Speaking to PressBoxPR, Nesmith, “I think they should probably try to make a more Bethesda-style game, to be honest. I think Mass Effect players are dying for an open-world science fiction game that has that kind of flavor to it. A big, open-world, content-heavy game? I think Mass Effect players would be going nuts for that. But I’m a former Bethesda guy, so I’m probably going to say that about a lot of things.”

For clarity’s sake, that was only one of the suggestions. Others included more modern gameplay, which Nesmith says “always felt dusty and old.”

“I would hope that they would try to just take their lore and make a modern game of it. One of the knocks on Mass Effect that I would have is that they always felt like they were a generation behind. I know, they had very cool characters, they had great stories, but the gameplay always felt dusty and old. It just wasn’t there. If they can take the things that they were so good at and do it in a more modern sense, I think that they’d have a fantastic game.”

There’s also, shock of shocks, Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian Studios’ critically and commercially acclaimed role-playing game. “I think taking lessons from Baldur’s Gate 3 would fit Mass Effect really well. They already had that kind of style in their games, and Larian Studios had the advantage of having produced the Divinity and Divinity 2 games. They were able to use that engine for it.”

Of course, this isn’t the first time that Nesmith cited Baldur’s Gate 3 as worth studying. In the same interview, he felt that Bethesda could learn a thing or two about meaningful choices from it for the next Fallout.

As for the next Mass Effect, it will likely offer branching choices and companions with extensive storylines who could like you or hate your guts. After all, that was a staple of their older titles, including Dragon Age: Origins. How BioWare will innovate on this, however, while updating its gameplay for a more contemporary audience, is the real question.

We’ll be waiting a while to find out, but development is seemingly making progress. BioWare recently posted a job listing for a Production Director to act as a “high-impact leader” for the title. Head here to learn more.

“They’ll report to me, and it’s gonna be awesome,” he said on Twitter. The listing is for a Production Director and the company searching for someone with a “passion for the Mass Effect universe” to serve as a “high-impact leader” on the sequel. Over ten years of experience on multiple “large-scale” triple-A games, alongside “deep expertise in ARPG and RPG development”, is required, among other things.

“You will partner closely with creative leadership, studio teams, and internal and external partners to champion the game’s vision and ensure its execution at the highest quality bar.” Said position also involves bringing a “strong player-first mindset, deep knowledge of the competitive gaming landscape, and a commitment to building inspired teams through mentorship, collaboration, and best-in-class production practices.”

If that wasn’t enough, they’ll need to “continuously elevate both the game and the team, fostering a strong production culture while translating ambitious ideas into outstanding player experiences.” All in all, a pretty high-level position, and one that could point to active development beginning soon (if it hasn’t already).

It’s hard to believe, but the first concept art and teaser for the next Mass Effect debuted in 2020. Since then, BioWare has released new concept art and even a look at what could be the new protagonist. Following the most recent N7 Day, it hid some artwork of a Krogan civil war for players to discover.

Even if production is beginning to ramp up, it may be a while before we see the sequel. Rumors from 2023 indicate it won’t be out until 2028 or 2029, and given that this is BioWare, which has had its share of development troubles, plans could change. Time will tell, so stay tuned for further updates.

As of now, all eyes are on the next Mass Effect, tentatively referred to as Mass Effect 5, to pick up the pieces. However, even by former executive producer Mike Darrah’s estimates, it may take a “long time.” In an interview with Destin Legarie, Darrah – who released an extensive post-mortem about the failure of Anthem – discussed BioWare’s shift to a “one-project studio” as a positive development.

“Mass Effect 5 team did what we should have done when we moved the Dragon Age people on to Anthem, which is…everyone wins.” And while that means a longer gap between releases – not to mention that the current set-up has its “own problems,” he believes it’s a “different set of problems than what BioWare has been up until arguably 2022.”

In the past, the studio had “several projects fighting for attention and resources, and like bumping into each other and elbowing each other and causing unintended effects on each other. That’s not the studio that it is now. As near as I can tell, 100 percent of what they’re working on right now is Mass Effect. That’s probably for the best.”

