Well, that didn’t take long.
An apparent work-in-progress trailer for the canceled Mass Effect game has made its way to Reddit, a day after the project was canceled and its studio BioWare closed down by EA as part of around 400 layoffs at the company. And while it’s tough to completely verify its legitimacy, it certainly doesn’t look to be AI-generated. And if it’s a fake, it’s an extremely well-done one.
Codenamed Mass Effect: Universe (colloquially Mass Effect 4, as called by one of the canceled project’s writers), it shows the mysterious cloaked N7 figure from concept art and early trailers, unmasked, talking to an Asari in a bar. The conversation is interspersed with combat footage, with the presumed player character using Biotic attacks, flying ships, and taking down Turian enemies with hand-to-hand combat.
Then, the Asari reveals herself as an adversary, at which point series icon Liara T’Soni shows up behind her, and the battle kicks off. Everything, to be frank, looks absolutely amazing. And I wouldn’t be surprised if a fired dev leaked this today to start their own fire and conversations, as they are well within their right to be ticked off about how everything has played out.
“The following is in-engine footage from our small team,” the footage warns. “It uses our pre-production assets.” And you know what? Hell yeah. It looked amazing already. And Liara at the end? Yeah, that sure sounds like her voice actress, Ali Hillis.
This certainly stings. It feels as though the BioWare team was maybe weeks away from revealing this footage to the world on Nov. 7, or N7 Day, as the franchise celebrates each year. Now, we get to see what everyone thinks about this game, and hopefully EA can see its popularity and attempt to salvage the franchise someday.
