The 2020 Game Awards closed out with a bang–or rather, a big horn–as the telltale sound cue heralded a tease for an in-development, still-untitled Mass Effect sequel:
The new teaser trailer for starts off with glimpses of space. As it zooms in, clips from various radio broadcasts play, including a voiceover from “Arcturus Station” sighting an unknown vessel, possibly a reference to the First Contact War, where humans first met alien species in Mass Effect‘s timeline. Then, the camera passes through a field of debris, revealing the telltale rings of a destroyed Mass Relay as a telltale bass rumble of a Reaper plays.
Finally, the new trailer settles on a planet where an unidentified Asari (possibly the Mass Effect trilogy’s Liara T’soni) climbs snow-covered wreckage while a a giant dead Reaper in the distance. She picks up a bit of debris that happens to be a part of an N7 armor piece, then smiles as she looks at her companions in the background. The teaser closes on text that says Mass Effect “will continue.”
A Twitter statement from developer BioWare (which recently suffered the departure of key staff) said team is in pre-production on a new game in the franchise. It could mean that the next title in the series may take place in the aftermath of Mass Effect 3. If the clues dropped are indicative, it may even suggest which of that game’s three endings is closest to the “canon,” something Mass Effect: Andromeda largely sidestepped by being set hundreds of years in the future and in an entirely different galaxy.
The next Mass Effect game is in development, with no release window or platforms announced as of yet. The remastered trilogy is in the works as Mass Effect: Legendary Edition and scheduled for release on PS4, Xbox One, and PC in Spring 2021. The original trilogy and Mass Effect: Andromeda are immediately available on the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC.
