Award-winning voice actor Jennifer Hale, best known for voicing the female version of Commander Shepard in the first three Mass Effect games, is speaking out after a leaked trailer for the sci-fi franchise’s next title was leaked online.
The Mass Effect community was hit hard this week by news that EA is closing down BioWare, the 30-year-old studio known for spearheading Western RPGs with series like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Jade Empire, and others.
Rubbing salt in the wound, EA also revealed the next Mass Effect game (supposedly titled Mass Effect Universe) was canceled. This revelation hurt even more after staff who formerly worked on the project spoke out about it online, with one even leaking a full-length trailer for the game on Reddit. This trailer promised a game that would have been everything fans wanted and more — and it even caught the attention of FemShep herself.
Hale responded to a re-upload of the Mass Effect 5 trailer on X/Twitter, and it seems she’s just as hopeful as the rest of us that somehow, some way, the game will still get made.
“It's extraordinary,” she wrote. “I’m holding hope for magic to happen. This community and you incredible devs deserve that and more.”
Two days prior, she went live on Instagram alongside fellow Commander Shepard voice actor Mark Meer, who plays the male version of the character, to address fans in the wake of EA’s devastating decision
“I feel weirdly hopeful, and I can’t explain why,” Hale said. “...I feel for the [BioWare] employees who are suddenly unemployed. That is the number one thing on my mind. Those beautiful team members who are looking for a new home.”
“It is very sad news,” Meer added. “It is a massive loss for Edmonton, for Canada, and for the video game industry in general. It’s very unfortunate to see. And of course, I feel very bad for all of the fans.”
“It’s really hard to think about BioWare being shut down, but it was in the hands of ownership that may not have understood what BioWare fully is,” Hale continued. “And I’m hopeful that maybe, there might be some crazy thing where they decide that. in order to increase their profit margins — which is often their priority — they will release these IPs into the market to sell them, and use that to do what they do, which is increase their profit margins. But maybe, someone could grab hold of these IPs and do something with them.”
Hale isn’t alone in this line of thinking; many fans are calling on EA to at least sell BioWare’s intellectual properties to other developers in the hopes that Mass Effect 5 can eventually be released. Even Canadian politicians are getting in on the conversation, with the country’s New Democratic Party leader Avi Lewis taking to social media to publicly call out EA.
However, industry insiders and analysts are urging caution around this particular idea. Speaking with IGN, three separate analysts stated that BioWare’s library of titles simply don’t align with EA’s current strategy, and said it’s unlikely the company relinquishes them to other companies. What’s more, these IPs are likely to be extremely expensive, to the point where other studios simply wouldn’t have the funds nor the time to pursue them.
Former BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah shared a similar sentiment, though he admitted that, given EA is now looking to cut costs to cover its massive debt, it might consider the idea of selling these IPs off — but said it’s just as likely that execs “just try to forget that they ever existed and bury them in the vault.”