New Mass Effect 5 Artwork Reveals Krogan Civil War

Mass Effect fans are already poring over the image, and there’s a couple of obvious observations right off the bat. Firstly, the hero krogan in this image is old, the kind of old we’ve already seen in Mass Effect Andromeda, like your ancient krogan squadmate Drack.

But this isn’t Drack, which begs the question — who are we looking at? The armor color is reminscent of Grunt, your Mass Effect 2 squadmate who was then just a youth. Though for him to be looking as old as Drack (who was over 1,000 years old!), it might suggest the next Mass Effect is similarly more than 1,000 years into Mass Effect 3’s future.

From what we’ve seen already — a lightly-wrinkled Liara — this seems a little too far. Asari and krogan both have long lifespans, but Liara looked hundreds of years older, rather than 1,000. Could this be a new character? Or… could it just be Wrex? Mass Effect 1’s fan-favorite krogan squadmate was already middle-aged in the original trilogy, so with another few hundred years on top, he may now be as old as Drack was in Andromeda.

The next big question, of course, is why are the krogan in the middle of a civil war? This one is perhaps easier to answer, when considering the range of endings Mass Effect 3 offered for the krogan race.

Krogan have always been portrayed as warlike and expansionist, though they have suffered from infertility due to an artifical plague which saw their numbers dwindle and homeworld left almost barren. But Shepard can choose to aid their cause and reverse the plague’s effects — with results then dependent on your other choices.

Mass Effect 3’s myriad of endings range from the krogan pursuing a peaceful renaissance, to their new-found numbers supercharging fresh calls for galactic expansion. Perhaps the next Mass Effect game will offer a storyline that caters to all of the above by suggesting two factions emerging: one which wants that expansion, and another that seeks to curb the race’s worser instincts? Whatever’s going on, it seems all is not well with the krogan, hundreds of years after the Reapers were destroyed.

Perhaps we’ll hear more of the krogan civil war within Amazon’s upcoming Mass Effect TV series, which we learned today will be set after the events of the Mass Effect trilogy to avoid rehashing Commander Shepard’s story. BioWare also used today to reassert that it remained committed to developing its next Mass Effect project, with publisher EA onboard for the future of the franchise.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social