EA is shutting down BioWare and cancelling Mass Effect 5 amid fresh job losses

After little more than three decades, BioWare is shutting down, as EA has announced a wave of 400 job losses that will include the venerable studio and also lead to the cancellation of the next Mass Effect game.

The studio made the announcement on social media:

For more than 30 years, BioWare has been more than a studio. It has been a home for storytellers, developers, and the players who brought our worlds to life.

Baldur’s Gate. Neverwinter Nights.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
Dragon Age. Mass Effect. Anthem.

Now, after more than three decades of shared adventures, BioWare is closing and early development on the next Mass Effect project is ending.

There is nothing easy about writing those words. Our focus right now is on our incredibly talented team who put their hearts into these games, and supporting one another through this transition.

What generations of BioWare built together is something to celebrate and remember. These games became so much more because you played them, debated your choices, fell in love with the characters, and made these worlds your own.

From all of us at BioWare, thank you for being the most meaningful part of our story.

The jobs lost at BioWare account for around 50 of the 400, per Bloomberg, with the plan to save up to $700 million by cutting on R&D costs, and doubling down on sports games, online shooter Apex Legends, Battlefield franchise and licensed Star Wars and Marvel’s Iron Man games.

It’s the end of a long and winding road for BioWare under EA. After its first decade, during which the studio gained mass praise for its RPG series, including Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights and KOTOR, the studio was acquired shortly after the release of Mass Effect, and continued that rich vein of form through the Mass Effect trilogy and Dragon Age series.

Things went off the rails for the studio after 2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition. Mass Effect: Andromeda was led by BioWare Montreal and tried to kick off a new branch of the series, but didn’t stick the landing and that studio was soon downsized and then merged into Motive Studios. The core team in Edmonton, meanwhile, battled to find a direction for Anthem, enduring last minute gameplay changes, grappled with the Frostbite engine and lead to a buggy launch in 2019 that struggled to meet the demands and expectations of a live service. Meaningful support was canned after around a year.

The last hope for BioWare was Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which had decent reviews, but failed to meet EA’s sales expectations. Shortly after, the studio endured layoffs, bringing the team size down so they could spend time figuring out the direction for a new Mass Effect game.

It’s hard to say that the writing hasn’t been on the wall for a good long time, but it’s sad to see such a long-standing studio shut down, and awful to have this continuing, gruelling trend of layoffs in the game industry.

For EA in particular, though, we do now have to wonder how much of this stems from the recent leveraged buyout by the Saudi PIF and minority partners for $55 billion. The move was completed earlier this year, but was done using around $20 billion of financing, which was immediately dumped onto EA’s books to pay off over time. So, of course they then have to go on a major cost-cutting spree to try to pay off their own sale.

Source: Bloomberg, BioWare

Tags: Baldur's Gate, BioWare, Dragon Age, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, EA, knights of the old republic, Mass Effect, mass effect 5, Neverwinter Nights