Austin Wintory Shares 22 Minutes of Unused Mass Effect 5 Music

Composer Austin Wintory has published 22 minutes of music he wrote while in talks to score BioWare's canceled Mass Effect 5. The material appears on YouTube under the title "My Ideas for Mass Effect 5" and includes nine draft songs.

Wintory described Mass Effect as his career's biggest dream project and favorite franchise. He said he held serious conversations with BioWare and Electronic Arts over the last couple of years about joining the team.

“Working on Mass Effect 5 was my career's biggest dream project, my white whale.”

His proposal was to use Jack Wall and Sam Hulick's original score as a starting point. He suggested adding deeper use of physical, analog synthesizers and tighter orchestral integration, while treating the work as a love letter similar to his approach on Aliens: Fireteam Elite.

EA shut down BioWare and canceled the game, ending any hope that Wintory would officially compose for the series. The project was also known as Mass Effect Universe after a trailer leaked by a former employee surfaced.

The cancellation affected fans and other studios inspired by BioWare's work, including CD Projekt, Archetype Entertainment, and Owlcat Games. Artists involved in the project were also impacted.

Wintory thanked his friends at BioWare and EA for the opportunity to work in their sandbox. He called the unpublished music an elaborate production and said it remains a project unlikely to see the light of day.