Some unfortunate news from Mass Effect and Dragon Age developer BioWare: the studios has announced that it'll be "eliminating approximately 50 roles", in an attempt to reshape the company for the better.
"In order to meet the needs of our upcoming projects, continue to hold ourselves to the highest standard of quality, and ensure BioWare can continue to thrive in an industry that’s rapidly evolving, we must shift towards a more agile and more focused studio. It will allow our developers to iterate quickly, unlock more creativity, and form a clear vision of what we’re building before development ramps up," writes general manager Gary McKay. BioWare is apparently working to find impacted employees new roles across the rest of EA's studios.
The blog post goes on to reiterate the developer's commitment to "exceptional story-driven single-player experiences", as it continues to work on both Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and the new Mass Effect. McKay also allays potential worries regarding those projects. "We are confident that we’ll have the time needed to ensure Dreadwolf reaches its full potential," he states.
As for Mass Effect, it does sound like things are still very early, relatively speaking. The game's still in pre-production, and is being spearheaded by a "core veteran team". It's going to be a while until we see that one, folks.
McKay concludes: "I want to thank everyone at BioWare—past and present—for making the studio what it is. I also want to thank our community for your continued support. We’re eager to reveal more about Dreadwolf, and we look forward to discovering what else the future holds."
Purely from a fan perspective, it does feel like we need to see something fairly substantial of Dreadwolf sooner rather than later. Reports in 2021 suggested that the fantasy RPG was targeting a 2023 launch, but that's obviously not happening at this point. We're yet to see the actual game in motion (outside of a leak back in February), despite it having been in development for around seven years or so. During that time, however, the project has undergone some serious overhauls.
Naturally, we wish all of the affected BioWare employees the very best. And, hopefully, we'll hear more about BioWare's ongoing work in the reasonably near future.
[source blog.bioware.com]
Comments 30
these two games i think are make or break for bioware
Cutting 50 jobs while having a Dragon Age and Mass Effect game in development. Doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence, and they’ll 100% end up outsourcing development work to devs that they can pay less and work harder in a country with lax labour laws.
Boy Anthem really messed up Bioware big time. I'm still rooting for them to come out of this alright but I can't deny that's it is difficult to remain optimistic.
To me, this sounds like it means one of two things:
1) Either... Dreadwolf is fairly far along and BioWare can afford to thin the development team as things slowly start wrapping up. Shedding employees is pretty normal as projects come to a close, based on contracts, etc.
2) Or... BioWare's still having trouble getting Dreadwolf to a point where it can push through to the final stages of development, and it's having to cut costs in order to prolong development, which never sounds healthy.
I agree with @trev666, I really do think Dreadwolf especially is make or break for BioWare. It's been in development for far, far too long, and if it doesn't land, I'd be surprised if BioWare is granted access to the necessary resources to create the new Mass Effect it's envisioned.
I think it'll be worth keeping a very close eye on BioWare from this point on.
This is never a good sign. Also, $10 that Dreadwolf doesn’t release until next gen at the earliest.
I would give anything to see BioWare have a Capcom like turn around. I just don't see it. The core people aren't even there anymore.
I loved Anthem but totally agree that it was the straw that broke the camel's back. And dreadwolf being in the oven for this long surely it's burning by now. I hope BioWare bounce back. They have been one of my favorite studios for a long time.
Removed - offensive remarks; user is banned
I honestly think if BioWare doesn't succeed in their next game EA is going to shut their doors down like they did with many other developers.
They buy a creative studio, force the creativity out of it to make their games more "mainstream", the game inevitably fails because it lacks personality and quality, EA blames the developer and shut their doors.
My question is, “Why?” Why do studios publish that they’re laying people off? It just seems like they’re asking for a negative feedback loop. It happens in the industry, I know that. We all know that, but doing this literally builds panic in people about future projects.
EA could buy them some more time for DreadWolf if they decided to do a Dragon Age Collection. It would help build up hype for Dragon Age 4 and get BioWare some goodwill going into this game after how bad Anthem was and how decent Andromeda was.
I think Laurian (I’m sure that’s misspelled) with BG3 is taking BioWare’s spot in the industry. Bioware made the old BG games BTW, so that’s happening with BW own legacy in a way.
