Mass Effect Gets a New Officially Licensed Art Collection as Fans Campaign to Save BioWare
This year’s N7 Day, November 7, arrives under a shadow for Mass Effect fans. BioWare, the Canadian studio behind the series, was shut down by EA last month, and no new entry in the franchise is currently in development. Still, the series’ legacy is getting a new showcase: Moor-Art Gallery has opened preorders for an officially licensed Mass Effect Collection, a set of limited-edition art prints created in collaboration with BioWare.
The Mass Effect Collection
Moor-Art says the collaboration with BioWare began over a year ago, well before the studio’s closure was announced. The collection centers on two new pieces of original art. The first, by artist Matt Essom, puts Commander Shepard and the Normandy’s crew front and center in a tribute to the original Mass Effect. It is available as a 200-piece hand-numbered foil print for 54.98 euros, or as a more exclusive PRIMO Giclee edition limited to 30 hand-numbered pieces, complete with a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist, for 122.18 euros.
Matt Essom’s artwork for the Mass Effect Collection puts the original Normandy crew front and center.
The second piece, by illustrator Dan Mumford, depicts a scene from Mass Effect 2 that has never had official art before: the crew’s confrontation with the Human Reaper. It comes in two variants, one led by the male Commander Shepard and one by FemShep, each limited to 150 hand-numbered foil prints, with a 30-piece PRIMO Giclee edition per variant at the same price points as Essom’s piece. Mumford’s design is also sold as a unisex T-shirt in both Shepard variants for 30.54 euros. Every print ships frameless in December, and Moor-Art says the whole process from checkout to delivery is carbon neutral.
Awkward Timing for EA
Moor-Art’s collection was months in the making, but it is launching alongside a separate N7 Day sale on EA’s own BioWare Gear store, discounting existing Mass Effect and Dragon Age merchandise. Coming so soon after EA’s decision to close BioWare down following its acquisition by a Saudi Public Investment Fund-led consortium, the sale has drawn criticism from fans who see it as tone-deaf, profiting from a franchise whose studio EA just shuttered.
Dan Mumford’s Mass Effect 2 print depicts the crew’s confrontation with the Human Reaper in male and female Shepard variants.
The Fight to Save BioWare
Beyond the merchandise, fans have not given up on BioWare itself. A Change.org petition calling on EA to reverse the closure continues to circulate, and in Canada, where BioWare is based, a formal e-petition was opened with the House of Commons on November 4, sponsored by MP Don Davies. As of this writing it had gathered nearly 3,000 signatures, calling on the Canadian government to help BioWare secure independence from EA and preserve it as a Canadian company.
“An immense loss to and possibly a targeted attack on Canada’s cultural legacy.”
Petition e-7898 to the Government of Canada, on BioWare’s closure
Whether the petition sways lawmakers remains to be seen, but it underlines just how much weight BioWare’s catalog, from the original Mass Effect trilogy to the decades of lore it built, still carries with the people who grew up with it. For now, the new Moor-Art prints are one of the few new pieces of officially sanctioned Mass Effect art fans can actually hold in their hands.
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Picture Source: Moor-Art Gallery, officially licensed by BioWare
