Mass Effect 5 is no more following the closure of BioWare after the EA buyout – but former developers believe it would've been an incredible RPG, had it come to fruition.
Tony de Waal, who acted as cinematic supervisor at BioWare and boasted some 29 years of experience at the studio, implies as much in a new LinkedIn post, explaining that he worked on everything from Mass Effect 2 to Dragon Age: The Veilguard – a game he says "was a herculean effort that tested the limits of even my workaholic mindset" – before Mass Effect 5.
"I believe we were making something special," he describes. "A level of autonomy and choice that no other game has been able to match."
The dev then references Baldur's Gate 3 team Larian Studios and CD Projekt Red, masterminds behind The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, recalling how BioWare looked to them: "We saw what Larian and CD Projekt were bringing to the table with their latest offerings, and started down a path to bring Mass Effect to the next level while remaining true to the Trilogy."
The cinematic mastermind closes by admitting "I'm sad you won't ever get to see what we were cooking" and paying tribute to his fellow devs, "some of the most talented people I've had the pleasure of working with throughout my career."
Interestingly, though, de Waal isn't the only BioWare veteran to reference Mass Effect 5 and how good it might've played had it been given the chance it deserved from EA to actually come to life.
Over on X, Derek Künsken, who introduces himself as both "a contract writer, and as a senior writer on staff" from BioWare, echoes this sentiment.
He isn't able to share too much aside from the fact that he was working on the new Mass Effect title and "what we were cooking was really cool," but that's got me wondering what could've been just as much as de Waal's own words do. I'm sure "really cool" is no understatement, after all.
It's disappointing to know that we won't get to experience what the devs had in store with Mass Effect 5 – and doubly so after hearing how amazing it may have been.
