Leak for ‘Mass Effect Universe’ Promises What Fans Have Awaited for Decades

Fans were already grieving BioWare’s closure. The leaked Mass Effect Universe trailer has only made it hurt more. The footage was brief and a bit corny, but it hinted that the stagnant franchise might be rediscovering its old spark. Every great Mass Effect game is built around its crew, a cast of companions you come to know and love as the story unfolds.

The trailer leaked and the game was cancelled, so there’s no way to know how closely it matched the finished vision. Longtime fans were glad to see Liara T’Soni again, but the promise of fresh companions excited them even more. One detail stood out in particular. A helmeted male Quarian appeared repeatedly throughout the footage, and he might have become the first male Quarian in the series to take a starring role.

Until now, Tali’Zorah has been the only Quarian you can recruit as a squadmate. Fans adore her, but many were eager to move past the endless debates over what the nomadic species really looks like. They have also been asking for a male Quarian for years. A Reddit thread from nine years ago shows how long the wish has existed. Back then, some commenters doubted the series would ever deliver.

One fan argued that the Citadel’s population alone rivals the entire Quarian race. Next to species numbering in the tens or even hundreds of billions, they said, the Quarians are barely a footnote in the galaxy.

Mass Effect almost gave us a male Quarian years ago

BioWare’s writers have flirted with the idea for a long time. An old internal document of squadmate concepts for Mass Effect 2 described two male Quarians who never made it into the game. One was a bloodthirsty but oddly playful character who wanted to join Commander Shepard simply for the chance to kill Geth. The Geth are the synthetic race the Quarians created. They rebelled against their makers and nearly wiped them out.

The other concept was a “rogue” Quarian, and he would have suited Mass Effect Universe, which was at least partly built around espionage. According to the design document, he was driven to find proof that the Quarian homeworld was finally safe to return to. He had formidable technical skills and a charming personality, but he tended to stumble into disaster.

I would’ve loved him
by u/0Hyena_Pancakes0 in masseffect

Other aliens in the trailer are drawing plenty of attention too. Fans have zeroed in on the Asari, whose new designs reverse the controversial facial changes from Mass Effect Andromeda. The mono-gendered species now looks far more human, which is probably what some players wanted all along.

Viewers also noticed the Krogan traveling with the protagonist and the Quarian. We know very little about him, but his mere presence raises intriguing questions about the lore. Either this universe found a cure for the Krogan genophage, or he is one of the last of his kind.

Still, it’s the Quarian that fans mourn the most. Across social media, including the Mass Effect subreddit, many threads imagine what might have been.

“We’d have all married him,” one popular thread declared.

Another post about the Quarian read, “God, if there was one thing I was wanting for any of the Mass Effect games or Andromeda, it was this.”

Maybe the Mass Effect TV series, still in development, will finally give fans what they’ve been asking for, if it ever arrives.