As Varric might say, “Well, S**t”.

Oh dear. Not hugely surprising, but very sad news. They took way too long making the next Mass Effect, and after the Dragon Age stumble (I liked it, but many didn't and it didn't sell that well), I guess it was bound to happen.

Completely unsurprising after the buyout.

If you like Mass Effect, check out Exodus from a bunch of former Bioware devs.

Just got easier to completely boycott and ignore EA!!!

The most prominent victim of the ongoing shutdown phase?

Anyone check on @ShogunRok I feel like he’s going to feel this one? 😩

It. Just. Never. Ends. 😝

Rest in peace Bioware. You had your downs, sure...but you also had some very high ups. Mass Effect is still the best trilogy in gaming to me.

Well damn. I suppose this isn't shocking but well damn.

Damn shame. Bioware used to be my favourite developer, and I loved all their games from Baldur's Gate to Mass Effect 2. After that I wasn't a big fan, and I disliked each release more than the last so I'm not shocked this happened, but a shame nonetheless. Hope the people can find work.

With a roaring success like Veilguard under their belts, I am completely shocked that this happened.

Should have realized this was happening when there was total radio silence on the next ME game.

@AdamNovice was it.

I already expected it but I truly mourn this franchise, to me the OG trilogy is the greatest sci-fi story I’ve ever seen in any medium, I even liked Andromeda for what it was.
RIP Mass Effect 🫡

I'm not in the least bit surprised. But I'm still sad. The Mass Effect trilogy stands as one of the greatest achievements in game development. They'll (continue to) be missed.

I wish all of those going out into the job market within this industry the very best of luck.

The only thing that surprises me about this post buyout is that there isn’t already an oil drilling simulator announced by Maxis.

sony should pick up the company..

I hate to see the big name studios being shut down.
Hope those effected find jobs soon.

@dskatter
I wish it was just Veilguard, but they also had Andromeda and Anthem too.
Three AAA flops back to back.

I'm honestly surprised BioWare lasted this long since the 8th gen started. They haven't had a single game that reached mass cultural relevance since maybe Dragon Age Inquisition? Only closest one would be Anthem, but obviously not for good reasons

I mean I saw it coming but I wanted to have some hope. damn.

@get2sammyb I was gonna say that Bioware were barely a shell of what they once were, largely because of the failures of Veilguard and Anthem before that. As much as it's easy for me to hate on EA some more, it's been a long time since Knights of the old Republic and even the Mass Effect trilogy

@johnedwin Sony’s got enough albatrosses around their collective neck at the moment, don’t they?

I'm Commander Shepard and this is not my favorite news on the Citadel.

This sucks to hear, they did such a great job with a lot of their older games, especially Mass Effect and Dragon Age, and I thought the leaked footage for the Iron Man title they were working on looked really neat, even more unique then some other Marvel releases.

@CielloArc Failguard was just the most recent body blow, but yeah…the writing was on the wall for a LONG time.

Tragic for such a legendary studio to go out with Veilguard. Peak Bioware will be sorely missed

I hoped I would never see this happen.
Bioware will stay in my heart for creating one of the best games I've played... ever!
(Jade Empire, Kotor, Mass Effect, Dragon Age)

@LiamCroft So I read the Bloomberg article you linked to at the end, so thanks for that.👍

“ EA went private in August following a $55 billion leveraged buyout led by Saudi Arabia’s investment fund, which placed around $18 billion in debt on EA’s books. Earlier this year, the company told investors it had a plan to save up to $700 million in part by cutting research and development costs. “

EA & PIF, a match made somewhere other than heaven. 😝

Very sad. One of the best RPG studios out there. The video game industry is really brutal.

Bioware games were the only games I still cared about from EA. I will never buy another game of their ever again. Not that that is hard because like I said I only wanted big budget RPG's like Mass Effect but still now it's even easier.

Dang, there it is. Pour one out…

Just comes to show that no matter what villainy Sony and Microsoft do, you can’t beat the original and most evil company in all of gaming……

EA

Well EA did not like what they was seeing with that new mass effect 👀

@rjejr That point is in there now, I was still updating the article with more info.

