New Mass Effect 5 art reveals krogan civil war

Mass Effect fans have discovered new art teasing the next game in the series, which will feature the krogan race from Civil War.

Clues hidden in today's blog post from series lead Mike Gamble have been decoded by fans, revealing a hidden link on BioWare's website – and our first new Mass Effect trailer in two years.

this mass effect 5 The artwork shows a scarred krogan firing a gun, flanked by a group of helmeted krogan warriors. The picture's title is simply: “Civil War.”

Mass Effect fans have been poring over the image and immediately noticed some obvious observations. First of all, the hero Krogan in this picture is oldthe old one we've already seen in Mass Effect Andromeda , like your ancient krogan teammate Drak.

But this isn't Drake, which begs the question – who are we looking at? The color of the armor is reminiscent of Grunt, your teammate in Mass Effect 2 when he was just a young man. While he looks just as old as Drake (he's over 1,000 years old!), this could indicate that the next Mass Effect is also over 1,000 years in the future from Mass Effect 3.

Judging from what we've already seen – a slightly wrinkled Liara – that seems a bit too far. Asari and krogan are both long-lived, but Liara looks hundreds of years older, not a thousand. Will this be a new role? Or…maybe it's just Rex? The fan-favorite member of the krogan squad from Mass Effect 1 was already middle-aged in the original trilogy, so in a few hundred years he might now be as old as Andromeda's Drake.

Of course, the next big question is why are the Krogan descending into civil war? This question is perhaps easier to answer given the range of endings Mass Effect 3 offers for the krogan race.

The krogan have always been portrayed as warlike and expansionist, although they suffered from sterility due to a man-made plague that reduced their numbers and left their homeland nearly deserted. But Shepard can choose to aid their cause and reverse the plague's effects – the outcome depends on your other choices.

Mass Effect 3's endings are diverse, from the krogan seeking a peaceful revival to their newly discovered numbers breathing new life into a new call for galactic expansion. Maybe the next Mass Effect game will offer a storyline that caters to all of the above by proposing the emergence of two factions: one looking to expand, the other seeking to contain the race's worse instincts? Whatever happened, hundreds of years after the Reapers were destroyed, it seems all is not well for the krogan.

Maybe we'll hear more about the Krogan Civil War in Amazon's upcoming Mass Effect TV series, we learned today Will be set after the events of the Mass Effect trilogy to avoid repeating Commander Shepard's story. BioWare also reiterated it today Still working on the next Mass Effect project, publisher EA has also weighed in on the future of the series.

Tom Phillips is IGN's news editor. You can contact Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social