// KOTAKU — GAMING
New Mass Effect 5 Leak Explains How It Was Going To Deal With Mass Effect 3’s Multiple Endings
As the dust continues to settle after the closure of RPG studio BioWare and the cancellation of Mass Effect: Universe, which would have been the fifth game in the sci-fi RPG series, more information keeps trickling out about the game the studio’s skeleton crew was working on before EA pulled the plug. Now, more concrete details about the game have been shared by someone claiming to be a member of a community council giving BioWare feedback on the game as it was in development.
A video by YouTuber Dantics breaks down several elements of the story and world. As a heads-up, the video does tout some anti-woke nonsense and comment on “masculine” women while talking about the details, so if you don’t want to watch it, we’ll cover the broad strokes. Kotaku wasn’t able to verify Dantics’ involvement (though ex-BioWare Executive Producer Michael Gamble does follow him on Twitter), but a separate source tells us that the information in the video is accurate.
Some of this could be inferred from the leaked trailer, but what’s most interesting to me is that BioWare seemingly had no intention of picking a “canon” ending for Mass Effect 3, and would instead write around it in a way that would allow it to tell the story it wanted to without stepping on players’ toes. This is in line with some of the studio’s statements on the idea of not foregrounding earlier player choices in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
“Honestly, we try to avoid the idea of there being a single canon,” Veilguard creative director John Epler said in 2024. “I mean, it’s a game about choice. This is a game about your decisions as a player. […] The philosophy is we never want to invalidate your choices. And if we don’t feel we can do something respectful of the choice we made, we oftentimes just don’t necessarily reference it. […] So we never want you to feel like your world is being invalidated.”
For me, this was the best-case scenario. If BioWare insisted on going back to the Milky Way instead of simply continuing the Andromeda storyline it started, it would have been important to me that the result not invalidate the player’s legacy by picking one choice as “correct.” Now, I have another reason to be angry at EA for what it’s done to BioWare and Mass Effect. We’ll just have to wait and see if Amazon’s TV show is even half as concerned about respecting player choice.
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The now-canceled Mass Effect: Universe would have included the return of old party member Liara
The trailer has surfaced a day after EA shut down developer BioWare
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