The campaign to rescue Mass Effect has made it to one of the busiest intersections in the world. A fan group called We Are Mass Effect put a #SaveMassEffect billboard up in Times Square, New York, following Electronic Arts' decision to close BioWare and cancel the next game in the series, the long-in-development project known as Mass Effect: Universe. It would have been the first new entry since Mass Effect: Andromeda in 2017.
The billboard ran all day at 1560 Broadway, above the Pele store in Duffy Square, showing for 15 seconds every hour at 35 minutes past. One of the group's organizers headed down to see it in person.
Who Is Behind the Billboard
Speaking to IGN, which interviewed the organizers, the group's founder Ariel Pena Aguilar explained that We Are Mass Effect started in summer 2025 as a community paying tribute to the series. He organized the billboard with his second-in-command, Mer, and content creator Kala Elizabeth.
Aguilar said the organized fan push around the canceled Star Wars project The Hunt for Ben Solo partly inspired the idea. "At first, I thought it might be a bit of a crazy idea," he told IGN. "We all agreed it was worth doing, and we started organizing everything. And we have more plans! The billboard is just the first step."
Money was not the obstacle. The organizers told IGN the slot cost about $250 on a Monday in October. The bigger headache was copyright, since an earlier version of the graphic used the BioWare name and had to be replaced at the last minute.
A Fitting Typo
The rushed redesign led to a small slip that longtime fans spotted right away. The billboard reads "Keelah si'yah" when the group meant the famous Quarian farewell "Keelah se'lai." Elizabeth owned the mistake, telling IGN she had been thinking about author Catherynne Valente, who had written a Quarian ark novel for Mass Effect: Andromeda, and that ship is the Keelah Si'yah. "It's still somewhat fitting of the intent, but we mean keelah se'lai. Oops," she said.
Elizabeth has already said the next billboard will be simpler and include a QR code pointing to the petition. She also told IGN that a GoFundMe is planned so fans can chip in a few dollars toward more mobile billboards.
The Petition Keeps Growing
The billboard is one piece of a wider movement. A Change.org petition asking EA to reverse course has passed 200,000 signatures, with support from Commander Shepard voice actors Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer. Aguilar clarified that We Are Mass Effect is not directly behind that petition, though the group fully supports it.
The organizers are realistic about the odds. "Unfortunately, I think we all know that EA probably does not care," Elizabeth told IGN. Aguilar said that the group's biggest concern is for the developers who lost their jobs. "They're the ones who deserve our support the most. We're going to hold the line," he said.
The fallout from the closure has been spreading across EA's catalog. Battlefield 6 has reportedly pulled its unreleased Mass Effect N7 cosmetics, while fans are still digging into what the canceled project could have been, including a former developer's claim that it would have made every choice from the original trilogy canon.
There is a milestone on the horizon too, as next year marks 20 years of Mass Effect. Elizabeth told IGN that even if EA does not celebrate it, the fans, voice actors and developers will. "I hope something comes out of this, and if it doesn't, at least we tried, right?" she said.
Do you think fan campaigns like #SaveMassEffect can actually change EA's mind?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.