It’s hard to disagree – development problems with Anthem resulted in the Dragon Age team having to cancel Project Joplin (Veilguard’s previous incarnation) to help out. This, in turn, ended up contributing to problems with The Veilguard, though the sudden changes in direction from multiplayer to single-player didn’t help either.

As for Mass Effect 5, a release date remains unknown. Rumors claimed it wouldn’t arrive until 2028 or 2029 at the latest, and as of January 2025, full production hadn’t even begun. On the bright side, there could be a proper reveal at some point in the near future, especially with project director Mike Gamble stating that all the N7 Day teases would connect.

“I have no idea. I have no idea,” said Hale when asked whether Shepard would return in the new title. “This is what I say to fans: look, if you want Shepard in the next game, please, email [BioWare] and tell them, because maybe they’ll respond to that. I literally don’t know. I would love it.”

Throughout the interview, Hale also shared other aspects of her time with BioWare on the Mass Effect franchise. One of these moments was when Mass Effect 3 had the female Commander Shepard on its cover. Discussing the time when fans of Mass Effect started referring to the female version of the protagonist as “FemShep”, Hale noted it as happening around the same time as the Mass Effect 3 cover reveal. “I don’t know when that started,” she said. “I love it though.”

“I’ll never forget the first time I saw that cover,” Hale continued. “‘Cause the third one was where they made the cover reversible, which was really something. I was at GameStop at midnight… I was joyfully there because we were promoting the release of 3.”

“[Mass Effect 3 director] Casey Hudson is a very calm, quiet, humble guy. He’s not a man who calls for the spotlight ever. And somebody dropped [the reversible Mass Effect 3 cover] in front of me to sign, and I almost burst into tears on the spot. So I got up, and I stood on top of either my chair or the table, and I held it over my hands, and I said, ‘CASEY HUDSON! THANK YOU!'”

Hale also recalled seeing the trailer for Mass Effect Legendary Edition, which featured FemShep for the first time in the original trilogy’s history.

“I think it was pandemic times, I want to say it was 2021 or 22 when they released [Mass Effect Legendary Edition],” she recalled. “The trailer for Legendary featured FemShep. And there had never been a trailer that featured FemShep. And I was stunned, and I started crying. For some reason, I grabbed my phone because I just wanted to talk to everybody in that moment, and I recorded it, and I was like, ‘I just watched this, and this is amazing.’ I just wanted to talk to everyone at once in that moment.”

As for Mass Effect 5, BioWare had featured teases for the game back in November 2025 during N7 Day through, among other things, the release of hidden art work depicting the Krogan Civil War, and footage of a Mass Relay. Along with this, executive producer Mike Gamble had also taken to social media to tell fans that “everything you’ve seen – from all N7 days – will connect.”

However, it seems that’s only the tip of the iceberg, as executive producer and project director Mike Gamble tweeted, “Everything you’ve seen – from all N7 days – will connect.”

Some of these include footage of a mysterious mass relay and the reveal of what could be the new protagonist. The latter was seemingly in-engine and featured various species, including Mass Effect: Andromeda’s Angara. How will all this possibly connect? We’ll have to wait to find out, but with rumors claiming it won’t launch until 2029, it could be a while.

What we do know is that Mass Effect 5 or whatever it ends up called will have photorealistic visuals and maintain the original trilogy’s more “mature tone.”

The link to this image, which you can check out here, was hidden in the post with a series of letters that had been italicised. When put together, these letters spelled out “URL KROGAN”. The official social media account for Mass Effect provided a further clue by posting “https://www.masseffect[dot]com/[ERROR A20N7S12]”. This URL was eventually discovered to have been a replacement cipher, where each letter stands for an individual letter. For example, the letter N is substituted with the number 7. The clue led fans to discover the number “411826207”, which when entered into the URL provided by BioWare, leads to the download page for the Korgan Civil War art piece.

While fans have been busy with figuring this puzzle out over the weekend, Gamble himself also took to social media to talk about the fact that the studio is still working on the Mass Effect project. He noted that, while some might be disappointed at the lack of progress revealed in the N7 Day post, he said that BioWare simply wasn’t ready to reveal too much for now.