@somnambulance
They probably figure the news will get out somehow if it's a decently sizable number of people affected like this anyway so they may as well control the message instead of leaving it up to a journalist with the scoop to establish the narrative.
@somnambulance Sometimes if there's no official announcement, news of the layoffs comes through journalists who tend to paint the situation in a negative light (and let's face it, layoffs are negative).
So in this case, BioWare probably thought that being relatively transparent was a good idea, as it lets the developer set the perspective.
@ShogunRok @Korgon Got it. Just overall the tone of their blogpost doesn’t give much confidence though. It really does seem that they’re trying to recoup costs now. The post wasn’t one that implied confidence to me.
I also echo the feeling that Dreadwolf will be the critical moment for BioWare, especially after the success of Larian essentially just made the pivot to effectively replace the BioWare as not just the studio making Baldur’s Gate, but as the reigning leader in the industry for branching narrative RPGs.
Larian is the new Bioware. The old Bioware guys left long ago. Mass Effect Trilogy will always be one of gaming's highest points, but it's time to pass the torch. I have little faith in ME4 making headlines for the right reasons.
@somnambulance Fully agreed, I think the blog post comes across as a bit... Like it's trying too hard to say "don't worry, everything's fine". Maybe we're just reading into it too much!
@gollumb82 100% agree with this comment. Larian are in an entirely different sport compared to modern Bioware. I hope the new ME is great too but not holding out hope either.
The old bioware is already dead, just like the old blizzard, what we have here is only the name without the people 😕
Dreadwolf seems to be in a state of development hell. The game was rebooted three times since 2017, and now still seems to be struggling to get completed. We haven't seen anything substantial from the game at all. It makes me think they are rebooting it yet again if you read between the lines.
@GuttyYZ
Yeah. I can see the current Bioware looking at Larian and BG3 thinking: How can Dragon Age possibly top this? Larian may be humble enough to dismiss the praise they are getting, but BG3 is the new benchmark for rpgs now. I say this as someone who isn't big on fantasy settings and huge rpg games (yet loving BG3).
Just give us a dragon age collection for all 3 games in a package. More interested in playing Origins and 2 again on PS5. Alot of bugs and crashes playing through back compat on xbox
I only remember the name Casey Hudson because he left, returned, left, returned then left again. Jokes aside, this is par for the course with EA laying off testers. They did the same with Apex Legends testers and clearly are confident in their games.
Place bets for faceless npcs in Dreadwolf and contorting character models?
"Lay Offs" could mean many things folks...hedoublematchsticks, we lay off @ my job all the time, and not because of $$ or what not. It's because lazy people/slackers/fake workers eventually get caught and tossed and someone new gets hired to replace them and ACTUALLY do the job... Or, as others have said, this foreshadows next gen, as it's reported 2027/28....so this gives them another 5 years to make the game...I really hope not, but it's what it is....
I have little hope for this...I believe it will come out to average at best reviews....which will then most likely get mass effect canceled....and I really want more mass effect
@ShogunRok I'd say the projects need quite a lot of time in development still. But the studio is running out of money, hence the attempt to reduce the spending in hopes that reorganisation will compensate for the loss.
I was looking forward to dreadwolf, but with the arrival of Baldurs Gate 3 on ps5, it looks like my choice of rpg has changed. Larian seems so much better at the moment, like the old days of bioware and obsidian, hopefully they stay independent so that we get more great RPGs on PlayStation.
I wonder if this includes the SWTOR developers that transfered to the new studio with the game.
If it did, it's not so bad as those kept their jobs. If not... yikes.
BioWare games are some of my favorites I hope all goes well for the company.
Making games is very cut throat. I think many gamers don’t seem to understand this. It’s also very expensive to make games. I think it’s important to support the developers who make the games you love, by buying those games at full price. I support Capcom and FROMSOFT this way, and I’m certainly not rich - I save.
It’s cringeworthy and entitled to refuse to buy anything until it’s in the bargain bin or heavily discounted.
This sort of behaviour literally creates a climate where there are less AAA games. It’s working against your own interests.
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