EA Shuts Down BioWare and Cancels the Next Mass Effect as 400 Jobs Go

Well, it’s official. Electronic Arts is shutting down BioWare, the Edmonton studio behind Baldur’s Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect and Dragon Age. The next Mass Effect is cancelled with it. That’s the game EA has been teasing with moody trailers since 2020.

It’s part of a wider round of cuts. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, who broke the story on 21 October, reports that about 400 jobs are going across EA. That’s roughly 3% of the company, and around 50 of those jobs are at BioWare. EA’s own letter to staff confirms the closure but doesn’t give a job count.

What EA said

The letter is called “Building EA’s Next Chapter” and was signed by COO David Tinson and Chief Studios Officer Cam Weber. It says EA took “a hard look” at the business over the past several months. It also says a small team at BioWare was in early development on the next Mass Effect, and that EA had “made the decision not to move forward with this development”. In practice, that means closing the studio and its Edmonton workspace.

BioWare posted its own goodbye on X, calling the studio “a home for storytellers, developers, and the players who brought our worlds to life” for more than 30 years. It said its focus now is supporting its team through the transition.

Who else got hit

• The Sims: a new project called Project Lotus is paused so the team can focus on Project Evergreen. GamesBeat says the cuts at Maxis are significant. Insider Gaming reports Lotus as cancelled rather than paused.
• skate.: it carries on with a smaller team.
• Battlefield: GamesBeat reports big cuts at the Battlefield studios too, but no numbers.

What EA is keeping

The letter is built around three priorities: “Deepen Our Core”, “Expand Our Reach” and “Transform Our Business”. In practice, the money is going into:

• EA Sports. That includes a new open-world American football project codenamed Project Gridiron and a return for Fight Night.
• Battlefield and Apex Legends. Respawn and DICE are teaming up on a future project. Variety’s sources say it’s Star Wars: Battlefront III. EA hasn’t confirmed that.
• Marvel’s Iron Man and the next Star Wars Jedi, though EA says it’ll run fewer big projects at once.

EA says it’ll lay out more at a global town hall in November, and that it’ll help affected staff look for other roles inside the company.

The bit EA didn’t mention

This is the first big round of cuts since a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, with Silver Lake and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners, finished taking EA private in a roughly US$55 billion deal on 4 August. About $20 billion of that was debt arranged by JPMorgan, and reports say EA has told lenders it plans to cut around $700 million a year in costs.

EA’s letter doesn’t connect the cuts to the debt. GamesBeat says plainly that cutting costs is key to paying it off. Insider Gaming’s sources expect more cuts over the next 12 to 18 months. Treat that last bit as a report, not a promise.

How BioWare got here

• 1995: Founded in Edmonton by doctors Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk (with Augustine Yip). It went on to make Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights and KOTOR.
• 2007: EA buys BioWare. Mass Effect launches the same year, and the studio enters its golden era with Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins.
• 2017–2019: Mass Effect: Andromeda lands badly, then Anthem, EA’s attempt to make BioWare a live-service studio, flops even harder. Anthem’s servers were switched off for good in January 2026.
• 2024–2025: Dragon Age: The Veilguard reaches about 1.5 million players, which EA said was nearly 50% under expectations. BioWare is restructured to work only on Mass Effect, veterans are laid off or moved to other EA studios, and reports say it’s down to fewer than 100 people.
• 2026: The roughly 50 people left are let go, and the doors close.

And no, it wasn’t the “woke” stuff

Some people online are blaming Veilguard’s trans and non-binary representation for the studio’s death. That mainly means Taash, a companion whose storyline is about being non-binary, and a character creator that lets you make trans and non-binary characters, including an on/off toggle for top surgery scars. As Them pointed out at the time, EA’s own The Sims 4 had already added the same option a year earlier. The game was review-bombed on Metacritic when it launched, with the user score dropping to around 2/10. On Steam, where you have to actually play the game before reviewing it, it sat at “Mostly Positive”.

But look at the timeline above. Andromeda flopped in 2017. Anthem flopped in 2019. EA had already tried, and failed, to turn Dragon Age into a live-service game before rebooting it. None of that had anything to do with pronouns. EA has never blamed the backlash either: Andrew Wilson’s explanation was missing “shared-world features”, and yesterday’s letter to staff doesn’t mention it. Whatever you think of Taash, BioWare’s decline started years before anyone had heard of them. The culture war is the least convincing explanation for this one.

What we don’t know

• What happens to Mass Effect and Dragon Age. EA still owns both. Insider Gaming says the new Mass Effect won’t be handed to another internal studio. EA hasn’t said whether either series has a future at all.
• The exact numbers. The 400 and the roughly 50 come from Bloomberg’s sources. EA hasn’t published a figure.
• Whether the BioWare name lives on. EA hasn’t said whether it’ll keep the brand around for future releases or remasters.

Our take

Nobody who’s been paying attention is surprised. BioWare has been dying by inches for the better part of a decade. EA bought the studio that made the best RPGs of their generation, then spent years pushing it into making the sort of games EA wanted: loot shooters, live service, “engagement”. When Anthem went down in flames, the people who made Mass Effect 2 copped the blame.

Then Veilguard missed by half, and EA CEO Andrew Wilson suggested games need more “shared-world features” to break out, as if what people wanted from Dragon Age was a battle pass. BioWare was shrunk to one game and a skeleton crew. Today EA finished the job. Make no mistake: this is a “long time coming” story, and EA wrote every chapter of it.

And the timing stinks. Less than three months after a $55 billion buyout funded partly by $20 billion of debt, the first thing the new owners do is cut 400 people and kill the one RPG studio with real history. EA’s letter talks up sports, shooters and “fan engagement”. Translation: if it doesn’t sell Ultimate Team packs or battle passes, it’s on the chopping block.

Spare a thought for the 400. Most of them didn’t make Anthem, didn’t make the calls on Veilguard, and certainly didn’t take on $20 billion in debt. They’re the ones paying for it. Commander Shepard deserved better. So did they.

Was BioWare’s death inevitable, or did EA kill it? And which BioWare game is your all-timer? Tell us in the comments, or come mourn in the GetRekt Discord.

Sources

• Bloomberg (Jason Schreier): Electronic Arts to Cut 400 Jobs, Shut Down BioWare (21 Oct)
• Jason Schreier on X: the breaking report
• GamesBeat: EA announces 400 layoffs and shuts down BioWare (memo details, debt context)
• Gematsu: EA’s full letter to staff and BioWare’s statement
• Insider Gaming: EA shutting down BioWare, cutting 400 jobs
• Variety: EA layoffs, BioWare shutting down, Battlefront 3 in the works
• TheGamer: BioWare shutting down, Mass Effect cancelled
• GamesBeat: Andrew Wilson on Veilguard and “shared-world features” (2025)
• Kotaku: Veilguard’s trans and non-binary representation (2024)
• Them (via Yahoo): Veilguard’s character creator has customisable top surgery scars (Sept 2024)
• LevelUp: Veilguard review-bombed on Metacritic (2024)
• Newsweek: EA reveals Dragon Age: The Veilguard missed sales targets (2025)