Mass Effect 5 won’t dabble with stylised visuals like Dragon Age: The Veilguard, director says

With a positive critical response to Dragon Age: The Veilguard now safely tucked under its belt, BioWare’s Mass Effect 5 project director Michael Gamble has reflected on some of the differences between the studio’s two upcoming projects.

Unlike Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which hits shops later this week, Mass Effect 5 will not seek to tweak the sci-fi franchise’s established visual style, he said.

“Mass Effect is photorealistic and will be as long as I’m running it,” Gamble wrote in a post on X.

“Both are from the studio, but Mass Effect is Mass Effect. How you bring a sci-fi RPG to life is different than other genres or IPs,” he continued, “and has to have different kinds of love.”

Eurogamer’s Bertie Purchese praised The Veilguard’s divisive new graphical style in our review of the game, noting how BioWare seemed to be “aiming for something closer to an animated film in appearance”.

“It really works,” he wrote in Eurogamer’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard review, noting how in particular it enhances facial gestures and helps draw out “the inherent fantasy and emotion in scenes and environments”.

As for Mass Effect 5’s tone, Gamble wrote it would “maintain the mature tone of the original Trilogy. This is all I’m going to say for now.”

The obvious point of comparison here is Mass Effect Andromeda, the franchise’s fourth main entry that was primarily developed by BioWare’s now-shuttered Montreal team. This entry took a chattier, more youthful and adventurous tone than the sci-fi series’ first three games – perhaps to be expected, considering the increasingly dire stakes and wartorn backdrop there. Still, the change was not well received.

But word that Mass Effect 5, or whatever it ends up being called, will feel closer to the original trilogy of games is not a surprise. We know from years of teases that BioWare’s return to the franchise will pick up the story of the original trilogy’s Milky Way galaxy many centuries later, and see the return of at least one familiar face.

As for when Mass Effect 5 might arrive, BioWare has not yet said. Perhaps we might hear more on 7th November, the series’ annual N7 Day fan celebration, when BioWare typically drops new information.