New Mass Effect poster causes speculation over Shepard’s return

This article contains spoilers for the Mass Effect series. Read at your own risk, or just take your chances, whatever. I’m not your mom.

The future of the series remains a mystery for now

The Mass Effect series may have continued on after the main trilogy ended, but it was hard to recapture that magic after Shepard left the picture. It looks like others might agree with that statement, because some promotional material recently hinted that Shepard may be making a triumphant return in the next title in the series, so far only known as another Mass Effect.

Originally reported by Video Games Chronicle, BioWare released a poster to tease the upcoming Mass Effect game. A YouTuber named MrHulthen noticed that the poster came with an accompanying synopsis that revealed maybe a little more information than BioWare may have wanted to let on about the new Mass Effect.

The promotional material originally read, “The show goes on. Shepard’s final quest may have ended the threat of the Reapers but at great cost including Earth itself. While Shepard and the survivors are left to pick up the pieces, fans are left wondering what’s next.”

Soon after, BioWare went back and changed the synopsis to something a bit more generic: “The threat of the Reapers might have been ended, but at great cost including Earth itself. While the survivors are left to pick up the pieces, fans are left wondering what’s next.”

While the initial summary on the website for the poster understandably sparked a great deal of interest among Mass Effect fans, BioWare’s own Project Director Michael Gamble took to Twitter to set the story straight. “The original thing was written by the people who run the store and aren’t familiar with the game :),” he wrote in a tweet this afternoon.

So, it turns out that it was just a mistake on the website’s part in the search for some enthralling flavor text.

After the disaster that was Mass Effect: Andromeda, it makes sense that fans would be excited to see a return to the game’s roots. Bringing fan-favorite Shepard back from the dead in the next Mass Effect wouldn’t wipe the slate clean, though — it would definitely generate hype but it would also come with a whole host of new problems. Sometimes it’s just best to let sleeping dogs lie.