In December 2020, BioWare confirmed that it had started working on the next instalment in the Mass Effect franchise, but since then, updates on the game have been limited to brief teasers, posters, and the like, with another new teaser having been released earlier this week. So what does that suggest for where the game is in the development process?
Well, as you may have guessed, it seems it’s not very far along. That’s as per journalist Jeff Grubb, who said in a recent episode of his Giant Bomb podcast Game Mess Mornings that the next Mass Effect is “nowhere near coming out”. As per Grubb, the title will follow a similar timeline for its marketing and launch to the upcoming Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, which is likely to launch in 2024 following its 2018 announcement, which means the next Mass Effect game might not be out until 2028 or 2029.
Back in August, BioWare confirmed that the next Mass Effect title was still in pre-production. Details on the game are obviously scant right now, though reports have claimed that unlike 2017’s Mass Effect: Andromeda, it won’t be open world. It’s also been confirmed that the game is being developed using Unreal Engine 5.
BioWare has also confirmed that the game’s recent teaser was entirely in-engine. Read more on that through here.