The #SaveMassEffect petition to get Electronic Arts to stop sitting on the Mass Effect license after it closed series developer BioWare last week just reached over 200,000 signatures on Change.org. That’s an impressive number, but now, as the movement has had more time to coordinate and come up with plans of action, a representative of the group has purchased billboard time in Times Square for the day of October 26.
For those who don’t live in NYC, some of the billboards adorning Times Square’s screen-covered buildings allow the average person to purchase screentime for ads and the like. Sometimes people use it to shitpost, like when Overwatch fans put the game’s hero Venture in a skibidi toilet meme on the big screen. Mass Effect fans, however, are using it to bring awareness to the cause.
🚨 WE’RE IN TIMES SQUARE!
Together with @kalaelizabeth, we’ve managed to get a #SaveMassEffect billboard up in Times Square, NYC, all day today!
📍 1560 Broadway, above the Pelé store (Duffy Square)
⏰ 15 seconds every hour at :35HOLD THE LINE! ❤️ pic.twitter.com/wNP9Ak9Vh8
— We are Mass Effect – #SaveMassEffect (@WeAreMassEffect) October 26, 2026
Depending on which billboard you’re advertising on, it can be surprisingly cheap. Kala Elizabeth, a content creator and member of the #SaveMassEffect movement, bought the billboard time for just $250, but tells Kotaku she and others have plans to crowdfund for future demonstrations.
The billboard features a short animation with the phrase “Keelah Si’yah,” a Quarian phrase roughly translating to “By the homeworld I hope to find one day.” This is also the name of the Quarian Ark in the Mass Effect: Andromeda game and its tie-in novel Annihilation, which was meant to convey that its members traveling across dark space to reach a new galaxy might find their new home on the other side. Elizabeth says that she initially put “Keelah Se’lai,” a more commonly used phrase across the Mass Effect series that means “By the homeworld I hope to see someday,” often said by members of the Quarian race who have never seen their homeworld of Rannoch, but changed it to reflect that Catherynne M. Valente, the author of the Annihilation novel, was working on Universe. She also says the original submission used BioWare’s name, which got it dinged for copyright, so she had to change it, but the #SaveMassEffect branding remains.
BioWare’s closure sparked a chain of leaks for the fifth Mass Effect game, called Mass Effect: Universe, including a cinematic trailer that was being used internally, as well as several plot details that came from people claiming to have consulted on the game. Now, the petition is asking EA to either hand the game off to another studio to finish it, or license the series out to another developer so it can live on.
Update, 10/26/26 at 1:05 p.m. Eastern: Clarified adjustments made to the billboard to get around copyright.
