Mass Effect Universe Leaks
Additional details about BioWare's canceled Mass Effect game have leaked online, revealing a story that would have taken choices from the Commander Shepard trilogy into account if EA hadn't shut down the studio.
The long-awaited and currently canned follow-up for the sci-fi RPG franchise, which was working under the title Mass Effect: Universe, was built around decisions made in the original games, according to comments shared by former technical director Romain Toutain during a recent livestream. As more details about the project leak, there's no telling exactly how thorough this system would have been, but he did his best to give fans an idea.
All the choices made in the first Mass Effect games were taken into account, Toutain said. One of the reasons why it was called Mass Effect: Universe is that you had so many choices. That you could plug your saves together to create parallel universes, to keep it simple. It's not exactly how it worked. You had different timelines, basically.
A Personalized Narrative Structure
Mass Effect fans know how crucial the series' overarching story is, especially when it comes to Commander Shepard's first three installments in the fight against the Reapers. Outside of the Andromeda follow-up that launched in 2017, players were able to carry major choices from each entry over to the next, resulting in a trilogy of games with a highly personalized story.
Relationships, major character deaths, and even the fate of an entire species are just a few of the ways Shepard can be steered to shape the galaxy. Toutain said they had plans for those who just prefer to experiment with the story and its many branches, too, likening the freedom to generate timelines to Spike Chunsoft's 2016 video game, Zero Time Dilemma.
Responding to a fan asking whether Mass Effect: Universe would have featured systems similar to what was found in Dragon Age: Inquisition and the series' lore-tailoring Keep application, he said it was somewhat similar.
It's more like, you can make decisions that might contradict things you've already done or things you have to do, and so it would create plot points in the timeline. Toutain noted that the technical implementation was quite exciting.
Everything in the game was stateful, and at any time, you could pause the game and ask a system that solved logical equations if the state was valid, and what conditions must be met if it wasn't.
Cancellation and Community Response
The ideas Toutain teased sound ambitious and complex, and they will likely never see the light of day. EA announced that it had shuttered the long-running RPG developer and canceled the project, with additional plans for the franchise's future in games put on hold as well. Fans have already erected a movement in the aftermath, with a petition garnering over 185,000 signatures.
Other highlights from Toutain's stream include the revelation that the Reaper-like hand featured in recently leaked footage was named Billy, as well as the idea that the developers were hoping to craft a story giving each player a completely unique experience. More information about the project has leaked in the days following BioWare's closure, including gameplay details that promised missions with Hitman-style freedom, while a Prime Video series remains in development.
