Fans of BioWare’s eternally-praised Mass Effect franchise were treated to quite a spectacle today on social media, just in time for the annual N7 holiday that commemorates the sci-fi RPG series every November.
However, this definitely wasn’t your usual celebration of days past with Commander Shepherd. Instead, we got something cosmically hype-inducing, to put it lightly.
Starting this morning, it initially came in the form of rather cryptic clips posted on EA’s official website that each only last a few seconds, and came with some mysterious transcript codes at the top, decorated with notable terminology like “Andromeda”, “Alliance”, along with “Epsilon”, “Oculon”, “Nebula”.
The clips on their own were hard to decipher for details, but by the end of the afternoon EA had finally released a full version of the entire scene, all 34 savory seconds of it.
Naturally, players flocked to the likes of Twitter and Reddit to speculate and pull apart every millisecond and every visual detail of the video that they can. There is no dialogue of any kind, or any text on screen that gives anything away whatsoever.
The focal point is a mysterious, masked character decked in some very slick-looking N7 gear. Brandishing a pistol, they walk through a corridor and out into an unrecognizable but likely unforgiving landscape on an unnamed planet.
There isn’t a copious amount of things to make note of, aside from the unknown character walking past a Krogan in the very first second of the video. We’d likely assume that this ominous-looking person is our new protagonist, and about all we have to go on is that they’re tall and slender in physique, and wearing N7 gear which seems to indicate their given faction.
Some have pointed out that “Epsilon”, which is the fifth letter in the Greek alphabet, could possibly hint at a potential name for the franchise’s fifth installment. Others speculate that all three terms, “Epsilon”, “Oculon”, and “Nebula”, could also serve as an abbreviation for “Eon”, another potential title.
Whatever the case, EA clearly wanted to catch the attention of every die-hard fan on this occasion, and they definitely have. It’s the biggest reveal to date since BioWare’s blog post late last year. As to when we may get more of an official look at what to expect with “Mass Effect 5”, our educated guess would be the Game Awards on December 7, exactly one month from now.
If that proves to be the case, we’ll definitely be light-speed fast with coverage of that announcement.