Electronic Arts Shuts Down Bioware

Two months after it went private, Electronic Arts alerted employees about some major changes to the business. Among them, it’s closing the game studio Bioware, which made the Mass Effect series, Baldur’s Gate, and other once-popular titles.

“Over the past several months, we’ve taken a hard look at our business, how we operate, and what it will take to lead in this next era of interactive entertainment,” EA co-presidents Cam Weber and David Tinson wrote in a message to employees. “We’ve challenged assumptions, confronted hard realities, imagined new possibilities, and made deliberate choices in order to deliver exceptional experiences for our players and to drive sustained growth.”

EA will focus on three strategic priorities going forward: Focusing its teams on the franchises and communities that matter most, reaching more gamers across new platforms, markets, and business models, and transforming the business to create sports fans with new ways to engage with the teams, athletes and sports they love.

Bioware is a victim of that first priority. Battlefield 6 was a big enough success to warrant combining EA’s Respawn and DICE studios to collaborate on a future, unnamed project, and EA says it will continue to invest in Apex over the next few years. And it has high hopes for the upcoming Marvel’s Iron Man and the next Star Wars Jedi game. But Bioware was a small team that was only working on early development for a future Mass Effect title, and it wasn’t very far along.

“We’ve made the decision not to move forward with this development, which means we’re closing the studio and our Edmonton workspace,” the co-presidents explained. “BioWare is a legendary studio that helped define the role-playing genre, and we do not take this decision lightly.”

There’s no word on whether the remaining BioWare team can spin off from EA or work on future Mass Effect titles, but I’m guessing not.