Mass Effect 5 development reportedly won't begin in full until 2023

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BioWare could be looking for new hardware to match its visual expectations

Mass Effect 5
(Image credit: BioWare)

Mass Effect 5 could be developed in Unreal Engine 5, but development on the game is reportedly not set to start "in full" until 2023.

A new EA job listing (via Venturebeat) says that BioWare is looking for a technical director for Mass Effect 5 who has "experience in Unreal Engine 4+," suggesting that the studio is considering utilizing the new engine for its upcoming project.

The first three Mass Effect games were built in Unreal Engine, but after BioWare's acquisition by EA, the studio moved to the Frostbite engine, which had been built by DICE, and has been used for FIFA, Madden, and Star Wars Battlefront titles. BioWare's Mass Effect Andromeda, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Anthem were all built with Frostbite, but Venturebeat's Jeff Grubb states that "everything is on the table when it comes to tech for a new Mass Effect."

In a series of tweets, Grubb says that "EA and BioWare are really considering all possibilities for Mass Effect 5," and that the developer "wants to embrace next-gen visual tech." By 2023, when Grubb suggests development on the next Mass Effect game will start "in full," the in-house Frostbite engine won't be able to keep up with those visual demands.

BioWare's next game, Dragon Age 4, is reportedly targeting a 2023 release and will be made in the Frostbite engine. If development on Mass Effect 5 isn't set to begin in earnest until after that game launches, we may not get to see that title until 2025 at the earliest, a date that could be pushed even further if BioWare finds itself changing engines between projects.

In the meantime, why not kill the time between Bioware's next games with some of the best RPG games you can play right now?

Ali Jones
Ali Jones
Managing Editor, News

I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for news, shaping the news strategy across the team. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.