author: Zuzanna Domeradzka
BioWare Plays Around With Mass Effect 5 Teasers on N7 Day; Hope Rises for Shepard's Return [Update]
This year BioWare has prepared something special for fans of the Mass Effect series to celebrate the N7 Day. Hidden in a blog post, the codes revealed short videos related (most likely) to the fifth installment. Could it be that Shepard is set to return?
Update
It looks like this is the end of the fun with encrypted websites. Developers of Mass Effect have released a full teaser (below), which combines all the short parts of the video. In it, we see a woman in armor with the distinctive N7 emblem, but her identity is still unclear. It is possible that it is Commander Shepard, but it could just as well be someone else. The footage ends with a simple Mass Effect logo, without any subtitle or figure.
Original message
Fans of Mass Effect may have been initially displeased to learn that BioWare has not prepared any footage from the new game in the series for today's N7 Day holiday. The developers have published a post thanking the players for their support and love for the games starring Shepard and Ryder, in addition to highlighting upcoming figurines or plushies inspired by Mass Effect. At first glance, they conveyed only that much - in reality, however, they prepared much more.
Perceptive fans noticed that something was wrong with this text. In some places the letter "i" was replaced by the digit "1", and "o" by "0". If we combine all the digits, we get binary code, which, when translated, means "Epsilon". Gamers initially thought that this might be the subtitle of fifth Mass Effect - however, it turned out that the word reveals that something else related to the next part of the series will soon be revealed. Indeed, "Epsilon" in the Greek number system means "five".
Taking advantage of the discovery, fans reached a page, which is related to the coded content. There is a short video (below), which shows only the legs of a walking figure.
Immediately afterwards, another page related (most likely) to ME5 was found. It informs this time about an access code named "Oculon-2819-Defiance". Interestingly, Oculon is the first name of the Citadel, the large space station we explored in the trilogy with Shepard.
Encryption of the second page ended at 11 a.m. PST and revealed another part of the same video, in which we can already see most of the characters. Many fans claim that this is the heroine known to all - Commander Shepard.
So apparently, the subsequent mysterious pages show parts of the video coming together and may suggest that Shepard will appear in Mass Effect 5 (I remind you that this is only the placeholder title of the game in question) or other elements from the first three parts of the series will be present in the new game. If more excerpts or other important information from BioWare hit the web, we will update this post. The continuation of the video may be shown at 1 p.m. here.
