'Mass Effect' TV series is headed to Amazon Prime Video

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After more than a decade of waiting for a big-screen project that never materialized, Mass Effect is headed to Prime Video.

Mass Effect Normandy SR1 spaceship flying over a planet.
(Image credit: EA/BioWare)

The wait is finally over: Amazon has put a live-action Mass Effect TV series into active development.

The exclusive came from Variety on, of course, N7 Day (November 7). The site also added that Daniel Casey (Fast & Furious 9, 10 Cloverfield Lane) is currently set to write and executive produce alongside Karim Zreik from Cedar Tree Productions and legendary producer Avi Arad (Spider-Man, Iron Man). Even BioWare's Michael Gamble, who's currently hard at work on the next Mass Effect game – one of our most anticipated upcoming space games – is also joining them as an executive producer.

A big-screen adaptation was once set at Legendary Pictures, but that project never came to fruition. Now, after some rumors and dubious reports back in 2021, Amazon and EA are moving full steam ahead on the Mass Effect TV show, potentially lining up the bigger franchise for a big comeback ahead of the long-anticipated fourth game entry (fifth if you count 2017's ill-fated Mass Effect: Andromeda spin-off).

(Image credit: EA/BioWare)

Mass Effect has been widely regarded as the most important and influential modern sci-fi video game series, so it's strange that it's taken so long to get a live-action adaptation finally going. In late 2020, fans got a new hope in the shape of a mysterious teaser trailer for 'The Next Mass Effect.' Shortly afterwards, 2021 gave us the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, a remaster of the original trilogy. Now, with developer BioWare returning to Dragon Age after many ups and downs and settings its sights on Mass Effect next, the timing feels just right to start development on a show.

This would mark yet another blockbuster show based on a famous video game property for Amazon. The company's film/TV branch has recently landed a huge win with the Fallout series – now prepping to shoot season 2 – and is actively working with Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica and For All Mankind) on bringing PlayStation's God of War to the small screen too.

The original video game trilogy followed Commander Shepard, an elite soldier of the Systems Alliance. Shepard led the Milky Way's best efforts to stop the Reapers, colossal non-organic entities that cause galactic-level mass extinctions every 50,000 years for reasons unknown. The game involved space exploration, as well as squad-based, real-time combat and interactions with both human and alien characters across a variety of planets, starships, and space stations.

On top of its approach to modern RPG systems and decisions that could reshape entire narrative arcs, the Mass Effect series has been praised for its ambitious worldbuilding and daring dramatic swings. So, it's sort of the perfect material for a massive TV adaptation, as long as it expands the universe and doesn't retell a player-driven story. Who knows, maybe it'll become your favorite TV show on the Citadel.

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Fran Ruiz
Fran Ruiz

Fran Ruiz is our resident Star Wars guy. His hunger for movies and TV series is only matched by his love for video games. He got a BA of English Studies, focusing on English Literature, from the University of Malaga, in Spain, as well as a Master's Degree in English Studies, Multilingual and Intercultural Communication. On top of writing features and other longform articles for Space.com since 2021, he is a frequent collaborator of VG247 and other gaming sites. He also serves as associate editor over at Star Wars News Net and its sister site, Movie News Net.

10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Viking
    So far it sounds boring!
    Reply
  • fj.torres
    Viking said:
    So far it sounds boring!
    Have you played any of the games?
    Even ANDROMEDA is still pretty much a SF action game.

    What makes the franchise suitable for live action is the game world with a dozen+ alien races, strange deadly creatures, renegade AIs, and depending on the chosen time period, there are ongoing wars, terrorist organizations, and criminal bands. And the protagonist is typically a special ops hardcase. No Picard types need apply.

    Hopefully they follow the blueprint of FALLOUT and do an original story with different characters than the games against the established background. And hopefully they take advantage of the options the game offers; notably, in the games you can play as a pureheart "paladin" or ruthless, ends-justifies-the-means "renegade". Or anything in between. Whichever way you play, there is no shortage of gunplay and explosions.

