EA shuts BioWare: Mass Effect studio closes after 30 years
Electronic Arts is cutting around 400 jobs and closing BioWare. The next Mass Effect has been cancelled, and a Sims project has also been scrapped.
Archive image · Photo: Richard Cabrera / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (cropped and resized)
Electronic Arts is closing the Canadian studio BioWare. The team behind Baldur's Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect and Dragon Age announced the closure on social media on Wednesday after a Bloomberg report. "There is nothing easy about writing those words," the studio wrote. The new Mass Effect in development – the fifth main entry – will not be completed.
According to Bloomberg, EA is cutting around 400 jobs in total, about 50 of them at BioWare. Game Developer reports that the Sims project Project Lotus has also been cancelled, while DICE and Respawn are said to be working together on a new game, likely a Star Wars: Battlefront. In a letter to staff, COO David Tinson and chief studios officer Cam Weber attributed the decisions to a months-long review of the business.
BioWare was founded in 1995 and acquired by EA in 2007. Its more recent titles Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017), Anthem (2019) and Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024) fell short of expectations. Earlier this year EA was sold for $55 billion to a group including Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners.