Mass Effect 5 Trailer And Apparent Title Appears Online

Published Oct 22, 2026, 1:39 PM EDT

Ben Brosofsky has been writing for Screen Rant since 2022 and editing since 2024. He graduated from Vanderbilt University with a Bachelor's in Cinema & Media Arts. Writing serves as a much-needed distraction from tackling a backlog of Steam games that will never be surmounted.

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Mass Effect 5 is no more, but one day after its cancellation, we might have just gotten our first look at what the game would have been. Yesterday, EA announced the closure of legendary game studio BioWare, with the Mass Effect game that was in early development being permanently shelved alongside the shutdown.

It's a sad fate for an iconic developer, and despite some missteps in the past, the Mass Effect series had a lot more to give. Thanks to a new trailer that has now appeared online, the nature of what the upcoming project would have been may no longer be a complete mystery.

Reddit user Random_Hyabusa_Ninja shared a purported trailer for Mass Effect: Universe, showing off a look at what the team at BioWare may have been working on. The post comes with a disclaimer from one of the Mass Effect subreddit mods, raiskream, who notes that "The mod team cannot independently verify the authenticity of this trailer."

Consequently, there's no guarantee that this trailer is legitimate, but it certainly looks like the real deal. Two minutes of cinematic footage are framed around a conversation in a bar, with clips of various activities playing out as the conversation progresses. From melee combat to space traversal, there's a lot of material on display here, and it all looks very classically Mass Effect. The protagonist is no longer Commander Shepard, but the familiar face of Liara T'Soni makes an appearance.

Whether any of this would have materialized into a compelling game is another question entirely. The latest installment in the series, Mass Effect: Andromeda, was widely considered a step down from the original trilogy, releasing in a buggy state and never reaching the heights of Mass Effect's best storytelling even after patches. BioWare's most recent game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, fared better critically, but many likewise considered it a weak point for its own franchise.

Plenty of Mass Effect fans would have appreciated any chance at another great installment, though, and the closure of BioWare seems to lay that possibility to rest for good. It's always possible that another studio could take up the mantle in the future — Larian Studios worked wonders with Baldur's Gate 3, a sequel to games developed by BioWare — but EA's current agenda doesn't indicate any plans in support of that angle.

Not all is lost for the Mass Effect community, however, as a couple of upcoming games feel like natural spiritual successors. Exodus is a sci-fi RPG in development by BioWare veterans, including Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 lead writer Drew Karpyshyn. The Expanse: Osiris Reborn takes place in the established world of The Expanse, with development handled by the popular RPG-oriented studio Owlcat Games.

Both of those games are set to release in spring 2027, with Exodus slated for April 7 and The Expanse: Osiris Reborn eyeing a less specific window. For now, fans will have to content themselves with watching the trailer for the Mass Effect game that might have been.