Mass Effect Lithograph Description Sparks Rumors

Fans of the Mass Effect series have been eagerly awaiting more news for the next entry in the series. The last piece of info we received was a teaser image during last year’s N7 Day celebration. Earlier this week on May 9th, a lithograph of that same image was posted on the official Bioware Gear Store and promoted on Twitter. As exciting as that is for collectors, it was the description that rose eyebrows across the internet.

The initial description mentioned some of the prevailing fan theories that had been made after seeing the image, as well as plainly stating that it showed a Krogan and three others leaving a Normandy-looking ship. More importantly, its starting paragraph included spoilers to the original trilogy and seemed to hint the next game will include the trilogy’s protagonist, Commander Shepard. The paragraph was as follows: “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.”

This description was soon updated and was scrubbed of all references to Shepard. Unsurprisingly, this was too late to prevent it from spreading like wildfire and managing to split the community on whether they would want Shepard to return in the next Mass Effect title. Michael Gamble, the project director for the next game, also chimed in the next day to say that it was a mistake.

He later on expanded on this and said that the original description was written by the third party that runs the store. The description was updated again to what it currently looks like, simply stating when it was shown and that it’s made with high-quality printing. It would certainly make sense that the store could have genuinely made the mistake and plenty in the community are willing to disregard it. At the same time, others feel that it is a questionably specific description to make a mistake with.

The original thing was written by the people who run the store and aren't familiar with the game 🙂

— Michael Gamble (@GambleMike) May 10, 2022

Whether it was secretly intentional as so many would hope, a real mistake, or has absolutely no truth to it whatsoever, interest has sparked again. In fact, it has fueled more talk than the lithograph would have likely done by itself. It’s also conveniently putting the project in people’s minds only a month before we’ll be bombarded by various conferences filled with new game announcements and updates. There’s no guarantee that we’ll see anything at all so soon, but a lot more people will be expecting to see Commander Shepard’s return now.