Two science fiction authors have confirmed they spent years inside BioWare’s next Mass Effect, and the timing is brutal. On October 22, 2026, author Derek Künsken said he had been working on the project “on and off” for five years, first as a contract writer and later as a senior writer on staff, according to GamingBolt. His post landed one day after BioWare‘s closure notice, which also ended early development on the game.
Catherynne M. Valente, who worked alongside him, added her own line to the thread: “We were working on a great game. Just saying.” Together the two posts give Mass Effect 5 fans the first named look at who was shaping the story of a game they will probably never play. Our earlier report on EA’s BioWare shutdown and the job cuts covered the corporate side. This piece focuses on the writers, what they actually disclosed, and what it means for the franchise.
A quick note on naming. Outlets from IGN to Rock Paper Shotgun call the project Mass Effect 5, but the sources behind this story describe it as “the next Mass Effect” or “the next chapter” of the Mass Effect world. No official title was ever announced, so this article uses the outlets’ shorthand only when quoting how they framed it.
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What Derek Künsken and Catherynne M. Valente Actually Said
Künsken opened his thread by calling it a “weird announcement.” He wrote that for five years he had been hoping to be allowed to say where he worked, and that he had finally received the green light to name the next Mass Effect. He then promised more clarity in the coming weeks, adding that “what we were cooking was really cool.”
The most revealing line concerned his partner on the project. Künsken described pitching story, character, lore and science-fiction ideas with Valente for the next chapter of the Mass Effect world. He called it “the most energizing, in-the-zone collaboration I’ve ever had.” Both the Express Tribune and IGN carried that detail within hours of the thread going live.
Valente’s remarks came in reply to a user who argued that an industry unable to make a sequel to the best game of all time is broken. She answered, “We did figure it out.” She also said she had not worked on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Mass Effect: Andromeda or Anthem, and that she is not the personification of BioWare. That second point matters, and we return to it below.
Timeline: Five Years of Silence, Then a Two-Day Collapse
The sequence of events is short. The writers’ secrecy lasted years, while the public part of this story unfolded in roughly 48 hours. The table below pulls together the dated events that the cited outlets confirm.
| Date | Event | Reported by |
|---|---|---|
| September 2025 | EA take-private deal announced with an investor consortium (PIF, Affinity Partners, Silver Lake), valued at $55 billion | GamingBolt |
| Roughly 2021 to 2026 | Künsken works “on and off” on the next Mass Effect as contractor, then senior writer | Künsken’s own thread, via GamingBolt and IGN |
| October 21, 2026 | Open letter announces BioWare’s closure and the end of early development on the next Mass Effect | Express Tribune |
| October 21 to 22, 2026 | Cinematic supervisor Tony de Waal posts on LinkedIn about the team’s ambitions | Rock Paper Shotgun |
| October 22, 2026 | Künsken and Valente speak publicly about their roles | GamingBolt, Express Tribune, IGN |
The “roughly 2021” start date is our arithmetic from Künsken’s “last five years,” not a figure any outlet published. Treat it as approximate.
What the Disclosure Confirms, and What It Does Not
News cycles around cancelled games attract guesswork fast. Reddit threads already claim finished scripts, locked platforms and release windows. None of that appears in the writers’ posts or in the reports we reviewed. The table separates what is on the record from what is not.
| Detail | Status | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Künsken worked on the next Mass Effect for about five years | Confirmed (self-reported) | Künsken’s thread |
| He held both contract and senior writer roles | Confirmed (self-reported) | Künsken’s thread |
| Valente collaborated on story, characters, lore and sci-fi concepts | Confirmed (both writers) | Künsken and Valente posts |
| Official game title | Not announced | Sources say “the next Mass Effect” |
| Release date, platforms, price | Not established | No source provides them |
| Budget, gameplay specs, engine | Not established | No source provides them |
| Scale of the writing room | Not established | Writers gave no headcount |
The honest summary: we know who was writing, roughly for how long, and what disciplines they covered. We do not know a single mechanic, setting or character name. Künsken himself said he needs to find out what he can and cannot say, which tells you how tight the confidentiality still is.
Why the Writers Could Only Speak After the Closure
Game writers rarely announce unreleased work. Contract writers sign non-disclosure agreements, and publishers typically control the reveal calendar, so a name can sit unlisted for years. Künsken’s own framing, that he had spent years hoping for permission to name his employer, fits that pattern exactly.
IGN reported that Künsken felt free to talk because the company behind the project no longer exists. That is a significant shift in leverage. Once a studio closes, the usual incentive to protect a surprise reveal disappears, but the legal duties around confidential material may not. The writers’ careful, partial disclosures suggest they are respecting that line.
