Back in November, we saw a teaser image from BioWare for a possible Mass Effect game, showing characters walking from a shuttle towards a crater. Recently, people were able to purchase a high-quality lithograph of this released image.
According to a YouTube user MrHulthen, the listing originally hinted to return of Commander Shepard. The character is one of the most beloved personalities of Mass Effect Trilogy. The text has been changed after its initial release, but MrHulthen claims that when he first spotted it, it contained the sentences: “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.”
Mass Effect fandom was pretty “receptive” of the information there, as that tiny piece of text led to a serious amount of rumors quite quickly. BioWare is known to tease its player base nicely with small details like this, so it’s actually understandable to see such rumors.
But in the end, Michael Gamble, project director on the upcoming yet still unnamed Mass Effect game, confirmed it was a mistake. Gamble mentioned that “The original thing was written by the people who run the store and aren’t familiar with the game.”