Mass Effect Universe Director Reveals Canceled Game’s Multiverse System

The Mass Effect project that BioWare scrapped was set to be far more than a single “universe.”

Romain Toutain, who has served as Mass Effect technical director at BioWare since 2022, streamed on Twitch on Saturday while reacting to the leaked trailer for the franchise’s next entry, Mass Effect Universe. He talked through the lore, gameplay, and technical side of the cancelled sequel, and shared fresh details about it. The moment was bittersweet, because what he described suggests the game would have surpassed the community’s lofty expectations.

On the lore front, Toutain confirmed that the bartender in the trailer belongs to a brand-new alien race. He described the organic, Reaper-like creature as hairy and said it may have been capable of growing extra tentacles. As the N7 protagonist studies the odd being, the new Quarian companion pulls up its bioscanner data page. Toutain couldn’t say much more, since some information remains confidential, just as it was for the writers who once worked on the project.

Mass Effect Universe save files would create an array of parallel universes

Toutain went into greater depth on the game’s technical foundations and core concept. Every choice made throughout the Mass Effect trilogy, and presumably Andromeda too, would have carried over into Universe. The title refers to the fact that each save file forms its own universe, shaped by the player’s decisions. Every new choice would spawn a distinct timeline, resulting in numerous parallel universes.

He compared the system to Zero Time Dilemma, in which each decision the player makes creates an alternate universe where they chose differently. This meant players could make choices that directly contradicted earlier ones.

The developers built technology that determined which decisions in a timeline were tied to major story beats. Where no such link existed, the team would need to forge one, so that players could follow the same story yet come away with an entirely different experience. Players could even share their save files with others if they felt their choices had opened up an especially compelling path. This mechanic was the developers’ central focus, and Universe was being constructed around it, with the aim of granting players “absolute autonomy.”

Fans, staff, and voice actors are working tirelessly to rescue Mass Effect and keep it from becoming yet another franchise EA has left to wither, but Toutain doesn’t sound hopeful. “EA never sells anything. They just shut things down and sit on their licenses,” he said, just before the clip cuts off.

Source: Polygon