'We Were Working on a Great Game'

Within hours of the closure, former Mass Effect 5 writers began speaking publicly about the cancelled game for the first time — because only the studio's end freed them to do so. Their posts are the human side of a closure announcement: a great game that will never ship, described by the people who were making it.

Key facts

New York Times bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente, a writer on the project, replied to a fan post: 'We did figure it out. We were working on a great game. Just saying.'
Valente clarified she had not contributed to Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Mass Effect: Andromeda, or Anthem — a reminder that public credit for a studio's work is often wrong in both directions.
Science-fiction writer Derek Künsken published a lengthy thread about his time on Mass Effect 5, saying he had contributed on and off for about five years and was only now allowed to speak about it because the company behind the project no longer exists.
Senior narrative director Mary DeMarle was hired in 2022; she previously led writing on Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (Best Narrative, The Game Awards 2021).
What the posts do not do: they do not reconstruct the cancelled game. They are fragments — exactly the kind of knowledge that disappears when a team disperses without a capture plan.
EA's staff letter called BioWare 'a legendary studio that helped define the role-playing genre' and said the decision was not taken lightly.