This year's N7 goodies seem to actually be telling us something for a change. The Mass Effect 5 update, delivered by way of a blog post to commemorate the RPG series' annual day of celebration, is expectedly cryptic. In it, BioWare exec Mike Gamble waxes lyrical about how much the team appreciates us fans and our patience, reinforcing that the developer is still hard at work on Mass Effect 5 and giving no indication that EA's $55-billion buyout has complicated matters. He also shares that the new Mass Effect TV show will take place after the events of Commander Shepard's trilogy ("because after all … that’s YOUR story, isn’t it?") before assuring us that there definitely isn't a hidden meaning in his message.
But the cheeky bugger was lying, of course. You don't need my decades of proofreading to spot the nine italicized letters scattered throughout the blog post, spelling out a mysterious URL fragment. Long story short, a new Mass Effect 5 image is safely in our hands, depicting a Krogan soldier leading an army and captioned "civil war". With a pivotal choice at the end of Mass Effect 3 indicating only one way this many Krogan could be around in the new game, could this be confirmation of BioWare reneging on its commitment not to canonize player choice? Or could it actually be telling us the contrary – that it'll respect our decisions, and find unique ways of doing so?