“For everyone yelling at me because we didn’t use N7 Day to provide a whole bunch of info,” wrote Gamble. “I mean, I get it. I’m a fan too. I want you to see stuff. But it’s not the time… yet. Has it been years since announce? Yes. Have we been busy? Yes. Are we NOW 100% on Mass Effect? Also yes.”

In the N7 Day post itself, Gamble wrote about how busy BioWare had been in recent times after having wrapped up work on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, as well as EA announcing its plans to go private. While all of this might be happening around the studio, Gamble noted that the team was “focused exclusively on Mass Effect,” and that “we have a lot of universe to cover, lots of features to build, and lots of romances to figure out.”

“We’re excited by what we’re building, and we promise you: when we’re ready, it’ll be a lot of fun to show,” wrote Gamble. “Until then, thank you for your patience because y’all are thirsty for news and I see you looking for secret meaning in my tweets (okay, sometimes they have secret meaning).”

A new game in the Mass Effect franchise was confirmed to be in early stages of development back in January. In the meantime, BioWare has also been restructuring itself, with the studio now opting to focus on single projects rather than working on multiple games at the same time.

Noting that the last few years were an “incredibly busy time at BioWare” (which released Dragon Age: The Veilguard last year), Gamble said the team is currently “heads-down and focused exclusively on Mass Effect. We have a lot of universe to cover, lots of features to build, and lots of romances to figure out.

“We’re excited by what we’re building, and we promise you: when we’re ready, it’ll be a lot of fun to show. Until then, thank you for your patience because y’all are thirsty for news and I see you looking for secret meaning in my tweets (okay, sometimes they have secret meaning).”

He also talked about the upcoming TV series which it’s partnering with Amazon on. Gamble says the writers’ room has “a lot figured out” about its place in the overall canon, especially “where it sits in respect to the new game.” However, don’t expect it to focus on Commander Shepard – it’s a “brand-new story” taking place after the original trilogy in the same timeline.

Gamble signed off with the disclaimer that there’s “no secret game information to be gleaned by anything I’m saying today, I promise.” What an odd thing to say.

Regardless, development on the next Mass Effect has certainly been proceeding at a snail’s pace. With BioWare restructured and focused on the project, however, perhaps we may see more progress in the coming months or years. Whatever happens, hopefully Jennifer Hale, the voice of Fem Shep, returns in some capacity.

If anything is reassuring about the franchise, it’s that Jennifer Hale, who voiced Commander Shepard in the original trilogy, is willing to return. Speaking to IGN, the actor even clarified that it didn’t have to be the character she made famous.

“Anyone. I love that universe. I’m ready. Anytime. Krogan? Salarian? Turian? The possibilities are endless.” BioWare hasn’t contacted Hale about returning for the next game (and if it did, she would “be there before they finish the sentence”), although she has asked fans to express their desire for the same.

Regardless of her inclusion, it may be a while before the next Mass Effect launches. It was confirmed to be in pre-production as of February 2024, with rumors claiming it wouldn’t launch until 2029. Project director Michael Gamble confirmed that it would have a photorealistic art style and “maintain the mature tone” of the original trilogy, but that’s about it.

Hidey’s resume is quite impressive and includes Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Evil Within 2, and Starfield, among other games. She also worked at BioWare as part of the Mass Effect strike team, working on the finale for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and serving as lead producer on the next Mass Effect.

Hidey has been working at Bungie since September 2025, and it remains to be seen how her work will impact the looter shooter’s direction, which has been flailing since the release of The Edge of Fate. Much of this is due to complaints with The Portal, the Power grind, and various bugs, as seen in the recent Ash and Iron update.

Destiny 2 has a new expansion coming in December with Renegades, which takes multiple influences from Star Wars (and includes weapons like the Lightsaber and Blaster). Head here for more details.

The failures of Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem – critical or commercial – are well documented and don’t need to be relitigated for the thousandth time, and sure, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is certainly nowhere near as much of a disaster as those two were (especially Anthem). But even though it represent a gradual climb in the studio’s graph, it’s still a far cry from BioWare at its best. The fantasy action RPG suffered a horrendously long development cycle, one that was marked with numerous delays and reboots and behind-the-scenes development issues, and you can certainly feel a lot of that in the game itself. The fact that it comes as a largely underwhelming experience after an interminable ten year gap separating it from its predecessor didn’t make things much better.

