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BioWare While we still know next to nothing about the next Mass Effect game, only that it will not be going back to the Andromeda galaxy, something interesting may be going on with its development.

A job listing has been spotted looking for a technical director role for Mass Effect 5 with “experience with Unreal Engine.” On its own, that might be ignorable, but industry insider Jeff Grubb from Gamesbeat has confirmed that his own sources tell him that BioWare is considering all options when it comes to the game, and that may include ditching EA’s often-mandated Frostbite engine for the more flexible and widely-used Unreal Engine from Epic.

A bit of history should indicate why this might happen. BioWare’s last two games were deemed failures, Anthem and Mass Effect Andromeda, on a few levels, but both struggled in the technical department, and much of that was blamed on Frostbite, DICE’s Battlefield engine for its FPS games, trying to be used to make these large, third party open world games.

“Over the past few years, one of BioWare’s biggest obstacles has also become one of EA’s favorite buzzwords: Frostbite, a video game engine,” said a Kotaku expose on Mass Effect Andromeda’s development back in 2017. “While describing Frostbite, one top developer on Mass Effect: Andromeda used the analogy of an automobile. Epic’s Unreal Engine, that developer said, is like an SUV, capable of doing lots of things but unable to go at crazy high speeds. The Unity Engine would be a compact car: small, weak, and easy to fit anyplace you’d like. “Frostbite,” the developer said, “is a sports car. Not even a sports car, a Formula 1. When it does something well, it does it extremely well. When it doesn’t do something, it really doesn’t do something.”

Mass Effect Andromeda

BioWare MORE FOR YOUSony Explicitly Said A PS5 ‘Horizon Forbidden West’ Upgrade Would Be FreeIt Seems Clear What Cyberpunk 2077’s Two Expansions Should BeThe ‘Destiny 2’ God Roll Iron Banner Sidearms And Pulses You Should Be Farming For This explains why this change might be made, so BioWare can avoid the technical pitfalls that plagued many of their most recent releases. It should also be noted that Respawn’s Jedi: Fallen Order used Unreal Engine, and that game was widely praised on every level, and experienced none of the issues we heard about with BioWare’s last few games.

Whatever’s going on with Frostbite, BioWare has been struggling with it for the better part of a decade now. It may in fact be time to move on, because the studio cannot afford another miss at this point, and they need all the tools they can get to ensure that doesn’t happen. History would say Unreal Engine would be their best bet going forward here.

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