a story that gave each player a completely unique experience. More information about what Mass Effect 5 would have been have also leaked in the days after BioWare’s demise. Those details include a full trailer, as well as gameplay details that promised missions with “Hitman-style freedom.” The Prime Video show, meanwhile, is said to still be in the works.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).