No reapers, just weepers.
An internal trailer for the cancelled Mass Effect game that was in-development at BioWare prior to its closure this week has appeared online. It's confirmed to be real, too, amid some initial suspicions it may have been an AI generated fake.
The trailer was intended for internal use, and was created for EA leadership rather than the public. It starts with a short message: "The following is in-engine footage from our small team. It uses our pre-production assets."
The trailer shows us our first (and likely only) look at Mass Effect Universe, an entirely new entry following the adventures of a new protagonist. We see them navigate the galaxy in their own ship with a new crew of various known races including a Krogan, and get into fights using guns and biotics. There's some quick cuts to a saucy romance scene, a tense standoff with weapons drawn, and a mysterious creature being researched in a big test tube. We also see a returning character from the original trilogy - Liara - make an appearance near the end of the trailer before a big bar fight kicks off.
When first released, scepticism around whether this trailer was real naturally was present given the prevalence of AI, however IGN quickly verified its validity. In addition, Bloomberg's Jason Schrier went on to corroborate the trailer's authenticity on his personal BlueSky account.
We know very little about this game aside from this trailer. According to a former BioWare employee, Mass Effect Universe would have learned from Baldur's Gate 3 and The Witcher to deliver "a level of autonomy and choice that no other game has." The game would have also seemingly "remained true" to the original trilogy.
Reactions from this trailer are bittersweet, given the reality that the 50 developers working on Mass Effect Universe have recently lost their jobs as part of EA's layoffs which impacted 400 employees across the company. "A spy thriller is such a cool concept for a re-entry to the series," wrote Reddit user Harrywilko. "Man, I'm just so sad and angry." User TerraxFormer shared similar sentiments, writing: "God this makes me even more distraught lol. I know a trailer is not an indication of how good it would have been but I was looking forward to this damn game so much."
The EA job cuts, which took place only a few months after Saudi Arabia's $55bn leveraged buyout of the company, also hit developers at Respawn, Maxis, Full Circle, EA Motive, and other EA-owned studios. While such cuts were anticipated by experts given EA's new debt obligations, the news of BioWare's closure nonetheless drew out many messages of sympathy and anger from across the industry.
It's hardly a silver lining, given we saw this unfinished trailer while we all said a sad farewell to BioWare. But at least those staff can know they were onto something that could have been great.
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