The saddest part of Mass Effect 5's death is the end of BioWare and the developers whose livelihoods are being upended. Yet it's difficult for fans not to think of the RPG that might have been, too. After an apparent trailer for Mass Effect 5 leaked, we now also have an idea of what the game's music might've sounded like thanks to legendary Journey composer Austin Wintory.
As it turns out, Wintory had been in discussions with the developers to score Mass Effect 5, and he's now shared a 20 minute long "elaborate production" of "early musical drafts" he'd envisioned for the game. He notes in the description of the YouTube video that he had "not yet learned any narrative details of what they were planning," so his compositions are a pure "exploration" of what the game might sound like, but there's a world where Mass Effect 5 would've featured these tracks or something close to them.
"Working on Mass Effect 5 was my career's biggest dream project, my white whale," Wintory explains. "It is my favorite franchise of all time, and for the last couple years I'd been in serious conversations with BioWare and EA to jump in."
The music itself is pure Mass Effect – a combination of otherworldly synths and traditional orchestral sounds that paint a picture of a galaxy full of mystery and danger. "My suggestion was to treat the original game's masterful Jack Wall / Sam Hulick score as a starting point, and to build on it from there with deeper use of physical, analog synths and a more tightly interwoven use of the orchestra," Wintory says.
There are eight tracks here, and yes, they include Wintory's fantastic take on the track for scanning the galaxy map. Throughout the video, bits of text explain his approach for each song, and they've all managed to make me even sadder that we'll never see this vision of the game come to life.
"Thank you BioWare, Casey Hudson, Jack Wall, Sam Hulick, and countless others for several decades of my most cherished gaming memories," Wintory concludes. "And thank you to those at BioWare and EA who recently emboldened me to dream of what my place in that universe might sound like."
