EA Is Closing BioWare, and the Next Mass Effect Is Canceled

Electronic Arts is closing BioWare, the Edmonton studio behind Mass Effect and Dragon Age, canceling the next Mass Effect game and cutting roughly 400 jobs across the company.

The decision was announced to staff on Wednesday in a letter from chief operating officer David Tinson and chief studios officer Cam Weber, who wrote that EA had "taken a hard look at our business" in recent months. About 400 roles are being eliminated, roughly 3 percent of EA's workforce, including about 50 at BioWare, according to Bloomberg. EA says it will help affected employees explore other opportunities within the company.

The next Mass Effect was still in early development with a small team. First teased in December 2020, it had been BioWare's sole project since early 2025. "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 reads. "BioWare is a legendary studio that helped define the role-playing genre, and we do not take this decision lightly."

BioWare confirmed the closure in its own statement to fans. "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."

BioWare is the largest cut in a wider restructuring. EA is pausing development on a Sims game codenamed Project Lotus and shifting that team to a different franchise project, Project Evergreen, and the studio behind Skate is being restructured into a smaller team. The publisher says it will concentrate on its proven franchises — sports titles, Apex Legends, Battlefield — and a smaller set of big action-adventure games, including the next Star Wars Jedi title and Marvel's Iron Man. Respawn and DICE are also reported to be co-developing a new Star Wars shooter.

The closure comes two months after EA was taken private in a $55 billion buyout led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners. The deal added roughly $18 billion in debt, and EA has told investors it expects to save up to $700 million, in part by trimming research and development spending.

BioWare's final years were difficult. Dragon Age: The Veilguard, released in October 2024, reached 1.5 million players — about half of what EA expected — and layoffs in 2025 reduced the studio to fewer than 100 people, down from a peak of more than 400. Anthem, the studio's 2019 live-service game, had failed commercially years earlier.

Founded in Edmonton in 1995 and acquired by EA in 2007, BioWare built its reputation on Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights before defining the modern story-driven RPG with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the Mass Effect trilogy, and Dragon Age.

So here's the question: for more than 30 years, BioWare's games asked you to make the choices and live with them. Now the studio is gone, and Mass Effect ends mid-story. How are you feeling about it — is this just the business in 2026, or did EA just close a studio that still had one more great game in it?