Mass Effect 5 trailer leaked as BioWare shuts down after 30 years

ⓘ Random_Hyabusa_Ninja on Reddit

It seems like BioWare had a trailer for the next Mass Effect game ready to go but never released it to the public. That trailer has now been leaked, and it shows in-engine footage of what was supposed to be Mass Effect: Universe.

It was recently reported that BioWare has been shut down and development on the next Mass Effect game has been cancelled. In its letter to employees, EA management stated that the game was in early development, but a new trailer has now surfaced, suggesting the game was further along in the development process.

The trailer was apparently leaked by a former BioWare employee, and it shows in-engine footage using pre-production assets. It is just over two minutes long but seems polished and shows that the game would have been called “Mass Effect: Universe”. The Reddit post also cites an EA employee who claims that the trailer had been ready for months.

The trailer shows a team of supposed spies capturing a target with some combat inside a bar. As mentioned earlier, this was in-engine footage and not final gameplay. It is also unclear what stage of development the game was in, but EA states that a small team at BioWare was “working on early-development for Mass Effect.”

The first trailer for Mass Effect 5 came out in 2020, so for the game to be in early development six years later seems questionable. That said, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier recently revealed that there was a lot of turmoil at BioWare for several years since its past games failed to achieve their targets. The studio was gutted to just 50 members who were supposedly working on Mass Effect: Universe.