Electronic Arts is closing BioWare, the studio behind Mass Effect and Dragon Age, and has ended early development on the next Mass Effect game. The news came Wednesday, October 21, in a memo to staff from Cam Weber, EA president and chief studios officer, and David Tinson, EA president and chief operating officer.
“As we focus on these larger opportunities, we’ve had a small team at BioWare working on early-development for Mass Effect,” the executives wrote in the memo EA published. “We’ve made the decision not to move forward with this development, which means we’re closing the studio and our Edmonton workspace. BioWare is a legendary studio that helped define the role-playing genre, and we do not take this decision lightly.”
BioWare confirmed its fate in its own post. “Now, after more than three decades of shared adventures, BioWare is closing and early development on the next Mass Effect project is ending,” the studio said, adding that its focus is on supporting a team “who put their hearts into these games.”
Layoffs across EA
The closure is part of a wider restructuring of EA’s studios. Variety reports the cuts will hit about 3% of EA’s global workforce, roughly 400 people based on the company’s last reported headcount of 14,500. Bloomberg, as cited by Polygon, reports about 50 of those layoffs are at BioWare. Variety calls the restructuring EA’s first major move since the publisher went private in a $55 billion deal with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners that closed in August.
The memo says EA will help affected employees look for other roles inside the company and will discuss its direction further at a Global Town Hall in November.
What EA is keeping
EA says it is still delivering Marvel’s Iron Man and the next Star Wars Jedi game, which the memo calls “our two huge launches coming up.” It is also bringing Respawn and DICE together on an unnamed shooter. EA did not identify that project, but Variety reports that multiple sources say it is Star Wars: Battlefront 3. That title remains unconfirmed by EA. RCG covered an earlier Battlefront 3 rumor this week.
Elsewhere, EA says it will keep investing in Apex Legends and future Battlefield games, has two new EA Sports projects in the works including one it calls “Project Gridiron,” and is in pre-production on a return for Fight Night. For The Sims, EA is pausing development on “Project Lotus” to put its effort behind “Project Evergreen.”
The end of a long run
BioWare was founded in 1995 and made Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic before EA acquired it in 2007. Its last major release, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, missed sales expectations, according to Polygon. The next Mass Effect was announced in 2020, and the most recent new entry in the series was 2017’s Mass Effect: Andromeda.
