Composer for legendary indie game Journey, Austin Wintory, has revealed that he was in discussions with BioWare before the studio’s closure about potentially composing music for the now-canceled Mass Effect project. In a YouTube video, Wintory has also provided a taste of what kind of music he was working on for the title.
The video starts off with Wintory describing how he first became a fan of the Mass Effect franchise, and he even goes as far as to call working on the franchise his “biggest dream project.”
“In 2007, when the credits rolled on my first playthrough of Mass Effect, I remember calling a friend and saying, ‘I can’t believe I already know this will be among my favorite all-time games.’ Usually it takes the passage of time before we can be so sure something truly belongs to the ages but, in this case, the confidence was instantaneous.”
“This trilogy is my most cherished gaming experience of my lifetime and, as a professional composer, represented my most sought-after ‘White Whale’. For me, there is no greater dream project to be part of.”
Along with showcasing some of the music that he had made for the project, Wintory went on to discuss how he had been “in dialogue with people both at BioWare and EA” for “the past several years” to work on Mass Effect 5. As part of this, he composed what he describes as “a gigantic love letter to the franchise, with my idea of where it can go next.”
“When I wrote this (in 2025), I knew nothing of what they were planning, so this was a bit narratively speculative. The concept was a direct homage to Jack Wall and Sam Hulick’s incredible work on the first game, while learning even harder on true analog synths, and a more complex integration of the orchestra (almost akin to the hybrid nature of The Matrix).”
The video, which you can check out below, features eight tracks that would play during various scenes across the game. Along with the music itself, each track is also accompanied by some text where Wintory explains his reasoning behind the compositions. The first track, for instance, dubbed The Legacy of Shepard, is seemingly rooted in “Mass Effect’s true essence: character and heart.”
Interestingly, track 4 – To Fight For Something More Than Credits – doesn’t really feature any written commentary by Wintory. However, its fast tempo with an emphasis on punctuating heavy percussion with orchestral flourishes indicates that it might have been meant for an action-packed scene.
It is worth noting that none of these tracks were officially created for the Mass Effect project. Wintory makes it quite clear throughout the video that these songs were a way for him to show BioWare and EA what he could do if he were tasked with composing the music for the in-development game. Thanks to this, Wintory also isn’t bound to any NDA, allowing him to freely publish the music online. He goes on to mention in a comment under the video that he was ultimately not hired to work on the project.
