BioWare technical director reveals scrapped Mass Effect 5 save-file universes

BioWare technical director Romain Toutain, at the studio since 2022, streamed on Twitch on Saturday and discussed the cancelled Mass Effect Universe sequel while watching its leaked trailer. Kotaku reported the Twitch stream, and a Bluesky account identified as loustica-lucia.bsky.social provided a translation of his remarks.:

Mass Effect 5, reportedly titled Mass Effect Universe, was cancelled at the same time as the shutdown of all BioWare development operations, with both reported this week. A trailer for the cancelled game appeared online after the studio shutdown and cancellation were made public.:

The scrapped game was built around a save-file system in which each individual save functioned as a separate universe defined by player choices, and every new choice created another timeline, producing multiple parallel universes. The design resembled Zero Time Dilemma, in which every player choice spawns an alternative timeline based on another decision. Players could also make decisions that contradicted choices they made earlier in the timeline.:

BioWare built technology to identify which timeline decisions connected to key plot points and to create those connections when they did not already exist. Sharing a save file with other players would have been possible when a person’s decisions opened a notably interesting route. The mechanic was the primary development priority, and the cancelled game was constructed around it with the aim of granting players absolute autonomy.:

Toutain said on Saturday that choices made in earlier Mass Effect games, including the trilogy and presumably Andromeda, stayed relevant in the cancelled Universe. The scrapped game was intended to incorporate every decision from the first trilogy into its story and world state.:

Toutain claimed on Saturday that EA does not sell properties, but closes them and retains ownership of its licenses, and he said he was not optimistic that fans, employees, and voice actors could save Mass Effect from being abandoned by the publisher. Supporters including fans, staff members, and voice performers are attempting to preserve the franchise and stop EA from dropping it.:

An online petition supporting BioWare had surpassed 50,000 signatures this week. A Canadian politician called on the government to support BioWare developers in a buyout that would let them run the studio independently.:

YouTube creator Dantics, a member of the Mass Effect Council, revealed new gameplay details about the cancelled game in a video this week, and IGN verified the legitimacy of his details. A development source told IGN that every major alien race was working in the game build. Dantics said the story took place more than six centuries after the war against the Reapers ended. The playable character was envisioned as a customizable operative in the style of John Wick and James Bond, with experimental technology placed inside the agent’s body to allow environmental hacking, including wall penetration, system identification, remote danger activation, and similar functions.:

The game would have featured brutal, close-range executions as a combat option. The galaxy would have been split into three major factions: an alliance of humanity, Krogans, Batarians, and others; a separate Council race alliance; and the Geth as a third superpower building megastructures. Dantics characterized the setting as a galactic Cold War rather than another Reaper-style invasion led by a shadowy adversary.:

Missions would have been handcrafted like those in the original trilogy but with Hitman-style freedom in how to complete them. Squadmates would have been able to clash with one another, and romance options would have returned without being sanitized. Liara would have returned from the original trilogy as a powerful Asari Matriarch.:

While watching the leaked trailer Saturday, Toutain said the bartender shown belongs to a newly introduced alien species, describing the organic, Reaper-like figure as hairy and possibly capable of growing additional tentacles. The trailer also depicted a new Quarian companion displaying bioscanner data for the N7 lead character. Toutain noted that some information about the project remains confidential, as it does for the writers who formerly worked on the game. Dantics said, “From what I saw, BioWare was making Mass Effect for us, the fans.”: