Mass Effect Universe 'looked incredible,' says creator who claims he advised BioWare

A YouTuber has shared unverified details the cancelled Mass Effect Universe, which he says he saw in development while advising BioWare.

YouTuber Dantics, who says he served on BioWare’s Mass Effect Council, has posted alleged details the cancelled game Mass Effect Universe on Twitter/X. He said his role gave him access to the project and that he saw what BioWare was building and provided feedback during development.

This is reported by Eurogamer .

According to Dantics, the game would have been set more than 600 years after the Reaper War and focused on a “galactic Cold War” among three major factions, rather than another Reaper-style invasion. Humanity, the Krogan, the Batarians and others would have formed an alliance, while the Council races formed their own and the Geth emerged as a third superpower.

He also mentioned Geth-built megastructures, links between the Milky Way and Andromeda, and a “shadowy adversary”. Players would have controlled a customisable N7 agent, whom he described as “a cross between John Wick and James Bond” rather than “a walking gun rack”.

The agent would have had experimental technology implanted, allowing them to hack and manipulate the environment, see through walls, identify systems and trigger hazards remotely. Missions would have been handcrafted, like those in the original trilogy, but offered “Hitman-style freedom” in how players completed them.

Dantics also listed brutal close-range executions, squadmates who could clash, romances that were not “sanitised”, and a version of Shepard’s legacy that would be preserved regardless of the ending players chose. Liara would have returned as an “incredibly powerful Asari Matriarch”.

“From what I saw, BioWare was making Mass Effect for us, the fans, not for people who don’t exist,” Dantics wrote. “It looked incredible. And now we may never get to play it.” – Dantics

“From what I saw, BioWare was making Mass Effect for us, the fans, not for people who don’t exist,” Dantics wrote. “It looked incredible. And now we may never get to play it.”

The claims have not been confirmed. Neither BioWare nor EA has commented, and Dantics’s claimed council role has not been independently verified.

The report follows the appearance of an internal trailer for Mass Effect Universe, which has since been confirmed as real. The trailer surfaced after BioWare’s closure and the game’s cancellation.

EA’s job cuts, made only a few months after Saudi Arabia’s $55bn leveraged buyout of the company, also affected developers at Respawn, Maxis, Full Circle, EA Motive and other EA-owned studios. Experts had anticipated cuts given EA’s new debt obligations, but BioWare’s closure drew messages of sympathy and anger from across the industry. The original report said BioWare had been given a sad farewell earlier that week.