Sure, Dragon Age: The Veilguard has some fans of its own, and no, it’s not a bad game- but it is one that, according to large portions of its playerbase, is a disappointing one, to one degree or another. Not only has that been reflected in the lukewarm reception for the game since its October release, it has also not sold to the level that BioWare or publisher EA would have hoped for. EA recently revealed that the game had only been played by 1.5 million players since its launch, and that its underperformance contributed to a whopping $6 billion market value loss for the company. Clearly, on multiple fronts, the game underperformed.

Unfortunately, repercussions have followed, as they often do in the wake of a high profile AAA failure. We know that BioWare has no plans for Dragon Age: The Veilguard DLC, and that the studio is now fully focused on the next Mass Effect. But as it turns its attention to the long awaited sci-fi RPG series’ revival, it’s restructuring and reorganizing in a way that doesn’t seem to be for the best by any stretch of the imagination. The manner in which these changes are taking place, meanwhile, only make the situation that much worse.

We are, unfortunately, talking once again about layoffs. BioWare GM Gary McKay recently confirmed in a blog post that the studio is restructuring for Mass Effect 5’s development. The project is still in the early stages of production, which means it’s not as a stage where it needs a large team working on it. As a result, a number of people from BioWare have been reallocated to other in-development projects across other EA studios, while several who worked on Dragon Age: The Veilguard have also been laid off.

Layoffs always suck, of course, but this round in particular seems to have been handled especially poorly. In McKay’s aforementioned blog post, for instance, there has been no mention of any roles being eliminated whatsoever. It’s only because many whose roles have been cut have taken to social media to confirm the same. Worse still is the fact that a number of people who have been let go were long-time BioWare veterans who had had crucial roles to play in the development of some of the studio’s best past titles.

This comes on the back off another round of layoffs in 2023 that eliminated 50 roles at the studio, which also included several longtime studio employees who had had heavy involvement in past successes. Studio leadership stated at the time that the cuts were made to turn into a “leaner” and “more agile” team, which, incidentally, is the exact same messaging going along with this fresh round of cuts. One has to wonder, however, just how lean and agile a studio that has been hollowed out from the inside out is going to be.

Which brings us to what might be one of the biggest problems BioWare continues to face- the slow erosion of the studio’s identity. Over the course of recent years, the developer has bled a shocking amount of talent, and of particular note has been the mass exodus of veteran talent that had been responsible for so much great work. Either through successive rounds of layoffs or people choosing to depart themselves, BioWare has lost a great many people who made significant contributions to some of its best games ever. And one can’t help but wonder with growing concern whether the “BioWare” name even means what it used to mean anymore, given the fact that the vast majority of the people who made that studio what it is no longer work there.

Some of the studio’s older heads are still there, of course. McKay’s blog post made it a point to note that the next Mass Effect, for instance, is being led by a team of veterans who also worked on the original trilogy, including including Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, and Parrish Ley, and obviously, we’re desperately hoping that that team will be able to recapture that old BioWare magic again. The original Mass Effect trilogy was arguably BioWare at its very best, so for a fan of the studio and the series, there would be nothing better than seeing a new Mass Effect game finally pulling BioWare out of its slump.

But this is a slump that has dragged on for a decade now. Yes, Mass Effect Legendary Edition offered a temporary retrieve a handful of years ago, but it was, in the end, only a remastered collection. The last three major games the developer has put out have all been disappointments to varying degrees, and at this point, even the most blindingly hopeful and optimistic person will be feeling some concern about what the future will bring. Our doubts are only doubled by how slowly Mass Effect’s development seems to be progressing. It was all the way back in 2020 that the series’ next outing was confirmed to be in the works, but half a decade later, it is still only in pre-production and evidently several years away from release.

With a team of veterans working on it, with the internal development pipeline hopefully being fixed and rethought (hopefully leading to fewer development reboots this time), and with so much riding on it, our hope is that the next Mass Effect game will be able to flourish. Because honestly, if it cannot, if it somehow ends up being a fourth successive failure for BioWare and once again fails to come anywhere close to its past glories- if that happens, I’m afraid the studio might not survive another prominent failure.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.