An EA office building in Madrid was vandalized with the words “Save Mass Effect” just days after the company announced it had shuttered series developer BioWare.
It’s the latest update to an ongoing story that started when the beloved sci-fi RPG series was put on an indefinite hold earlier this month. With the studio’s Mass Effect: Universe project canceled and the franchise without a future, fans have now seemingly taken their push to see the series continue with spray paint.
EA’s Madrid office in Spain was seemingly the target of one disgruntled fan hoping to make a change. Reddit user Ok_Link9625 shared pictures of the graffiti in question, which show at least two separate instances of Save Mass Effect being tagged around the location.
“I stumbled upon the EA offices in Madrid as I was leaving a movie theater and saw this on the floor to the entrance and on the wall in front of the offices #SaveMassEffect,” the post said.
#SaveMassEffect is an idea that emerged in the moments after EA put the franchise on hold and laid off BioWare staff, but it didn’t take long for it to become more than a social media hashtag. The days following the move saw fans erect a Save Mass Effect petition, which exploded and now stands at 290,000 signatures at the time of this piece’s publication.
As some fans called to boycott EA products over its decision, others, like the folks at We Are Mass Effect, took their love for the series to the streets of New York. It resulted in perhaps the most famous play for #SaveMassEffect thus far, as citizens in Times Square were treated to a billboard for the movement throughout October 26. The group said it plans to fund more billboards in the near future, including one set to go up outside this year’s The Game Awards.
I WENT OFFLINE FOR FEW HOURS AND SOMEONE PAINTED A WHOLE GRAFFITI IN FRONT OF EA OFFICE?
— #SaveMassEffect #MassEffectIsAlive (@heleuscluster) October 31, 2026
Graffiti, however, is a new tactic, and it has received pushback in the community. While some want to keep the pressure up not only to breathe life into the franchise but also to support the people who have made it, others have said they aren’t sure how tagging office buildings will move the needle.
“Hell yeah,” one top commenter said.
“I’ll admit, I’m not sure this is the way to make them think the IP is worth saving,” another top reply argued.
Mass Effect series composer, meanwhile, simply took the opportunity to recognize how quickly the campaign has evolved in just a few days: “The fans are serious as a heart attack!”
We absolutely did not ask people to do this and obviously vandalism is bad, but it’s insane to me that #SaveMassEffect is so big that someone in Madrid is this angry. I get it.
— Kala Elizabeth #SaveMassEffect (@kalaelizabeth) October 31, 2026
@heleuscluster Oh shi**, man, we have banksy on our side 😀 https://t.co/HNHAwdFAtL
— Roma Cherry (@Pugbeer) October 31, 2026
At the moment, it doesn’t look like billboards or graffiti have done much to convince EA to support any angle the movement hopes to achieve. The most recent information about the fallout came from Bloomberg, which reported that the publisher canned its plans to release Mass Effect 5 in favor of prioritizing Star Wars Battlefront 3. Alleged details about the canceled game promised that BioWare was creating a story that would have accounted for all choices players made in previous installments.
