After the unfortunate failure ofAnthem, BioWare intends to return to known territories for its next two games, with priority Dragon Age: Dreadwolfwhich we haven’t heard from in a while despite leaks from gameplay at the beginning of the year, and then a new Mass Effect. Well, the latter will probably not be released for a while and the studio has even gone so far as to delegate the development of Star Wars: The Old Republic for developers to come in to support these two projects. However, he did not fail to make people talk about him on the occasion of the N7 Day, which took place this Tuesday, November 7. Last year, we were treated to a video of a Mass Relay under construction, while in 2021 it was an illustration in the shape of Geth which had been shared. This year, THE teasing continues with several elements likely to excite fans, while remaining crypticincluding the video below which we will explain to youARG which was set up to find her.
The festivities were first launched with a traditional article on the official website, highlighting several operations to celebrate the license, of which here is a summary:
- Dark Horse comics of Mass Effect and Dragon Age are all available in a pack in partnership with Humble Bundle, the proceeds of which will be donated to the Child’s Play association.
- The BioWare Store offers new items, including a never-before-seen miniature replica of the Claymore shotgun and an LED wall decor of the OmniBlade.
- Dark Horse presents new Mass Effect statues with Commander Shepard (female version) in full combat, but also Wrex and Tali.
- Flying Design offers new clothing, including a parka in the colors of Garrus Vakarian incorporating a “cone of protection” for your face, following the success of its N7 range.
- Sanshee unveils new goodies, including soft toys and pins featuring Grunt, Liara and Varren.
Apparently the most important thing was the message from Mike Gamble, which seems to indicate that the next Mass Effect could be a direct sequel providing us with answers to our questions.
Hello everybody,
Like every November 7, developers, superfans, regular fans and quasi-fans came together to celebrate (and speculate about!) the games, stories and community of Mass Effect. This gathering testifies to the lasting enthusiasm for this universe and its characters. After sixteen years of existence and eleven N7 Days, the Mass Effect franchise continues to inspire our development team and offers us the opportunity to create new adventures every day. Whether veterans or new recruits to the BioWare team, we are all aware of how lucky we are to be able to shape this future.
It is a process that is both rewarding and challenging. Over the years, we have often asked ourselves the same questions as you! What happened to the characters you know and favorites? Which character is really dead? Who had children with whom? What noise does a baby volus make when he cries? And the galaxies, then? And the different endings! What about our asari scientist who replaced the Shadow Broker? And what happened to S… anyway, you get the idea. Of course, we have the answers to all these questions, but you’re going to have to wait to find out. And in the purest tradition of our #N7Day teasers, they won’t be easy to find.
Thank you anyway. Thank you for everything, thank you for allowing us to do all of this. We approach the future of this universe with great gratitude and immense respect. Respect for you, the community. A respect for your love and passion. A respect for history, for the stories you created, and for the characters you love so much. Finally, a respect for the future and the possibility of giving yourself something extraordinary.
In the meantime… happy N7 Day to all!
— Mike Gamble, director and executive producer of the Mass Effect franchise
What he means by “not easy to find” is precisely hidden in the rest of the text of the article, with 0s and 1s appearing everywhere, forming a word. But it’s not enough to copy/paste them into a converter for it to work, here’s how we did it:
Note the groups of 0 and 1 present in the different paragraphs :
01000 101 01 11 0000 01110011 01101001011011000110111101101110
Rearrange them in 8-bit packets, which gives :
01000101 01110000 01110011 01101001 01101100 01101111 01101110
Perform the conversion to obtain:
Epsilon
Epsilon is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, so the next episode is by default a “Mass Effect 5”, which is probably what led fans to go to the game’s website and add this term to the URL, thus providing access to this page, localized in several languages. Moreover, “The Epsilon Effect” was one of the names considered at the time of the creation of the first episode and which was rejected ! Last night, a countdown then appeared on said page before decryption revealing a short video and the following message :
/////ACCESS CODE: EPSILON
/////ACCESS CODE ACCEPTED
/////SECONDARY ENCRYPTION DETECTED
/////VJBSVU-XXXX-XXXXXXXX
/////ANDROMEDA DISTRESS SIGNAL DETECTED
/////YEAR OF SENDING: [CENSURÉ]
/////AUDIO TRANSCRIPT: EVEN THOUGH THEY SHOULD KNOW BY NOW NOT TO UNDERESTIMATE HUMANS [CENSURÉ]
But that was obviously not all, because a mysterious code was therefore present and served as a clue: “VJBSVU”. This time, it was necessary to use the shift encryption method to discover the meaning, for example using this site. Among the possible results, there was one that once again caught the eye of fans: “OCULON”. The reason is simple, it’s still one of the potential names that could have been used to name the first episode.
Then, we had to focus on the fact that the message came from Andromeda, with a censored year of sending. Well, Mass Effect: Andromeda takes place in 2819. Finally, the audio transcription was simply from last year’s teaser and the missing term was therefore “defiance”, functioning equally well in English as in French. It was then necessary to add “oculon-2819-defiance” in the URL of the official site to land on this pagewhich also displayed a countdown initially, before displaying the text below (the fault with “consult” is a simple human error) and a second teaser video following the first.
/////ACCESS CODE: OCULON-2819-DEFIANCE
/////ACCESS CODE ACCEPTED
/////TERTIARY ENCRYPTION DETECTED
/////CONFIDENTIAL: CONSULT THE PRESENTATION DOCUMENTS ON THE ALLIANCE’S OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION CHANNELS
But it is not yet the end of the line. The famous communication channels simply designated Twitter / X and therefore the account of the license, which shared two fanart (here And there). Each of them sported half ofa QR Code redirecting to the address “https://help.ea.com/ihi/B4k81R0mOP?event=qrcode”, which itself sends to this page. Same principle, a countdown made fans wait until it appeared one last message (yes, it has not been translated into French…) and a third piece of video, which put together formed the teaser present at the start of our article. As for the term “Post-Nebula”, it is also a reference to a rejected title, “Nebula: Guardians of the Citadel”.
/////ACCESS CODE ACCEPTED: POST-NEBULA
/////WARNING
/////SECURITY BREACH DETECTED
/////CONTACT SYSTEMS ALLIANCE
The character we see walking and turning in the video, whose outfit has a certain aesthetic cyberpunk very classy in the colors of N7was also entitled to a beautiful illustration in which several alien races from the series are visible in a nightclub. We undoubtedly have here our future main character, who would therefore be a human unless surprised.
And that’s it for this year, hoping that we don’t just have to wait for the 2024 edition to once again discover some vague details about this next one. Mass Effect. If you have not yet discovered the license, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is still on sale on Amazon from €26.99 and sold by third parties to the Fnac And at the house of Cdiscount.
Read also: RUMOR on Mass Effect: a throwback that will delight fans
| Alexandre SAMSON (Omega Law) Responsible Proofreader – Editor | ||
| Addicted to Assassin’s Creed and Destiny, big fan of RPGs and passionate about video game experiences in general. Reader of comics (DC) and various mangas (One Piece!). Chemist by training and Whovian at heart. | ||
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