EA Closes BioWare After 31 Years and Cancels the Next Mass Effect

Electronic Arts will close BioWare, the Edmonton studio that built its name on Mass Effect and Dragon Age, and cancel the next Mass Effect game, the publisher told employees on Wednesday, ending a run of more than 30 years.

What EA told staff

In a letter titled Building EA's Next Chapter, chief studios officer Cam Weber and chief operating officer David Tinson said a small team at BioWare had been working on early development for Mass Effect. "We've made the decision not to move forward with this development, which means we're closing the studio and our Edmonton workspace," the letter said. It called BioWare a legendary studio that helped define the role playing genre and said the decision was not taken lightly.

BioWare confirmed the news in its own statement on Wednesday. "For more than 30 years, BioWare has been more than a studio. It has been a home for storytellers, developers, and the players who brought our worlds to life," the studio said. "Now, after more than three decades of shared adventures, BioWare is closing and early development on the next Mass Effect project is ending."

About 400 EA employees will lose their jobs, roughly 3 percent of the company's staff, including about 50 at BioWare, Bloomberg reported. EA said it will help affected employees look for other roles inside the company.

What survives the cuts

EA said it will keep building Marvel's Iron Man and the next Star Wars Jedi game, and that its Respawn and DICE studios will work together on a new Star Wars shooter. It will invest heavily in Apex Legends and lean on Battlefield 6, which it called a great success, and on its sports games. The company is pausing a Sims project called Project Lotus to give more time to another Sims project, Project Evergreen, and it is restructuring the studio behind the game skate. into a smaller team.

The closure topped the United States trending list on X on Wednesday as players and former developers posted tributes.

A studio that defined a genre

BioWare was founded on February 1, 1995, in Edmonton, Alberta, by doctors Greg Zeschuk, Ray Muzyka and Augustine Yip. Its games include Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Mass Effect and Dragon Age. EA bought the studio in 2007.

The later years were harder. Mass Effect: Andromeda drew mixed reviews in 2017, the online game Anthem failed in 2019, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard reached 1.5 million players after its release in October 2024, about 50 percent below what EA expected. Staff cuts followed, and by early 2025 the studio was down to fewer than 100 people, all of them working on Mass Effect.

The next Mass Effect was first teased on December 10, 2020. It never got a title or a release date.

The deal behind the cuts

EA went private in August in a $55 billion buyout led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund with Silver Lake and Affinity Partners. The deal closed on August 4, 2026, and left EA with about $18 billion in debt. The new owners promised about $700 million in annual cost savings, and the cuts announced on Wednesday are part of that plan. EA did not say what happens to the Mass Effect television series in development at Amazon.