It’s been a few years since reports emerged that Amazon was looking to adapt Mass Effect for television, but finally, as N7 Day arrives once again, the show has become official.
A Mass Effect TV show was first teased in 2021, when former BioWare head writer Mac Walters explained that several factors contributed to the company changing its initial vision of a film adaptation toward something for the smaller screen. Later that same year, reports emerged claiming that Amazon was “closer to a deal” for a Mass Effect television series, as part of its continued push into sci-fi and fantasy storytelling.
And now those reports have been confirmed. Variety says a Mass Effect TV series is now officially in development at Amazon, with Fast & Furious 9 (aka F9: The Fast Saga) writer Daniel Casey attached as writer and executive producer. Casey is no complete stranger to sci-fi, having previously written the 2018 film Kin and doing rewrites for 2016’s 10 Cloverfield Lane.
Also executive producing are Karim Zreik, EA’s Michael Gamble, and Ari Arad, who served as a producer on everything from the Uncharted movie and last year’s terrible Borderlands adaptation to the Spider-Verse series and Nintendo’s upcoming Zelda movie. .
Beyond that, details on Amazon’s Mass Effect adaptation are limited, but we do know that passionate gamer and former warlock Henry Cavill once had interest in the project. In February 2021, Cavill was photographed alongside a script apparently related to Mass Effect; Then, in December of that year, shortly after Amazon was said to be close to a deal, Cavill casually revealed that he’d “love to have a conversation” about it. However, now that Cavill has been confirmed to be involved in Amazon’s Warhammer adaptation, things may have changed.
One person probably No Enthused about a Mass Effect TV series is former Bioware head writer David Gaider, who previously said the idea of BioWare TV adaptations made him “shudder.”
“Mass Effect and Dragon Age had a custom protagonist to begin with,” he explained. “That is, said TV show will have to choose whether said protagonist will be male or female. Boom, right off the bat you just alienated a bunch of built-in fans who had high hopes… Secondly, those protagonists are designed to be a sort of blank slate, one that the player fills in with their decisions. That won’t work for a passive medium. Then suddenly the protagonist will have his own personality… and his own. history. “That will be weird.”
“Both the Mass Effect and Dragon Age plots were serviceable at best,” he continued. “Those plots had to take the player’s agency into account. They were a kind of shell upon which the player’s emotional engagement was delivered, usually through companions and choices themselves. Choice increased engagement. Interactivity was the key. star, not the plot.”
“Take all of that away, lose most of the companions, and you potentially end up with… a pretty run-of-the-mill fantasy or sci-fi show, one in which much of the built-in audience may have been turned into indignant malcontents.” and howlers even before its release.
Amazon, of course, has already faced similar problems with this year’s Fallout TV adaptation, and it ended up launching to great commercial success and acclaim. So time will tell if Gaider’s concerns prove justified.
