The internet is still reeling from the shutdown of BioWare and cancellation of Mass Effect 5 yesterday, and while some folks who were working on the game are likely still sorting out the logistics of what they are and aren’t allowed to say as the dust settles, a couple of folks who had been working on the project are speaking out about their experience. It sounds like, despite the narratives some people are trying to spin of a project in great turmoil, the team was excited about what they were making.

Catherynne M. Valente is an author that Mass Effect fans will know for writing the best novel in all the series, Mass Effect: Andromeda Annihilation, which has an excellent audiobook narrated by male Ryder voice actor Tom Taylorson. After news of the shutdown broke, she revealed on Twitter that she’d been working on the game for three years as a writer.

“It was one of the greatest privileges & GLORIOUS challenges of my life,” she wrote. “I smiled every day. I worked HARD for the fans, every day. So when I say I am devastated by the end of #MassEffect I REALLY mean it. I don’t know how to express how gutted I truly am.”

Valente continued to praise the work she and the team at BioWare had been doing by responding to Twitter posts (thanks, IGN) that claimed “A game industry that cannot figure out how [to] make a sequel to the literal best game of all time is a game industry that is fundamentally broken.” Valente said that, actually, the team had been making good progress.

We did figure it out. We were working on a great game. Just saying. https://t.co/6BBjeIiK6B

— Catherynne M. Valente (@catvalente) October 21, 2026

Elsewhere, when an obtuse replier tried to tell Valente that she should have made a great game instead of Mass Effect: Andromeda, Anthem, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard, she responded saying that she wasn’t involved in those games, and that she is “not, in fact, the personification of BioWare.” Anyone with reading comprehension skills would know this by seeing that her name wasn’t in the credits for any of those games.

Valente isn’t the only writer revealing that she was part of Mass Effect 5. Derek Künsken, author of the Quantum Universe novels, confirmed he had worked on the game on and off for five years, and that he was looking to get clarity on what he could talk about. He also said that working with Valente on character and lore was “the most energizing, in-the-zone collaboration” he’d had.

“There are too many great people to mention right now. All 50 deserve to be lauded and to land safely in new jobs,” he wrote on Twitter. “I hope you support them. I also hope to say more in a few weeks. The emotional dust needs to settle.”

Mass Effect 5 had only been teased a handful of times since its announcement in 2020, though what we did see heavily implied that the game would bridge the gap between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, with original trilogy party member Liara T’Soni appearing in the first trailer, and future teases implying that a Milky Way team would be answering an Andromeda distress call. The Angara, an alien race that debuted in Mass Effect: Andromeda, were shown mingling with other Milky Way alien races, insinuating that they would meet those native to a galaxy light years away.