It sounds as though BioWare’s upcoming RPG Mass Effect 5 could be even further away from its release date than fans have anticipated. All the way back in 2020, BioWare confirmed that it was working on a new Mass Effect installment that would seemingly serve as a sequel to Mass Effect 3. Since that reveal, the studio has provided a couple of new glimpses at the game and what it will entail, but has otherwise remained quiet as it has prioritized the development of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Now, despite being over four years since initially showing off Mass Effect 5, it doesn’t sound like the title is close to launching whatsoever.
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In a new video released by Mark Darrah, the former BioWare director explained what will likely be happening within the studio now that Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been released. Darrah said that in recent years, BioWare has transitioned from a studio that juggles multiple projects at once to one that more or less only focuses on a single game at a time. As such, even though BioWare had already determined that Mass Effect 5 would come after Dragon Age: The Veilguard, there’s still likely very little work that has been done on the new Mass Effect game to this point.
Darrah went on to say that the current state of Mass Effect 5 simply doesn’t allow for the entirety of Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s development team to suddenly shift to working on that project. As such, a smaller group within BioWare will continue to outline the scope and nature of Mass Effect 5 at which point it will then start to ramp up its team size once it has a better idea of what the game is meant to be.
“[Mass Effect 5] isn’t ready to suddenly have a team of 250, 300 people working on it,” Darrah said. “In the past when BioWare was toying with being on just one project, like onย Anthem, like on The Veilguard, that project was up and running at full speed so it was able to suck in every available resource. It had enough existing infrastructure that it was able to absorb everything.”
“That’s not exactly what’s happening [with Mass Effect 5],” he continued. “You see this when you go on to people’s social media profiles. People who worked on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, some of them are moving over to Mass Effect, but some of them are moving into other parts of the EA organization because Mass Effect isn’t ready for them.”
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Darrah expressed that based on his own experience at the company, this should be a good thing for BioWare as it won’t be distracted by any other projects outside of Mass Effect 5 in the months and years ahead. Still, the big thing to infer from what Darrah has said is that Mass Effect 5 isn’t going to be out any time soon. With the title essentially still being in pre-production, there’s a long road ahead for ME5 before it ever sees the light of day.
If nothing else, hopefully those at BioWare will provide a status update of some sort on Mass Effect 5 before this year comes to a close. Assuming that does happen, though, we likely wouldn’t hear anything until “N7 Day”, which takes place in early November.
[H/T GameSpot]