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The Saudi consortium acquisition of EA is moving forward whether you like it or not. That acquisition has saddled the publisher with nearly $20 billion of debt. That means almost every studio and series under the EA banner, with a handful of high-profile exceptions, is now a target when it comes to cutting costs, and there may well be no bigger EA-owned target right now than BioWare and Mass Effect
It’s been over five years since we were first promised more Mass Effect, and there has still been no indication of when the next game in the series might arrive. Now that EA has new owners, the answer to the question “when are we getting more Mass Effect?” might be never, and even former EA senior manager Emmanuel Rosier doesn’t have much hope we’ll ever return to The Citadel.
Former EA Manager Doesn't Hold Out Much Hope For Mass Effect
Rosier, who is now an analyst at Newzoo, worked at EA for almost a decade, so they know better than anyone outside of the company looking in right now about how things work. Speaking with PC Gamer, their answer when asked about BioWare's future won’t inspire much hope in anyone praying that one more Mass Effect game makes it out alive.
“I will believe it when I see it, the next Mass Effect game, let's put it that way,” Rosier said. “They can pull the plug very, very easily. And if the new investor, they don't have that many feelings about the history of the portfolio, they will take the most financially sound decision most probably.”
EA's New Owners Probably Aren't Mass Effect Fans
The consortium acquiring EA is made up of PIF, Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund, and Affinity Partners, an investment group led by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. I don’t know Kushner on a personal level, nor do I know any of the people who pull the strings when deciding what Saudi’s PIF will buy up next. However, I would be very surprised if anyone involved in the acquisition is a big Mass Effect mark who will fight its corner when it comes to deciding which games and studios are going to get cut.
Rosier notes that the only games that are guaranteed to be safe under EA’s new ownership are series like EA Sports FC due to how big a following the sport has in Saudi Arabia. Almost everything else will likely be a line item on a sheet that people might toss away on a whim if it doesn’t look profitable enough. The only hope we Mass Effect fans have of the next game ever seeing the light of day is how long it has been in development. If the game is almost finished, then the new owners might go ahead and let it live. If that happens, every single person who has ever professed to love Mass Effect, or Dragon Age for that matter, better buy that game in droves to make sure it succeeds and BioWare has a better chance of surviving under the new EA.
Systems
- Released
- May 14, 2021
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood, Drug Reference, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Use of Alcohol, Violence
- Developer(s)
- BioWare
- Publisher(s)
- Electronic Arts
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 4
- Franchise
- Mass Effect
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