BioWare lays off 50 employees in shift to become more ‘agile’
The next Mass Effect is still in pre-production.
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What you need to know
We’ve learned some unfortunate news surrounding the future of BioWare.
BioWaresharedon Wednesday that the studio is evolving in order to become a “more agile and more focused studio” in the in gaming industry. As part of that process, 50 employees at BioWare are being laid off. BioWare and Electronic Arts are trying to find places for the affected employees at other Electronic Arts studios, but there are no guarantees how this will play out.
BioWare also shared that thenext Mass Effect gameis still in pre-production, while development onDragon Age: Dreadwolfis continuing so that it can be a game “worthy of theDragon Agename.”
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This news comes months afterElectronic Arts laid off hundreds of employeesas part of a broader restructuring. According to a report fromVentureBeat, this move also came as Electronic Arts has decided to not to continue working with unionized quality assurance employees at Keywords.Keywords provides support for numerous games across multiple disciplines, with employees who had been helping on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf for some time unionizing back in June 2022.
Analysis: Layoffs suck, and Mass Effect is still far off
These layoffs are disappointing to learn about. I can certainly understand a studio deciding to become more agile and flexible, something that’s often not possible as a larger team, but the fact is making that decision has a human cost.Dragon Age: Dreadwolf’s release timing will probably not be affected by this move all too much, but the fact the next Mass Effect isstillin pre-production is something of an eyebrow raiser to me. I don’t expect we’ll see that game before 2026 now, and I wouldn’t rule out it launching even further off than that.
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Samuel Tolbert is a freelance writer covering gaming news, previews, reviews, interviews and different aspects of the gaming industry, specifically focusing on Xbox and PC gaming on Windows Central. You can find him on Twitter@SamuelTolbert.
