More sad times, folks, as EA is closing BioWare and cancelling the next Mass Effect, bringing an end to one of gaming’s most recognisable studios after more than three decades. The closure is part of wider cuts which will reportedly cost around 400 people their jobs across the publisher.
The news is now official, with EA publishing the announcement sent to employees by executives Cam Weber and David Tinson. which was still in early development.
According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, roughly 50 of the affected jobs are at BioWare. The overall cuts represent around 3% of EA’s workforce, which gives you some idea of just how bloated EA has become over the years.
That BioWare figure caught me off guard. It’s a reminder of how much the studio had already shrunk, although a small team makes more sense when its next game is still so early in development. Back in January 2025, BioWare said it was concentrating on Mass Effect, with a core team led by veterans of the original trilogy while other staff moved to projects elsewhere at EA.
BioWare has also acknowledged its closure, thanking the developers and players who helped shape its games. Founded in 1995 and acquired by EA in 2007, its history includes Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Whatever you think of its more recent work, that’s a considerable chunk of RPG history. Mass Effect alone was a massive part of my formative gaming years on the Xbox 360, where the team delivered an entire epic trilogy where the highlight was decking a reporter in the face. Good times.
I’ll be the first to say that BioWare hasn’t felt like the same studio for years, and its recent output has not been the studio’s best, either. In other words, it’s not hugely surprising that BioWare would be the first on the cutting block. But that doesn’t make it any less hard to see the studio shutting down.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard was its last major release and a substantial commercial disappointment, at least according to EA’s own expectations. EA reported around 1.5 million players during its launch quarter, nearly 50% below what it wanted.
The wider cuts also affect Skate developer Full Circle, which will continue with a smaller team. EA says it needs to work on keeping players engaged over the longer term. I enjoyed parts of Skate, so I’m glad development is continuing, but I’m not convinced the series was a particularly good fit for the live-service treatment. It also felt far too corporate-clean for its own good. And they aren’t wrong about player retention, because I haven’t gone back to it since first writing a review/preview of it.
Meanwhile, development on The Sims’ Project Lotus is being paused while Project Evergreen takes priority. GamesBeat also reports significant cuts affecting The Sims and Battlefield teams. The latter is particularly baffling when EA describes Battlefield 6 as a success in the same announcement. Successful, you say? Meh. Job cuts anyway.
There’s also an interesting development concerning DICE and Respawn. EA itself confirms that “we’ll be bringing together our Respawn and DICE studios to collaborate on a future project”, without naming the game.
That lines up rather neatly with the Battlefront 3 rumours I covered earlier this week, including Bulkhead CEO Joe Brammer saying he’d heard those two studios were working on it. Insider Gaming is now also reporting that the collaboration is a new Battlefront.
Marvel’s Iron Man and the next Star Wars Jedi remain in development, alongside continued investment in Apex Legends. EA also has a new Fight Night in pre-production and an open-world American football project called Project Gridiron.
All of this follows EA’s $55 billion buyout, led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Bloomberg reports that the deal left approximately $18 billion of debt on EA’s books. EA hasn’t explicitly linked today’s cuts to servicing that debt, but I find it difficult to believe that humungous financial pressure isn’t a major factor.
And I have a feeling there will be a lot moe layoffs at EA in the future.
