The Only N7 Day Treat We're Getting Is Confirmation That The Mass Effect Show Won't Be About Shepard

N7 Day is here, and we have pretty much no Mass Effect news. Instead, the N7 Day blog post from BioWare pretty much just confirms that Mass Effect 5 still exists and is the studio's sole focus, while also giving us some news about the TV show that will come as a relief to many. Oh, and there might be a secret message thrown in there, because of course there is.

The blog post comes from Mike Gamble, executive producer on the next Mass Effect. Here, he tells us that while there's nothing to show on the gaming front right now, the TV show is moving ahead and will tell an original story. That's right - we won't have a 'canon' Commander Shepard forced upon us.

But as many eagle-eyed fans have already noticed, there appears to be a secret message in the blog post. Some letters in the post have been italicised, and put together, they spell out "Urlkrogan", or most likely, "URL krogan". As I am sure many of you did, my first move was to try to add krogan to the URL and see if there's a secret page on the BioWare site, but I haven't had any luck so far.

Mass Effect Executive Producer Shares A Message With Fans, But This Is A Painful N7 Day After All The Layoffs

"You’ve made it clear you care deeply about what’s next. So let’s start by setting the record straight: the next Mass Effect game is in development, and EA and BioWare remain committed to telling more stories in this universe," the blog post reads. "The truth is, the last few years have been an incredibly busy time at BioWare. But currently, the team is heads-down and focused exclusively on Mass Effect. We have a lot of universe to cover, lots of features to build, and lots of romances to figure out. We’re excited by what we’re building, and we promise you: when we’re ready, it’ll be a lot of fun to show."

As for the "krogan" clue, there's no way of knowing what this could mean. Maybe there is a hidden page we haven't found yet, or it's a tease about Mass Effect 5's story. Could the story revolve around the krogan? Could we even have the option to play as one? Only time will tell.

Then, Gamble touches on the Mass Effect show, which is being made with Amazon. "The show will explore a brand-new story within the universe’s timeline, and will be set after the original trilogy. It won’t be a retread of Commander Shepard’s story – because after all … that’s YOUR story, isn’t it?"

That will come as a relief to many, since the appeal of the Mass Effect games is making your own Shepard and then making your own decisions throughout the story. It will be interesting to see how they write around the different endings in Mass Effect 3 and the varying fates of all the characters, but at least our Shepards are safe.

Other than this, it will be a quiet N7 Day, much like the last one. However, the last one was quiet because the focus was on the newly released Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Fast forward one year, and every writer who ever worked on the Dragon Age series is gone, and some of them had worked on Mass Effect too. Taking that into consideration, as well as EA's ongoing acquisition by an investment group with links to the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United States (under the Trump administration), there isn't a lot to be hopeful about right now. In fact, despite reassurances from EA that its studios will retain creative freedom, many are scared that this new version of BioWare won't look much like the previous, dropping LGBTQIA+ themes and characters from its stories.