What Liara Was Doing In Original Mass Effect Universe Teaser Will Be Explained

Published Oct 26, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT Josh Coulson is an editor at TheGamer covering breaking news on everything from colorful platformers to the latest Lego sets. Primarily a news writer since 2018, Josh has covered just about every major game from the past decade. Now an editor, their focus has shifted to being the leading affiliate expert at the site, building relationships between TheGamer and global brands including Mattel, Funko, and The Pokemon Company. EA shut down BioWare last week and canceled its in-development Mass Effect game. Fans of the series continue to mourn what could have been, noting that the events of that first teaser shown almost six years ago may now go forever unexplained. Bioware Or perhaps not. Twitter account The Cult of Shepard highlighted what fans have pieced together in the six years since that first teaser, resigning themselves to the reality that what we were shown will now never be explained. Except it will, as series director Michael Gamble replied “yes” to the post asking if anyone will ever be able to explain it. Before fans got too carried away and assumed Gamble knows something we don’t about the future of the series, he added in a follow-up that all he means by that is he can explain it, not that the game, which we now know to be called Mass Effect Universe, will be rescued, uncancelled, and eventually released after all. That initial teaser was shown during The Game Awards in 2020 and was our first confirmation that Liara will be, or would have been, in the new Mass Effect game. Gamble’s response to the post positing what else is going on in that teaser appears to confirm that the other dots Mass Effect fans have managed to connect over the years were spot on. So You're Telling Me That Is A Dead Reaper? BioWare Liara is shown trekking up a snowy mountain, believed to be on the fictional planet Alchera. When she reaches the top, she picks up and brushes the snow off what appears to be an N7 helmet. Fans have theorized the helmet belongs to Shepard, and the new post compares the discovery in the trailer to a clip from Mass Effect 2 when the player finds Shepard’s lost helmet in the wreckage of the original Normandy. The post also notes another theory that Liara isn’t climbing up a mountain, but that she’s walking up the back of a dead Reaper. Again, not confirmation from Gamble that the theory is correct, but their confirmation that they can, and hopefully will, be able to explain everything that happened in that original teaser implies that all of the theories we’ve been piecing together for the past six years were accurate. We do know that, whatever has happened to the game in the six years since, Liara was still going to be a core part of its story. The Asari stars in the new leaked trailer for Mass Effect Universe, working as part of a new crew. Asari can live for centuries, and both the robe in that original teaser and the look we got at Liara in the new trailer imply she has become a Matriarch. We are less than two weeks away from Mass Effect Day, which falls on November 7 due to the significance of N7 in the games. There will, almost certainly, be no official celebrations this year, but it will be a day that likely gets more attention from the community than ever. If Gamble does plan on explaining what exactly was going on in that teaser, the first Mass Effect Day after EA killed the series would be a good day on which to share it. Released May 14, 2021 ESRB M for Mature: Blood, Drug Reference, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Use of Alcohol, Violence Developer(s) BioWare Publisher(s) Electronic Arts Engine Unreal Engine 4 Franchise Mass Effect