One of the most regrettable casualties of EA's decision to shut down treasured RPG maker BioWare – well bellow the dozens of people who lost their jobs – was Mass Effect 5, the long-awaited sequel that was revealed in 2020. The project was canceled alongside EA's latest round of layoffs, but a coordinated social media effort to rescue it has attracted the attention and support of a BioWare veteran, studio co-founder Trent Oster.
According to his LinkedIn, Oster was director of technology at BioWare by the time the first Mass Effect came around in 2007, and his about page says he helped "establish the practices that scaled RPG development into billion-dollar franchises like Mass Effect and BioWare." He's best known as one of the key architects behind the early BioWare RPGs, including Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, the latter of which he directed, but he's definitely had his hands in the Mass Effect series as well. That makes this tweet from him, in which he seemingly throws his support behind the Save Mass Effect movement online, particularly noteworthy.
"I love seeing all the energy around #SaveMassEffect," says Oster. "I think there is a still a great thesis for a well-funded RPG developer who can deliver. Makes me want to get some of the original band back together."
I love seeing all the energy around #SaveMassEffect I think there is a still a great thesis for a well-funded RPG developer who can deliver. Makes me want to get some of the original band back together.November 4, 2026
I think I can speak for Mass Effect fans when I say the idea of rallying the original developers behind Mass Effect 5 revival efforts is incredibly exciting, but unfortunately I also am obligated to bring you all right back down to earth. EA still owns the rights to Mass Effect, and it would be out of character for it to sell the rights to another studio. That said, the organizers behind the #SaveMassEffect movement have started a petition on Change.org that's about to cross 300,000 signatures, and a separate petition from the same group seeking acknowledgment from the Canadian government just today reached a major milestone.
Whether Mass Effect 5 comes back from the dead or not, Oster isn't taking EA's shutdown of evidence that big-budget RPGs are going the way of the dodo. Quite the opposite, actually, as he seemingly agrees with a commenter arguing that there's an "RPG resurgence" happening right now. "Seeing BG3 sales numbers may have had an effect," Oster says about the current state of RPG development.
