Today is the unofficial holiday of N7 Day, and for fans of BioWare's popular space opera RPG Mass Effect, it is a day that is often fueled by mixed emotions.
Previous N7 Days have been somewhat minor in terms of the news and celebrations done, from charity streams to just casual Q&A's. This N7, however, has two big surprises.
The first would be the worst kept secret in gaming in 2020, the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition finally being confirmed by BioWare and given a release date for Spring of 2021. The second piece of news, however, is a bit less obvious; it is a confirmation from BioWare that Mass Effect is very much alive and in early stages of pre-production again.
"Meanwhile here at BioWare, a veteran team has been hard at work envisioning the next chapter of the Mass Effect universe." stated a quote from Casey Hudson on the official BioWare blog. "We are in early stages on the project and can’t say any more just yet, but we’re looking forward to sharing our vision for where we’ll be going next."
The only other clue is the image accompanying the blog post, a piece of artwork titled 'mud skipper' which shows a new vehicle and several characters looking at a distant sunset.
The news of a new Mass Effect game in development is perhaps odd, considering the well-documented troubles BioWare has had as of late across the titles of Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda. It was also reported, in the wake of the lukewarm reception of Andromeda, that Mass Effect would be shelved for the time being.
It looks like the IP has been dusted off already though, or at least is in the planning stages of something new.
This is fairly typical of BioWare's own scheduling, where they had a small team work on pre-production of a title while other games are in development. With the production of the next Dragon Age game in full swing in the companies main studio, and the revamping of Anthem down in BioWare Austin ongoing, it is very likely that outside of this little tidbit by Hudson, we will not hear or see anything substantial about the next Mass Effect title for a few years.
