Save Mass Effect Petition Nears 200,000 as Both Shepard Actors Join

Nearly 200,000 fans have signed the Save Mass Effect petition in the week since Electronic Arts shut down BioWare and canceled the next Mass Effect game, per GamesRadar — and both Commander Shepards are on board.

"Mass Effect is going to be around as long as the fans keep it alive," Mark Meer, voice of the male Shepard, said during an October 21 Instagram Live with his female-Shepard counterpart Jennifer Hale. Meer has since posted a video urging fans to "hold the line" and sign.

BioWare announced its closure on October 21 following a Bloomberg report, part of roughly 400 layoffs at EA that included about 50 of the studio's staff. The shutdown ends a 31-year run that produced Baldur's Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect, and it took the series' fifth mainline entry — in early development — down with it. The reaction has gone well past signatures: fans bought a Times Square billboard promoting the petition, Hale floated a community Kickstarter to buy the series outright, and sci-fi author N.K. Jemisin, who has called the games a literal inspiration, mourned the studio on Bluesky as a golden-egg-laying goose the industry chose to kill.

The details

• Signatures: nearly 200,000 and climbing
• The ask: EA commits to continued Mass Effect development with proper funding, staffing, and time — or licenses the series to another studio
• The trigger: BioWare closed October 21; the next Mass Effect canceled
• Backers: Shepard actors Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer, plus a fan-funded Times Square billboard

What is the petition actually asking for?

Notably, it does not ask EA to reverse the closure. The campaign wants a public commitment to the franchise's future under EA — and if the publisher won't fund a new entry, it asks that the series be licensed out to a studio that will. When a studio closes, its properties often sit in limbo indefinitely while the publisher sorts its catalog; the petition exists to make that the expensive option.

EA, which completed its $55 billion sale to Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners in August, has not commented on the franchise's future beyond the cancellation.

Meer, for his part, isn't waiting on the publisher: N7 Day celebrations are still on for this year, and next year marks the original Mass Effect's 20th anniversary — with or without corporate support.