We'll never know exactly what BioWare was going for in Mass Effect 5, since the studio's now been shut down by EA. A former lead on the sci-fi RPG has spoken about the ideas at play, especially concerning the title, Mass Effect: Universe, and I'm not sure I want to hear any more because it just makes the disappointment worse.
After it was announced that BioWare was closed, a trailer leaked online for Mass Effect: Universe, which has since been confirmed as the actual fifth installment. The collective fandom is now a-flurry with questions about the aspirations and ideas behind this brave new frontier, and Romain Toutain, ex-technical director on the franchise, has shed some light on them in a livestream on Twitch.
His comments were made in French, but a Bluesky user was able to translate portions and put subtitles on a clip. There were a number of insights, but the biggest and most fascinating was the reason behind the title – you had the power to create and manipulate timelines in the game to some extent.
So earlier, my brother was watching Octobinz (Romain Toutain)'s livestream on Twitch. He was the Technical Director on Mass Effect Universe, so I wanted to share some bits he discussed. As he speaks french, I added subtitles to make it more accessible for everyone! #MassEffect #MassEffectUniverse
— @loustica-lucia.bsky.social (@loustica-lucia.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-10-26T14:59:37.491Z
"One of the reasons why it was called Mass Effect: Universe is that you had so many choices that you could plug your saves together to create parallel universes," he says. "To keep it simple. It's not exactly how it worked. You had different timelines, basically."
He adds players would've had the ability to "almost generate timelines," similar to Zero Time Dilemma. That's a relatively obscure puzzler from Spike Chunsoft where you play through missions in a non-linear fashion and the characters lose their memories every 90 minutes.
I get the impression BioWare was dancing with a multiverse of some kind, but not to the extent of Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart where you could jump between realities. Knowing BioWare, it would've been more existential and grandiose, and possibly going the Starfield route where every endgame is technically an alternate timeline.
Toutain confirms previously reported details, such as hand-to-hand combat and a customizable main character. "All the choices made in the first Mass Effect games were taken into account," he mentions, suggesting Universe would've explored every possible way you could screw up the original trilogy.
I would very much like to play this game, if only to see how things could've been if Mordin didn't – well, you know. Somewhere out there is a dimension where we get Mass Effect: Universe. I hope the me that lives there knows how good he has it.
