Austin Wintory has shared twenty minutes of music they pitched to BioWare and EA in hopes of joining the Mass Effect 5 development team, following the tragic closure of BioWare last week.
The composer, known for his work on Journey and Sword of the Sea, uploaded the music to his personal YouTube channel. It was made without knowledge of the narrative direction of the new Mass Effect game, but was presented as a surprise to the companies in 2025 as part of years of conversation. Wintory writes in the video that it was a “direct homage” to Mass Effect 1 composers Jack Wall and Sam Hulick, leaning into analog synths and “a more complex integration of the orchestra”, a hybrid approach Wintory compares to The Matrix movies scores.
This collection of music includes a track called The Legacy of Shepard, which includes “deliberate winks” to the original Mass Effect theme. The second track – Sailing the Relays – features the blend of synth and orchestra mentioned earlier quite heavily. All in all, there are eight tracks included in total, with the eighth being a remix of that first Legacy of Shepard composition.
The video’s description contains a sombre message on BioWare’s closure, as well as gratitude towards the music departments involved in the conversations Wintory took part it: “Receiving the news alongside everyone else that EA had decided to not only cancel the project but shutdown BioWare entirely was a deeply felt loss. It’s been hard to see dear friends lose their jobs, and this beloved franchise seemingly vanish forever.
“Thank you nonetheless to everyone at BioWare and EA’s music department for gifting me the chance to dream in your sandbox. It was a privilege to do even that much.”
Wintory is not alone in their sadness. EA’s closure of BioWare, which included the firing of 50 employees and a further 350 across other EA-owned studios, many across the industry came forward to decry the decision. The decision may even have political ramifications, as one Canadian party leader has expressed a desire to allow BioWare employees to buy back the studio with federal support. This all happened shortly after EA’s $55bn private acquisition from Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Saudi Arabia’s Savvy Games Group.
