The development of Mass Effect 5 has been rocky so far, but it seems like things are looking up now that the dev team is being led by veterans from the original trilogy. The game’s executive director is Michael Gamble, and while he didn’t name other members of his team, he did confirm that some of the major roles at BioWare are occupied by those who worked on the first three Mass Effect games.
Four Mass Effect 5 dev team members are trilogy veterans
The confirmation came when Mass Effect fan Kala Elizabeth shared on X (formerly Twitter) that the “Mass Effect 5 leadership team is mostly original trilogy veteran devs.” After being asked for a source by another fan, Gamble replied that himself (Executive Producer), the Art Director, the Creative Director, and the Game Director “are all trilogy vets.”
Gamble has worked on Mass Effect 2 and 3 as well as the Legendary Edition remaster of all three games. While they weren’t named in his tweet, the remaining three members of the team can be identified. The Art Director is Derek Watts who was the original Art Director for Mass Effect.
The remaining two members of the team worked on all three original Mass Effect games. The Creative Director is Parrish Ley who has been a Cinematic Animator and Lead Cinematic Animator. Finally, Game Director Preston Watamaniuk was the Lead Designer for the original trilogy.
BioWare has been hit by layoffs over the past 12 months. Originally this had led to a renewed focus on the next Mass Effect and Dragon Age games. However, later reports suggested this had slowed down the development of Mass Effect 5. If it follows a similar development timeline to other BioWare games, we might not see it until 2029. Still, the game does now seem to be in good hands.
