The BioWare closure, announced Wednesday, takes the next Mass Effect down with it: the project was in early development, and EA says it is ending.

BioWare said so itself in a statement on social media, running through Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age, Mass Effect and Anthem, and EA chief studios officer Cam Weber and COO David Tinson put the same decision in a memo to staff. The memo comes with a restructuring that cuts about 400 jobs, roughly 3% of the 14,500 people EA last reported, according to Variety, and Bloomberg’s figure is that around 50 of those are at BioWare. The Edmonton office closes. Fifty is a small number for a studio with that résumé, and Bloomberg says EA already gutted BioWare last year after Dragon Age: The Veilguard missed sales expectations, so a lot of what’s being announced is a formality for a studio that had been shrinking for a while.

I called The Veilguard a return to form when it came out in 2024. EA’s spreadsheet apparently wasn’t reading me.

The timing is hard to miss. EA completed its $55 billion take-private on August 4, with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, and this is the first big move since, less than three months on. It reads like the July cuts at Xbox, 3,200 jobs and four divested studios, and like Ubisoft proposing to close RedLynx last week: a publisher pulls back to what already earns and lets the slow, expensive, story-heavy bets go first.

What EA is keeping is mostly shooters, sports and licensed franchises. Respawn and DICE are being put together on a future project the memo doesn’t name, which Variety says multiple sources identify as Star Wars: Battlefront 3; that’s reporting, not an EA announcement. Apex Legends, Battlefield, Marvel’s Iron Man and the next Star Wars Jedi game stay. The Sims’ Project Lotus is paused so the team can concentrate on Project Evergreen, and Skate gets a smaller team. None of the projects named in the coverage I read is an RPG.

Mass Effect without BioWare is a trademark with a fan base attached, and nothing I’ve read says what EA plans to do with either. That is heartbreaking as I am a huge fan of the series and from D1.

Sources

Variety, Electronic Arts Laying Off 3% of Employees in Studios Restructuring: BioWare Shutting Down, Respawn and DICE to Team on ‘Star Wars: Battlefront 3’, October 21, 2026
GamesIndustry.biz, BioWare is closing after 30 years, October 21, 2026
Bloomberg, Electronic Arts to cut 400 jobs, shut down BioWare, October 21, 2026 (figures as relayed by GamesIndustry.biz)