The next Mass Effect game will likely use the Unreal Engine

According to insider information, Bioware studio intends to develop its new game in the Mass Effect series on the Unreal Engine. According to Jeff Grubb, editor of the VentureBeat blog, the developer plans to retire the in-house Frostbite engine that powers several of their latest games: Anthem, Dragon Age Inquisition, and Mass Effect Andromeda. 

It's interesting that the original trilogy used exactly Unreal Engine, but then the company decided to switch to its own engine. This helped us win in terms of financial savings, as it eliminated the need to pay royalties to Epic Games, but created a number of technical problems.

Initially, Frostbite was created for first-person shooters and was poorly adapted to role-playing projects; in addition, it is inferior to Unreal Engine in terms of flexibility and functionality. Because of this, developers had to spend a lot of time implementing even relatively simple game mechanics. As a result, the released games had problems with the animation of the world and NPCs.

The information provided by Jeff Grubb partially confirms the fact that Bioware has opened a position for the position of technical director of the fifth game in the Mass Effect series, which among the requirements for the specialist is a high level of knowledge of Unreal Engine 4 or higher. And if we add to all this the successful use of the Unreal Engine in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, released by EA Games, the transition looks quite logical.

In addition, it will save developers from having to seriously upgrade the Frostbite engine, which will inevitably become obsolete, since full-scale work on the game will begin only in 2023. Currently Bioware employees are busy creating the fourth part of the Dragon Age fantasy series. According to the same insiders, the new Mass Effect should be expected in 2025.