Mass Effect Fans Hit 214,000 Signatures and a Times Square Billboard

The fan campaign to save Mass Effect is getting louder every day. The #SaveMassEffect petition on Change.org has passed 214,000 signatures, and a fan just put the campaign on a billboard in New York's Times Square (Destructoid).

It all started on October 21, the same day EA said it was closing BioWare and canceling the next Mass Effect game. We covered the BioWare shutdown when it happened, and the fan response has only grown since then.

What does the #SaveMassEffect petition ask for?

A Change.org user named Joe Smith started it on October 21. It asks EA to keep making Mass Effect with proper funding, enough staff and enough time. If EA won't do that, the petition asks EA to license the series to another studio instead (tbreak).

Who is backing the campaign?

Both Commander Shepards are in. Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer helped push the petition, and Meer's October 24 post told fans to "Hold the line." A fan who posts as @KalaElizabeth then bought the campaign's first billboard in Times Square (that's a lot of paragon points) (Destructoid).

Owlcat Games, the studio making the Mass Effect-inspired RPG The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, posted its support on October 25. "The Expanse show was saved by fans in the past," Owlcat wrote (GamesRadar+).

Has EA responded?

Not yet. No official EA statement about the petition has been reported, and nothing suggests the company is reconsidering its plans (tbreak).

Romain Toutain, a technical director on the canceled game, isn't hopeful either. He said "EA never actually sells anything," so a sale of the series seems unlikely to him (GamesRadar+). On a Twitch stream, he also said the team was building the game around "absolute autonomy," where your choices could even go against things you did earlier (Wccftech).

Can a petition actually save Mass Effect?

My read is that the odds are long, but this still matters. Over 214,000 signatures in under a week shows EA that a big audience is waiting for this series. The Prime Video Mass Effect show is also reportedly still in the works at Amazon MGM Studios, so the name isn't going away (tbreak). If EA won't make the game, licensing it out is probably the most realistic win fans can hope for.

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Header image is an official Mass Effect Legendary Edition screenshot from EA and BioWare.