On Oct. 21, EA officially announced the closure of legendary RPG maker BioWare after 30 years of operation. With the shutdown, the next Mass Effect game is now trapped in EA IP purgatory. But over the past week, devoted fans of the series have rallied around a social media campaign to save the game, fittingly called #SaveMassEffect.
And even though it's one hell of a longshot, there's historical precedent for success here. Mass Effect has had a tumultuous decade. In the early 2010s, the original trilogy earned its place as one of the best RPG space operas of all time, thanks to its well-realized sci-fi world, fascinating cast of characters, and emphasis on player choice.
Its 2017 spinoff, Mass Effect: Andromeda, was more divisive; players loved the action, but didn’t click with the narrative or characters like they did with the original game. EA put Mass Effect on ice soon after. In 2020, BioWare revealed a new Mass Effect game was in the works, and teased it intermittently over the following years.
Some early promotional materials suggested it would serve as connective tissue between Andromeda and the original trilogy. Shortly after BioWare’s closure, a trailer for the next Mass Effect project, called Mass Effect: Universe, leaked online, teasing a radical departure for the series. Set 600 years after the events of the main trilogy, several people familiar with production likened it to “James Bond meets John Wick in space.” For fans of the series, seeing Mass Effect: Universe footage make the rounds only made its cancellation sting even more.
This entire situation smacks of another sci-fi masterpiece that was canceled before its time yet returned off the back of passionate fan outcry: The Expanse. Corey’s series of novels, The Expanse is set in the near future, where humanity has colonized the solar system. Fans flocked to its grounded approach to space opera, which focused more on roiling political tensions between interplanetary nation-states rather than fantastical sci-fi concepts and creatures that bordered on fantasy (cough: Star Wars, Star Trek, Dune).
In 2018, SyFy canceled its TV adaptation of The Expanse after three seasons. Fans immediately rallied around a digital awareness campaign, #SaveTheExpanse. IRL astronauts peppered social media with calls for its return.
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