Mass Effect Star Reveals Her Dream Plan To Save The Series

After BioWare was officially shut down on October 21, 2026, at Electronic Arts' hands, Mass Effect fans are now insisting that the franchise can be saved. FemShep (Jane Shepard) voice actress Jennifer Hale has disclosed her personal vision for how Mass Effect can make its mighty return.

In an exclusive interview with CBR's Annie Banks, Hale detailed how exactly the much-loved game franchise could be salvaged in the wake of BioWare bowing out of its thirty-one-year tenure. While she herself cannot single-handedly serve as Mass Effect's saving grace, the passion of the fandom had caught her attention, and she has since known that it may not be the definitive sendoff for the role-playing third-person game. To the reality of an unknown fate, Hale isn't giving up on hope for Mass Effect's future just yet. "It’s entirely possible," she said when assessing that the saga could eventually be revived. "You just got to think outside the box. Who knows what we can do?"

With BioWare's era coming to an end so soon, the fate of the developer's vast and popular array of titles seems to be determined. Some series, such as Mass Effect, could be adopted and adapted by newer studios; others may have already come to a close and are set to leave behind their legacy. Online spaces filled with gamers who want to see Mass Effect persevere against its own odds have inspired new ideas as to how there really could be an initiative to bring the game back fully, such as fan-funded projects. Hale specified Kickstarter as her weapon of choice when planting the seeds for the future of Mass Effect.

The dream that I have is a world in which a passionate community that we have comes together in some wild Kickstarter. Our friends at Critical Role did a brilliant job of it: a wild Kickstarter, and a couple of investors come in to sort of support that as well because games are expensive… and then a really smart indie game company comes in, or anybody, and says, ‘You know what, we'll take this IP and our priority here is making a great, great game for the community.’ Maybe the IP [could be held by] a whole sort of collective of like-minded people who can get the license to make your fans stuff that you love, and it's not a crazy difficult process.

Hale then dissected the nuances of how the hypothetical Kickstarter campaign could operate, if run by the right candidates. "You can just go do it... You've got your free stuff over here, then you've got your for-money stuff over here, and that just meets certain criteria. Go have fun. Maybe everybody gives back a portion of their profits to a fund that helps newly unemployed game developers. We can make something by the people, for the people, with this."

When looking ahead to how the Mass Effect series may land next, Hale did take company optics and affordability into consideration. "If I were Electronic Arts or whatever the legal name of the entity holding this game is right now, I would want to unload this thing at a reasonable price because you can't buy that kind of positive publicity," she mused. "You were the company that gave this back to the fans to do what they wanted, and you were not greedy; you were thoughtful, you were reasonable, and you were responsive, and for that you will always be respected, appreciated, and remembered."

Jennifer Hale Officially Confirms The 'Spirit' Of Mass Effect

The gaming industry is facing an incredible saturation, which has pushed the niche form of entertainment in endless directions. The future of gaming remains promising as new creatives have the capability of bringing fresh ideas to life through the boundlessness of their imagination, though to Hale, BioWare is approaching the video game space with a certain type of prominence in its unmatched storytelling ability. Quality narrative-driven stories seem to wane more in the modern age, though from Hale's perspective, BioWare still deserves to be celebrated for its accomplishments. For her, such storytelling sat at the soul of Mass Effect.

"I think certainly the spirit of what those games… at its core, it was about storytelling. That's what BioWare was always renowned for, for the relationships that you could form with NPCs and your companion characters. That kind of thing, hopefully, I think, would be used as a guiding light for people who are developing games of that nature," she said, "I think this game initially was created by people who love games to be a game that they would love in a world that they would love, and the focus of the game was making a great game, not making a big hit. I think when you have that focus, you can often end up with a big hit."

Hale then analogized BioWare's success in a more botanical sense. "You can't water a plant by staring at the bloom itself. You've got to water the roots, right? BioWare really leaned into watering the roots. It leaned into thinking outside the box. It didn't say, ‘Is this safe? Is this profitable?’ that I'm aware of. I wasn't in the main office, but my sense from where I sit is that they prioritize great games, great creativity, great people, and great art, because games are art."

Mass Effect games can be played on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation. A Mass Effect television show is currently in development by Prime Video.

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