Video Games Chronicle report that an N7 day lithograph description may have unintentionally revealed plans for the next Mass Effect game to see a return of major character Shepard from the original trilogy.

That description has since been altered and officially brushed off as a mistake but with ambiguous language which doesn't explicitly deny Shepard's return.

The original description read:

While Shepard and the survivors are left to pick up the pieces, fans are left wondering what’s next.

That was later changed to:

While the survivors are left to pick up the pieces, fans are left wondering what’s next.

Project Director at Bioware Michael Gamble's official response was:

Yeah, that was a mistake. Fixed.

The "mistake" could refer to the content being in error or to that content being correct but released in error.

Gamble followed that up claiming the description was:

written by the people who run the store and aren’t familiar with the game.

That we doubt.

Those descriptions would more likely be written by developers and submitted to online store support staff to be copy and pasted into their computer systems.

A genuine error like this could be made and this might mean nothing but seems suspect to our eye.

We would guess that Bioware were at least considering Shepard's return and the original description for this item was written at a time when they thought that information would already have been shared with the public.

But for some reason it wasn't - game development is notoriously unpredictable and plagued by delays - and the lithograph went live in their store with that description.

That's our guess anyway.

This game is still nowhere near release so it could be a long wait to know the truth.

[ Main Image: Mass Effect Legendary Edition. Credit: Electronic Arts via Steam. ]

References

Middler, Jordan (May 10, 2022). A Mass Effect 4 collectable might have revealed a big returning character. Video Games Chronicle.