They did it; We knew they would

Mass Effect 5 has been cancelled with the shuttering of Bioware by the trash that is both Electronic Arts and the private equity firms that bought it out in a $55 billion privatization acquisition.

Yes, I said the trash that is Electronic Arts. While Bioware had seen a rough few years with underperforming and failed releases, one of the biggest draws for many people, myself included, was the development and hype behind the, at the time, upcoming Mass Effect 5.

Bioware had dropped the ball with the Mass Effect: Andromeda release, which was riddled with bugs, bad facial expressions, and a lack of the personalized story that was a hallmark of the first three games. Indeed, this started with the botched ending of Mass Effect 3, to be sure, but they came back from that with updates to the original ending and the tremendously successful and popular Citadel DLC.

However, even with the apparent failure of Andromeda (I was one of many who bought and then cancelled the $300 RC Nomad that you could pre-order with Andromeda because of the failed launch), there was still hope as news and screenshots, teases and information about Mass Effect 5 were propagated to the fanbase.

And Now We, the Consumer, is Left to Pay the Price

So this new “direction” of EA Games is to focus on “the games with the most potential,” and that means Battlefield and Apex Legends instead of single-player scoped story based games. So we, the consumer, are left holding the bag for stories we have fallen in love with over 30+ years, and wondering why our beloved worlds are suddenly gone.

This stings in much the same way as the dissolution of our favorite shows — Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Lost — but without nearly as much lead-time to cement the end that was coming. Andromeda left us with so many questions, but the original trilogy ended on a decent note, and that is what we have to go back to. That ending, as colorful as it is, is all we really have left of the beloved universe that was Mass Effect….

At least until some other studio buys the IP and restores it to its former glory.