Jennifer Hale and other members of the original Mass Effect cast appeared in a two-minute N7 Day video asking fans to help save the franchise, after BioWare was shuttered and Mass Effect 5 was canceled. The message, organized by the unofficial group We are Mass Effect, was the latest public push to keep the gaming side of the series alive after it was put on indefinite hold.
The timing made the appeal land hard. N7 Day is the series' annual November 7 observance, and this year's message arrived just weeks after the shutdown and cancellation, when the franchise was already in turmoil. In the video, cast members including Sam Hulick, Ash Sroka, Keythe Farley, Kimberly Brooks, Mark Meer, Steve Blum and Brandon Keener joined Hale in urging fans to keep the pressure on.
The campaign behind the video has already moved well beyond social media. A petition tied to the canceled Mass Effect: Universe had drawn more than 310,000 signatures, while We are Mass Effect has taken the fight public with a #SaveMassEffect billboard in Times Square, a mobile billboard circling EA headquarters in Redwood City, California, and another posted around the former BioWare offices in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The group said the effort has grown from a fan push into something that resembles recruitment, with cast and supporters gradually joining in one by one.
That breadth is what gives the campaign its edge, but it also highlights the problem: EA has already shuttered BioWare, canceled Mass Effect 5 and put the franchise's gaming future on hold. A message from Michael Gamble also went out for N7 Day, but the public campaign is now the louder force, with another billboard set to appear around The Game Awards next month. Whether all of that can change EA's mind is still the unanswered question, and for now the most visible sign of the franchise's future is that its fans and original cast are still fighting for it in public.
