Trailer for Canceled Mass Effect 5 Leaks, Showing Liara’s Return and BioWare’s Ambitions

Just one day after news broke that BioWare was closing and its upcoming Mass Effect sequel had been canceled, a trailer surfaced online showing what the developers had been working on in recent years. And although the game was still likely some way from release, the footage looks surprisingly good. That makes Electronic Arts’ decision to scrap the entire project under its new owners all the more bitter.

Talk of an upcoming trailer had already surfaced before the leak. According to behind-the-scenes reports, the new video was nearly finished, and there was speculation that we might see it soon, possibly even on November 7 during the traditional N7 Day. It now seems there may have been some truth to those reports, although the leaked footage still doesn’t look entirely finished.

Jason Schreier confirmed the video’s authenticity, as did IGN independently. According to IGN, however, the trailer was made last year for EA’s leadership and was not originally intended for the public. It may not, then, be the same video that previous rumors suggested was about to be revealed. Even so, it offers one of the most concrete looks yet at the canceled Mass Effect 5.

The trailer opens with a disclaimer explaining that the footage is captured directly from the game engine and was created by a small team using pre-production assets. The title Mass Effect: Universe appears at the end, but it’s unclear whether this was intended to be the game’s final title or merely a working title.

The footage includes many elements fans associate with the series. We see spaceflight, relays that enable travel between star systems, familiar alien races, weapons and abilities, as well as a nightclub, an intimate scene, and a galactic map aboard a ship. The trailer suggests that BioWare wanted to return to the foundations of the original trilogy while also reimagining them in a more modern form.

There are also hints about the story. The protagonist appears to have been a former military operative who had taken on a new job. Their task was to deal with dangerous situations before they escalated into larger conflicts. An older Liara T'Soni also appears, helping the protagonist during a fight in a bar.

Liara’s return had already been hinted at in previous teasers. Over the past few years, BioWare had gradually suggested that the new Mass Effect would take place hundreds of years after the events of the third game, with the story once again focused on the Milky Way galaxy. The game was also expected to feature the return of the Geth and a connection to the events of Mass Effect: Andromeda. The developers had also hinted at the return of romantic relationships and the Paragon/Renegade decision system.

The leaked trailer is all the more interesting because it surfaced shortly after former BioWare employees began talking about what they had been working on. Writer Catherynne M. Valente, for example, responded to criticism of the game industry by saying that the developers knew how to make a great Mass Effect sequel. “We figured it out. We were working on a great game,” she wrote.

Tony de Waal, who worked at BioWare as a cinematic supervisor, offered more specific details. According to him, the new Mass Effect was meant to offer a level of player autonomy and choice that no other game had achieved. The developers were looking at what Larian Studios and CD Projekt RED had accomplished with their latest RPGs and wanted to bring Mass Effect to a similar level without losing the character of the original trilogy.

“I’m sorry you’ll never see what we were working on,” de Waal said, praising the small team of talented developers who, in his words, were doing exceptional work.

Of course, an impressive trailer doesn’t automatically mean the finished game would have been good. The video was made during pre-production, and there can be a huge gap between the vision it presents and a finished title. What’s more, as its original internal purpose confirms, it was not necessarily evidence that BioWare was ready to launch a public marketing campaign.

Even so, the leaked footage shows that the studio had a clear vision for the series’ future and was working on its visual and narrative direction. That’s precisely why EA’s decision feels even more painful. After years of waiting for Mass Effect to return, fans got a studio closure and a trailer that was never meant to be made public instead of a new game.

About this game

Mass Effect 4

Release: TBA 2025

Genre: Action

Developer: Bioware

Publisher: EA

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