Mass Effect teaser poster may offer our first hints at where the story is going

In celebration of November 7th—N7 Day—BioWare has revealed a new promotional image for the still-untitled upcoming Mass Effect sequel—and it may hide some enormous clues as to where this next chapter will take us.

Here’s the image, as tweeted out by the official Mass Effect account:

While there may not look like a ton to go off of at first glance, eagle-eyed fans have been poring over the details and spotted a few interesting things that may signal where the story is headed.

First up, you may notice that the ridges and crater bear a striking resemblance to one of the Geth, the race of intelligent robots Shepard fought throughout the original trilogy. (It’s worth noting that not all the Geth were violent. Many wanted to coexist with organic life, and one—Legion—could even be recruited to join your crew.) If you zoom in, the fallen figure near the crater also appears to be a Geth.

This Geth-heavy approach has prompted widespread speculation that the AI beings will be central to the plot of this next Mass Effect game. Some have gone so far as to speculate that this confirms the series will make the Destruction ending of Mass Effect 3—in which Shepard chose to eradicate all synthetic life in the universe—canon. If the Geth were supposed to be wiped out in that ending, it’d make any a survivors particularly interesting mystery to unravel. It’s also worth noting that the Destruction ending is the only one in which Shepard can survive, and the earlier teaser suggested Liara might be leading an expedition to find her former Commander.

That’s already a pretty big jumping off point for fans, but it’s not all they think they’ve spotted in the poster. The group of figures walking toward the crater appears to include a Krogan with red coloration—quite possibly Wrex. The other three are less immediately identifiable, but speculation has them pegged as some combination of a Turian (Garrus?), an Asari (Liara, once again?), a Quarian (Tali?), or a human (perhaps a new playable character?).

Finally, the ship is painted with the name or designation SFX. While that doesn’t tell us anything concrete, it is a neat nod to the series’ past: Early in development, SFX was the code name for the the original Mass Effect.

The poster was the biggest news out of N7 Day, but it’s not all BioWare did to celebrate. The studio also penned a blog post promoting new GIFs, cosplay guides, statistics on the choices Mass Effect: Legendary Edition players have made, and more.