My fiancee is in mourning for the canceled Mass Effect 5. She's been besotted with BioWare's sci-fi darling for only 6 years, but during that time, it's become a part of her. I even agreed to play the trilogy for the first time in 2022 so that she could live vicariously through me, experiencing the RPG with fresh eyes, intervening only to ensure I didn't kill Wrex at the end of the first game ("I will literally never forgive you for it!").
But as much as I loved every moment of my time as Commander Shepard, there's naturally a little more emotional distance between myself and Mass Effect. Professional curiosity also meant that my genuine sadness at the follow-up's cancelation – and the disbanding of one of the most prolific, talented developer teams in the history of video games – was chased by a desire to theorize. What would Mass Effect 5 have looked like, and how would it have gotten around the player's choice element that cemented Mass Effect 3 as one of the most satisfying conclusions to an RPG series I've ever seen?
A prequel seemed logical to me. Mass Effect: D-Day, perhaps, going right back to the First Contact War or the discovery of the Charon Relay. We could witness the moment humanity decided to leave Earth and colonize the planet, introducing alien races to the global population for the very first time and seeing the running theme of interspecies politics take root. But the leaked Mass Effect Universe trailer suggests BioWare was heading in the exact opposite direction on the spacetime continuum, and I find the prospect equally as tantalizing.
Name's Bond: Space Bond
Mass Effect Universe would have been one hell of a sexy space RPG. Gone are the militaristic uniforms of the Normandy's crew, the clunky cover shooter dynamics so emblematic of the original Mass Effect's contemporary. One look at the flashy action hero melee breaking out in the sleek alien night club, and Universe makes it clear: we're not in 2007 any more, Toto.
The trailer is only two minutes long, comprising pre-production assets as per a notice at the very start, but it's enough to have my full attention. In it, we get a brief rundown of who would have been our player character: an ex-soldier mercenary who turned his back on the spoils of war to do things on his own terms.
There's a James Bond quality about him as he flirts with an asari in the dimly-lit bar; he talks himself up, but just enough to titillate, stopping short of arrogance or braggery. Everything is looking rather steamy until the asari in question pulls an Uno reverse. His job is to put out fires, he says, but hers is to start them. A turian squares up behind the hero, indicating the brawl about to break out, when a familiar voice comes from behind the asari. It's Liara – Commander Shepard's asari companion-turned-criminal mastermind, who becomes the Shadow Broker in the Mass Effect trilogy – and she's on our side.
This, to me, is the biggest wow moment of the whole trailer. Not just because it's good to see Liara return after a brief cameo in Mass Effect Andromeda, but because of how much information her presence gives us about the game that never was.
Welcome back, Broker
BioWare seemed to have solved two problems at once.
As an asari, Liara's typical life span would be about 1,000 years. She's just over a hundred years old when Shepherd meets her in Mass Effect, incredibly young in the grand scheme of things.
But the leaked Mass Effect Universe trailer depicts her with visible signs of aging. She has actual wrinkles, for a start, and her voice is a touch deeper. Asari don't show their age physically until they reach 700 years old or so, indicating that Universe would have taken place many hundreds of years after Mass Effect 3 – closer to Andromeda on the timeline, itself set over 600 years later, though potentially sometime before, after, or even during.
By pitching us even further into the future with an ageing, 800 year-old-plus asari Shadow Broker as our companion (or at the very least, as an ally) BioWare seemed to have solved two problems at once. If it was intended to be set between Mass Effect 3 and Andromeda, Universe could have given us more exposition as to the immediate aftermath of the trilogy while making a stronger connection between it and the standalone title (especially since Liara is given that cursory nod in the latter). Set it one to two hundreds years after the fact, it could have brought up the question of Liara's successor; as the Matriarch draws closer to the end of her life, who will become the next Shadow Broker?
My guess is that Mass Effect Universe would have seen us, the player, as part of Liara's crew, possibly being groomed to take over her role as information warlord of the galaxy. An existing professional relationship is clearly established at the bar – "We know. That's why we're here," she says when the other asari's minions surround the protagonist – before the fight breaks out. And what better way to bring players back into the world of Mass Effect than seeing one of Shepard's beloved friends being a badass in her honor?
I would have loved to see Universe take us full circle, the companion becoming the big boss as we take on merc contracts across the galaxy in the name of the Shadow Broker. But with the game canceled, all of this is pure speculation. Unless the stars align, pigs fly up to dance among them, and EA sees fit to sell the IP on to a studio who actually wants to give it a shot, it's potentially useless speculation at that. Mass Effect Universe is no longer in development at the time of writing, but I am still thankful for this intriguing glimpse of what could have been.
As a more mature, high-octane, modern vision of the best sci-fi RPG of all time, Mass Effect Universe had the power to make the series make sense again in the 2020s. The fact that this trailer exists at all is a testament to the fact that BioWare did have a clear vision. It did have something to show for all these years of hard work. And I'm glad, at the very least, we had an opportunity to witness it for ourselves.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition is just one of the best RPGs of all time, and there's plenty more to choose from.