Readers who want the corporate backdrop should see our analysis of BioWare’s 30-year run and EA’s RPG retreat. The Tribune’s report on the same day also notes that the closure ends more than 30 years of the developer’s history and shuts the Edmonton studio.
Valente’s Pushback and the “Sequel Problem” Narrative
The user comment Valente replied to reflects a common fan belief: the industry cannot follow up a revered game. Her reply reframed the story. The team, in her telling, had a workable answer and never got to ship it. That is an assertion from one participant, not independent proof, and readers should weigh it that way.
Her second clarification is arguably more useful for fans. By stating that she did not work on Andromeda, Anthem or The Veilguard, she separated the new project from BioWare’s recent stumbles. Whether that distinction holds in the public mind is another matter. Outsiders tend to judge studios by shipped games, and this one never shipped.
The Pitch: Story, Characters, Lore and Sci-Fi Wonder
Künsken’s description lists four pillars of the pitch: story, character, lore and “sci-fi wonder.” The fourth is telling. Mass Effect built its identity on a mix of space opera, political intrigue and hard-ish speculation about alien civilizations. Bringing in novelists whose day jobs involve inventing coherent science fiction worlds suggests BioWare wanted to push the speculative layer, not only the dialogue trees.
We should not read too much into this. A pitch is an early document, and the cancellation reports describe the project as still in early development. Rock Paper Shotgun likewise stresses that the game was still early in development, not minutes from release. Pitches routinely change shape before any code ships.
Historical Context: Mass Effect’s Long Relationship With Novelists
Bringing in literary authors is not new for the franchise. Valente has a prior connection to the universe through a Mass Effect novel, which Perlego lists under her name. Storytel and Target also list a separate tie-in book, Mass Effect: Initiation, by N.K. Jemisin and Mac Walters. So the series has a track record of pairing game writers with prose novelists.
What looks different this time is the direction of travel. Past tie-in books expanded the setting from outside the game. Per the writers’ own accounts, Künsken and Valente worked on the core story pitch for the next game. Prose authors moved from the edges of the franchise toward its center, then the project stopped.
What Other Former Staff Say: Choice, Autonomy and the Larian Benchmark
The writers were not the only ones to speak. Rock Paper Shotgun reported that cinematic supervisor Tony de Waal described, in a LinkedIn post, a design push toward a level of player autonomy and choice he believed no other game had matched. He said the team watched what Larian and CD Projekt were doing and aimed to take Mass Effect further while staying true to the original trilogy.
RPS also reported that de Waal was among roughly 50 remaining BioWare staff let go in the closure. That headcount gives scale to the human cost. Our earlier piece on the wider industry reaction and the six franchises left in limbo tracks how developers elsewhere responded.
How Outside Writers Reach a AAA RPG
Künsken’s two titles, contract writer first and senior writer later, sketch a career path worth studying. A novelist usually enters through a short contract, proves useful in the room, and gets offered staff status if the project grows. His five-year arc suggests BioWare liked the fit enough to keep him through that conversion.
The model carries trade-offs. Contractors bring fresh craft and a ready-made audience of readers, but they work under publisher confidentiality and see only part of the production. When a studio folds, their credits can vanish with it. Neither writer can point to a shipped game from this effort, so their evidence of the work rests on their own words and the outlets that reported them.
For aspiring narrative designers, the lesson is practical. Keep a public record of what you can legally share, build relationships across the team, and expect that a cancellation can erase months of finished writing from view. Künsken’s joke about working out how LinkedIn works, quoted by GamingBolt, lands because so many laid-off developers are about to face the same task.
BioWare’s Recent Track Record
Context matters when judging how much weight the writers’ optimism carries. Rock Paper Shotgun summarized BioWare’s recent path as bumpy. The table condenses that assessment.
| Game | RPS characterization |
|---|---|
| Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017) | Not as critically acclaimed or beloved as the original trilogy |
| Anthem | Failed to “stick the live-service landing” despite promising ideas |
| Dragon Age: The Veilguard | Messy development, pushed between multiplayer and single-player, then did not sell enough to count as a hit under EA |
| The next Mass Effect | Cancelled in early development before any release |
That pattern explains why an early-stage project with a fresh creative team still carried real hope for fans. It also explains why EA’s finance team had little patience left.
EA’s Private-Equity Era and the Financial Backdrop
GamingBolt reported that BioWare’s closure sat inside a broader EA layoff affecting around 400 employees, and that an internal staff letter from COO David Tinson and chief studios officer Cam Weber mentioned cancelling other in-development projects too. The letter framed the moves as aligning talent and investment with the greatest opportunities for players and long-term growth.
