BioWare is closing. The studio behind Baldur’s Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect and Dragon Age announced on Oct. 21 that it is shutting down and that early development on the next Mass Effect has ended. The post on BioWare’s official X account said there was nothing easy about writing those words.
Electronic Arts confirmed the decision in a staff letter, “Building EA’s Next Chapter,” published on EA’s site and signed by chief studios officer Cam Weber and chief operating officer David Tinson. The letter says a small BioWare team had been working on early development for Mass Effect, that EA decided not to move forward with it, and that the company is closing the studio and its Edmonton workspace. EA called BioWare “a legendary studio that helped define the role-playing genre.”
What’s confirmed, and what’s only reported
Confirmed by BioWare and EA: the studio is closing, and the next Mass Effect project is over. EA’s letter also says the company will support affected employees in exploring other roles inside EA, and that it will discuss its direction at its next Global Town Hall in November.
Reported, not confirmed by EA: Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, who broke the story shortly before BioWare’s post, reported that EA is cutting about 400 jobs across the company, roughly 3 percent of its workforce, with about 50 at BioWare. Accounts of how many people were still at the studio vary. BioWare co-founder Trent Oster told BNN Bloomberg that about 40 remained, mostly on Mass Effect.
Still unknown: when the closure takes effect, whether Mass Effect or Dragon Age will ever be developed elsewhere, and what happens to support for games like Mass Effect Legendary Edition and Dragon Age: The Veilguard. EA hasn’t addressed any of it publicly. Game Developer notes EA hasn’t said whether it would sell the franchises or hand them to another internal studio.
Why now
The closure comes less than three months after EA finished going private. The take-private deal led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, alongside Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, closed on Aug. 4. Coverage of the deal, including from VGC and Game Developer, has focused on the roughly $18 billion of debt it carries and the cost cuts EA described to lenders.
EA’s letter frames the cuts as part of a broader reset: concentrating on EA Sports, Battlefield, Apex Legends, Marvel’s Iron Man and the next Star Wars Jedi game, and running fewer large projects at once. It also pauses development on The Sims‘ “Project Lotus” and moves skate. to a smaller team.
Thirty years of BioWare
BioWare was founded in Edmonton in 1995 by doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk and Augustine Yip. It built its name on PC role-playing games, from Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights to Knights of the Old Republic in 2003, then created two of the defining RPG series of their era: Mass Effect in 2007 and Dragon Age: Origins in 2009. EA bought the studio in 2007.
What BioWare sold, more than any mechanic, was the idea that your choices followed you: a squadmate who remembered, a romance that carried across games, a save file imported three times over a trilogy. Plenty of studios borrowed that idea. Few built a whole identity on it.
The last decade was harder. Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017) drew heavy criticism at launch, Anthem (2019) never recovered and has since gone offline, and Star Wars: The Old Republic moved to Broadsword in 2023. Dragon Age: The Veilguard, released in 2024, turned out to be BioWare’s final game; Game Developer reports it reached about 1.5 million players, roughly half of what EA expected. Former Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah has argued, as GamesRadar reports, that EA’s expectations for the game were unrealistic.
What it means for story-driven RPGs
The kind of game BioWare made hasn’t gone anywhere. Larian took Baldur’s Gate, a name BioWare made famous, to a massive hit in 2023, and players keep showing up for long, choice-heavy RPGs. What’s shrinking is the number of big-publisher studios funded to make them. The lesson EA appears to have drawn is about BioWare’s recent track record and cost, not about whether people want these games.
It’s also worth being precise about what ended this week. EA canceled a specific early-stage Mass Effect project and closed the studio. It has not said the series is over, and Amazon’s live-action Mass Effect series is reportedly still in development, according to IGN’s sources at Prime Video as relayed by Game Informer. Neither Amazon nor EA has confirmed that on the record.
For the people losing their jobs, the distinction doesn’t change much. For the franchise, it leaves a door open that EA hasn’t closed yet. We’ll update this story as EA shares more, including at its November town hall.
Sources: BioWare (X), EA, Bloomberg (via VGC, Gematsu), GamesRadar, Game Informer, Game Developer, BNN Bloomberg.
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