BioWare is shutting down and the next Mass Effect game is canceled, EA has announced.
Bloomberg said BioWare closes its doors amid mass layoffs at Electronic Arts, which amount to 400 people losing their jobs (approx. 3% of total staff). Roughly 50 of these roles were at BioWare.
After the franchise-best sales of Dragon Age: Inquisition, BioWare sought live-service success with Anthem, then spent the best part of a decade on the troubled Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Both underperformed. Mass Effect, meanwhile, has seen mixed success. Mass Effect Andromeda is widely considered a disappointment among fans, though the series’ more recent Legendary Edition remaster was well-received.
BioWare had spent the past half a decade gradual teasing the next Mass Effect’s setting and story. We’d had it confirmed that Mass Effect 5 would have been set hundreds of years after Mass Effect 3, and feature a narrative that re-centers the action on the franchise’s original Milky Way setting, long after the Reapers were defeated. Now, fans will never find out what happens next.
It is unclear what this means for Amazon’s live-action Mass Effect series, which was also meant to be set after the events of Mass Effect 3 and tell a fresh story. Earlier this year, Mass Effect TV series co-showrunner Daniel Casey refuted a report that suggested the upcoming adaptation had recently undergone rewrites to be “more appealing to non-gamers.”
EA will continue with sports games, Respawn’s Apex Legends, action-adventure games (Star Wars: Jedi 3 and Marvel’s Iron Man), and Battlefield. Bloomberg said Respawn and DICE are likely working on Star Wars: Battlefront 3, as had been rumored.
The drastic cuts come just a few months after EA went private in a leveraged buyout worth $55 billion, backed in large part by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, as well as the U.S. private equity firm Silver lake and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners.
In a memo sent to staff today, Cam Weber, president and chief studios officer, and David Tinson, president and COO, described itself as “the number one publisher in Western HD gaming, but “our industry is changing quickly.”
“Players have more choices than ever for their time and attention, competition is intensifying, and some of our biggest opportunities for growth are beyond the markets, platforms, and business models where EA has traditionally been the strongest,” they said.
EA reacted to this by “concentrating our teams, technology, and investment” behind three strategic priorities: “Deepen Our Core; “Expand Our Reach;” and “Transform Our Business.”
“Our greatest opportunity starts with our franchises and global communities that have made EA a leader in interactive entertainment,” the pair continued. “This is where we’ve had to make our hardest choices. Saying no to some things we’re passionate about allows us to focus our teams and resources so we give our biggest opportunities everything they need to succeed.”
Last year’s Battlefield 6 was a “great success.” Future Battlefield games are on the way, as well as the Respawn and DICE collaboration project that is believed to be Star Wars: Battlefront 3. EA said it will also continue to “invest heavily” in Respawn’s battle royale, Apex Legends, over the next few years by introducing brand new gameplay modes in multiplayer, and “other new experiences, to expand the universe.”
Marvel’s Iron Man (EA Motive) and the next Star Wars Jedi 3 (Respawn) live on, but expect “fewer simultaneous, large-scale projects,” in the action-adventure genre from EA. And here’s the official blurb on the end of BioWare and Mass Effect:
As we focus on these larger opportunities, we’ve had a small team at BioWare working on early-development for Mass Effect. 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.
EA Sports will of course continue the FC franchise. Two new projects are in development which are due to be revealed in the next few months: “a brand-new, social-first open-world experience for our American Football team that we call ‘Project Gridiron,’ and we are also in pre-production to bring back a beloved, fan-favorite in Fight Night, leveraging capabilities from our simulation fighting team.”
The “Lifestyle,” category, as EA calls it, will see Project Evergreen continue but Project Lotus paused. Both are The Sims projects. Skate, meanwhile, had “a lot of success in bringing players into the game, and we need to create an experience that keeps them engaged over the long-term. To do that, we are making changes to the studio to have a more focused, smaller team to deliver on a very clear roadmap for our community that we believe will build a healthier and more sustainable business.”
Less than 12 months ago, Mike Gamble, executive producer of Mass Effect at BioWare, celebrated N7 Day to say the next Mass Effect game was still in development, to express excitement about the Amazon TV series, and to insist EA and BioWare “remain committed to telling more stories in this universe.”
In a social media post published today, Gamble told fans, “Your support has meant everything to me over the past 17 years at BioWare.”
Wesley is IGN’s Managing Editor. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].