The same outlet tied the cuts to EA’s take-private, a $55 billion deal announced in September 2025 involving Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Affinity Partners and Silver Lake. GamingBolt says the leveraged buyout loaded EA with debt and that the company is expected to lean on its most profitable lines, which it lists as Battlefield, Apex Legends and the yearly sports games. For a sense of how those sports titles are monetized, see our report on EA Sports FC 27 and its PEGI 16 rating.
The pressure is structural. Premium single-player RPGs take years and large teams. Under heavy debt, a publisher prefers products with predictable annual returns. Our look at GTA VI’s budget and the limits of AAA economics shows the other end of the same spectrum, where only a handful of blockbusters justify extreme cost.
Market Impact: What Happens to the Mass Effect IP
The fate of the franchise is the open question. IGN and the Express Tribune both reported that former BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah suggested a sale of BioWare’s intellectual property to another developer is more plausible now, given EA’s financial pressures. He urged caution about the idea. No sale has been announced.
The other live asset is on screen. IGN reported, from an exclusive statement, that the Prime Video Mass Effect series remains in active development. The Tribune repeated that point. For now, television is the franchise’s only confirmed forward path, and the writers’ departure from games work does not affect it.
Meanwhile, the human market effect is concrete. Künsken wrote that he now needs to look for a new job in video games and is behind on promoting his latest novel, per GamingBolt. Dozens of experienced narrative designers, cinematic staff and writers are entering the job market at once, which gives other studios a rare hiring window for RPG talent.
Competitive Comparison: Who Inherits the Narrative RPG Audience
RPS named three benchmark games when discussing the ambition BioWare was chasing: Baldur’s Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3. De Waal himself pointed to Larian and CD Projekt. Those studios now hold the high ground in choice-driven, story-heavy RPGs, and a cancelled Mass Effect removes one of the few Western rivals aiming at that tier.
CD Projekt in particular keeps its flagship alive. Our coverage of Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.5 alongside the Edgerunners 2 debut shows how a studio can extend a single world across games and screen. BioWare’s remaining route to that model runs through the Prime Video show, which sits outside EA’s game studios.
Beyond that, this month’s wider calendar also crowds out any near-term gap-filler. Phantom Blade Zero and the long-awaited GTA 6 are pulling attention in the other direction. Choice-heavy space RPG fans have fewer obvious destinations than they did a week ago.
Five Predictions for the Next Six Months
These are analysis, not reported facts. Each rests on the behavior the sources describe.
- Künsken publishes a fuller account. He said he hopes to say more in a few weeks. Expect a measured post or interview that stays inside whatever confidentiality limits apply.
- More contributors go public. De Waal and the two writers have already spoken. Other former staff and contractors will likely share portfolio-style notes as they job hunt.
- No IP sale lands before year-end. Darrah’s caution and the complexity of untangling a franchise make a fast transaction unlikely, though speculation will continue.
- The Prime Video series becomes the main Mass Effect headline. With games work halted, any casting or release news will define the brand for the next year.
- Rivals borrow the “choice and autonomy” pitch. Studios competing for RPG fans will market player agency harder, using the vacuum BioWare leaves.
What to Watch in the Coming Weeks
Three signals will show how much of this project ever becomes public. First, whether Künsken’s promised follow-up includes concrete creative detail or stays at the level of thanks and praise. Second, whether EA says anything about the future of its BioWare-owned properties. Third, whether any former developer shares concept material, which would test the confidentiality line the writers are walking.
For ongoing coverage of these shifts, browse the gaming section of Tech Insider. We will update this story if EA or any of the writers add verified detail.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Derek Künsken, and what did he say about Mass Effect?
Künsken is a science fiction author who said on October 22, 2026 that he worked on the next Mass Effect on and off for five years, as a contract writer and later as a senior writer on staff. He said he would share more in the coming weeks.
Who is Catherynne M. Valente and what was her role?
Valente is an author who worked with BioWare on the game. Künsken said the two pitched story, characters, lore and science-fiction concepts together. She wrote that they were working on a great game.
Is the game called Mass Effect 5?
Many outlets use that label, but no official title was announced. The primary sources call it the next Mass Effect or the next chapter of the Mass Effect world.
Has the game been cancelled?
Reports from the Express Tribune, GamingBolt and IGN say BioWare’s closure notice, published October 21, 2026, ended early development on the next Mass Effect. The writers’ posts followed that notice.
Will the Mass Effect franchise continue?
The only confirmed active project is the Prime Video series, which IGN said remains in development. Mark Darrah suggested an IP sale is more likely than before, but nothing has been announced.
Do we know the release date, platforms or price?
No. None of the sources supply a release date, price, platform list, budget or gameplay specifications. Any claim to the contrary is unverified.
How many people lost jobs in the BioWare closure?
Rock Paper Shotgun reported about 50 remaining BioWare staff were let go, and GamingBolt reported that EA’s wider layoffs affected around 400 employees.
