BioWare is gone, and so is its fabled fifth Mass Effect game, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t still getting a plethora of horror stories from inside the studio, including how its new Saudi owners allegedly behaved during ME5‘s development.
In a new exclusive report by BFMTV (in French), BioWare was apparently working on new pitch videos for Mass Effect 5 that it submitted to EA’s new Saudi-backed management. However, BioWare’s videos “did not convince” the managers, BFMTV reports, with skepticism apparently fuelled by the studio’s proclivity toward “inclusive stories,” which, as we know, were heavily present in its recent titles.
While pitching with such inclusivity in mind, BioWare was apparently ordered to remove a flag from a video pitch because the Saudi owners believed it to be “too similar to the LGBTQIA+ one.” The argument for this was “to not offend” what are presumably the rather conservative new owners. The BFMTV report was originally written in French, so our machine translation can only go so far, but from what I understand, BioWare’s developers were told to drop these possibly offensive signals from their pitches, rather than their games, to dampen the owners’ skepticism toward them.
Freelance illustrator Kala Elizabeth said on X that there were no flags in the game but that it still contained same-sex romances, which she says was confirmed to her by former BioWare developers. This tracks with the claim above that this removal was most likely only related to a video presentation, or some part of it that could’ve been construed as such by management.
We know the fate of that skepticism now, however. BioWare has been shut down after three whole decades. It brought us countless amazing games, from Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 to Neverwinter Nights to Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect. So many great and influential RPGs without which the industry would not be the same.
Now, with Saudi Arabian investors at the helm, EA is a private company adherent to whatever cultural norms these new owners decide are paramount. There is no broader investment or shareholder board that could pitch in dissenting ideas and opinions or petition some higher body. It’s private. It’s closed. It’s not looking great.