    So good, bad, or indifferent, boring is the one things it is unlikely to be.
    Reply
  • Viking
    fj.torres said:
    Have you played any of the games?
    Even ANDROMEDA is still pretty much a SF action game.

    What makes the franchise suitable for live action is the game world with a dozen+ alien races, strange deadly creatures, renegade AIs, and depending on the chosen time period, there are ongoing wars, terrorist organizations, and criminal bands. And the protagonist is typically a special ops hardcase. No Picard types need apply.

    Hopefully they follow the blueprint of FALLOUT and do an original story with different characters than the games against the established background. And hopefully they take advantage of the options the game offers; notably, in the games you can play as a pureheart "paladin" or ruthless, ends-justifies-the-means "renegade". Or anything in between. Whichever way you play, there is no shortage of gunplay and explosions.

    So good, bad, or indifferent, boring is the one things it is unlikely to be.
    No interest in video games, however I will give the show a try.
    Reply
  • fj.torres
    Viking said:
    No interest in video games, however I will give the show a try.
    If they do it right, you don't have to like or know anything about the games.
    That's how FALLOUT did it.

    That said, the gaming genre to which both FALLOUT and MASS EFFECT belong to--western action role playing games, aka WRPGs--are meant to be a movie where the player is the protagonist and who's choices shape the outcome of the story. Sort-of a modern version of the old choose-your-own-adventure books.

    The original Mass Effect Trilogy is more about strategy, choice and (oddly) emotion than about blowing things up. But there is no shortage of the latter.

    We'll have to wait and see how the show plays out.
    Reply
  • Rickycardo
    I'm still waiting for live action series of the original RPG space games, Descent and Freespace. Or maybe just step all the way back to the original decision making space game Master of Orion.
    Reply
  • fj.torres
    Rickycardo said:
    I'm still waiting for live action series of the original RPG space games, Descent and Freespace. Or maybe just step all the way back to the original decision making space game Master of Orion.
    Who owns the IP these days?
    Most of the big publishers are looking to exploit their IP in video when possible.
    Reply
  • avk
    Is it just me or does it feel like Amazon is rushing head first into too many game-based series at once so that they can disappoint us by cancelling them later at the first chance they get?
    Reply
  • fj.torres
    avk said:
    Is it just me or does it feel like Amazon is rushing head first into too many game-based series at once so that they can disappoint us by cancelling them later at the first chance they get?
    They've been talking about a MASS EFFECT series since 2021.
    That doesn't sound like "rushing".😁

    Netflix, on the other hand...
    Reply
  • avk
    fj.torres said:
    They've been talking about a MASS EFFECT series since 2021.
    That doesn't sound like "rushing".😁

    Netflix, on the other hand...
    fj.torres said:
    They've been talking about a MASS EFFECT series since 2021.
    That doesn't sound like "rushing".😁

    Netflix, on the other hand...
    Well, it's not just prime but streaming platforms in general. I hope this turns out well and doesn't go the way Halo did. While it wasn't perfect I did quite enjoy that series and was disappointed with its cancellation.
    Reply
  • fj.torres
    avk said:
    Well, it's not just prime but streaming platforms in general. I hope this turns out well and doesn't go the way Halo did. While it wasn't perfect I did quite enjoy that series and was disappointed with its cancellation.
    The Halo show only looked like Halo but it ignored the basics.

    Two biggest mistakes were trying to do Master Chief and putting it on the smallest streamer this side of Apple. Paramount is too small to support a pricey niche show. It can barely support STAR TREK and that is usually light on CGI. They might have done better with a prequel without aliens or a show on the ODST HELLJUMPERS. Or other Spartans before the Covenant war. Hopefully that is a mistake MASS EFFECT will avoid.

    For those niche shows you need to be on Netflix (Like ARCANE, CASTLEVANIA, etc), PRIME, or MAX. You need a subscriber base of well over 100M and that is not Paramount. Even Peacock is still too small for pricey niche shows in the F&SF sphere and they know it.
    Reply