The cancellation of Mass Effect 5 keeps producing painful what-ifs. One of the composers from the original trilogy has shared music written for the now-dead sequel — framing the release around an internal trailer and describing it plainly: "This trailer is my way of saying goodbye," as reported by Rock Paper Shotgun.

The score surfaces in the wake of EA's decision to shut down BioWare, which took Mass Effect 5 down with it. An internal trailer for the project had already circulated, giving fans a glimpse of a game that will never be finished.

For a series defined as much by its music as its characters, hearing what the next chapter might have sounded like is a bittersweet coda. Between this farewell score and the fan community's ongoing restoration work on the trilogy, Mass Effect's afterlife is increasingly being written by the people who loved it rather than the company that owned it.