Composer Posts Proposed Mass Effect 5 Music After EA Cancels the Game

Austin Wintory has uploaded 22 minutes of music he wrote for a Mass Effect 5 that will not be made. He posted it to his YouTube channel, according to Video Games Chronicle, days after Electronic Arts (EA), the publisher that owns the series, cancelled the game.

The music was a pitch. Wintory, the composer behind the scores for Journey, Abzu and the Banner Saga games, wrote it in 2025 to win the job of scoring BioWare's next Mass Effect. A pitch is a demo that shows what a creator would do with a project before they are hired. He said he had been in talks with BioWare and EA for the last couple of years about the project, in a post on X.

Wintory built his work on the original Mass Effect score by Jack Wall and Sam Hulick. He added analog synths and a large orchestra, and he recorded the piece in Los Angeles with synths, vocals and orchestra. He has described the project as the biggest dream of his career and Mass Effect as his favourite franchise of all time. He also said he did not know the story details when he wrote the music, calling it pure musical exploration.

The upload follows a larger shake-up at EA. On October 21, 2026, the company announced plans to shut down BioWare, a studio that had been making games for 30 years. The next Mass Effect game was cancelled as part of the same decision.

Reports since then have filled in some of what the game was meant to be. IGN reported that the cancelled game was purportedly called Mass Effect Universe, and that details released after the cancellation included Hitman-style freedom in missions, meaning players could approach goals in many different ways. A leak, which is unofficial material passed around without the publisher's approval, suggested the story would have reflected every choice made in the earlier Commander Shepard trilogy. EA has not confirmed the leaked details.

Fans have pushed back. A petition to save the Mass Effect series has passed 230,000 signatures, according to Video Games Chronicle. Supporters of the #SaveMassEffect campaign also paid for a billboard in New York's Times Square. Some fans have called for a boycott of EA, as IGN reported when the petition was still at around 75,000 signatures.

For anyone who has played the trilogy, the music offers a glimpse of a sound that players will not hear in a finished game. Wintory's 22 minutes are now public, and they are the clearest sign so far of the work that went into a project that did not reach release.