Even though I expected this once the Saudis took over and the BioWare I loved was long gone, this is very upsetting news. I hope those who lost their jobs find work soon.

Well that's sad news. Although I don't like scifi very much, Mass Effect 2 is one of the best games I've ever played.

Unfortunately this was inevitable. They never recovered from Anthem

“A new instalment in The Sims has been cancelled, and the team working on Skate has been downsized.”

Already knew that Skate was doing terrible, but I’m surprised they aren’t working on a new sims game. I suppose they figure that the sims fans are dumb enough to keep on buying DLC for a old game, so why make a new one when we can keep milking them on this old one🤔

Whether people are surprised by this or not, this is no ‘mere’ dev closure (I say that meaning no offence to any of the other dev teams shuttered these last few years)… BioWare may well be a shell of their former selves but it’s still BioWare. Devastating news!

There's no Bioware without Casey Hudson, simple as that. Mass Effect will be missed.

I was hoping a new Mass Effect might be just enough to save the studio but this sad news is hardly shocking with what EA has become. If they are so eager to cut costs maybe they will be willing to sell off the IP to someone else who could do something good with it. I still think it is one of the best realised Sci-fi settings in gaming.

It is what it is. You knew this would eventually happen to them. And there wasn't any real reason for someone to try to pick them up as they(Bioware) really only exist in name at this point it seems. Always sucks for people to lose their jobs though.

Let’s not pretend that BioWare was anything like it used to be in its heyday. Not happy news, for sure, but so foreseeable as to barely count as news at all.

We all knew this was going to happen eventually since their latest games have been crap but I didn’t expect it to be so soon.

The Mass Effect trilogy was awesome, too bad we did not get anything like it from them again.

Not a developer I was a particular fan of (Dragon Age: Origins was fun, though), and they didn't seem to be doing well recently, but damn, that's a big one to be shut down.

3 terrible games in a row. After what they did to Dragon Age, I didn't want anymore Mass Effect. It was inevitable but EA refuses to sell off their unused IP's. Glen Schofield tried for years to buy Dead Space and I'm sure someone will try to buy the Bioware IP's but EA will refuse. Companies should be required to sell IP's they aren't using.

Andromeda - > Anthem -> Veilguard

It was a miracle they were still alive albeit on life support.

Jared Kushner is the absolute worst.

Great job Micro$lop, spend 70 billion for bunch of dev studios and shut them all down. So typical...

ohh wait 🤦

Buy, use, close. This is EA's business plan playing out exactly how it was predicted years and years and years ago.

Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3 are some of my favourite games so this is a shame. I doubt EA will properly utilise the IP either.

Luckily Exodus is coming out next year which looks great.

writing was on the wall for some time. this news should surprise nobody who was paying attention. what a disaster in the making this has been for the past 10 years, but it is exactly what the saudi's had in mind when they purchased EA. they will go all in on sports games now. but honestly, the DNA was lost long ago so its not like the studio that made the original ME games was even a thing at this point. most of the staff had already left their positions or were looking for work elsewhere, that's how dire things had become.

Bioware was rendered a vegetable 10 years ago ... they just unplugged the life support. Still sad to see Mass Effect officially die, but at least we didn't get the Weekend at Bernies version of Mass Effect.

@Chesterpl this is EA 😅

They were never going to give Bioware the money or creative freedom to make ME5 a good game. Probably for the best to free the IP for another studio. Maybe it can get a Larian style reboot like BG.

Meanwhile the CEO took home, what was it, an extra $8m? Screw these people killing the hobby we love. This is devastating.

@LiamCroft Hey thanks for letting me know and not making me look like an idiot after you updated it. Going to go edit, or delete, my post now. 👍

Not surprised.

This closing Bioware is far different than the Bioware who gave us the ME Trilogy. These people gave us Veilguard.

As Geralt would say, so long.

Not a surprise, sadly.

There are many examples of studios undergoing major shifts in leadership, staffing or structure and keeping things going strong. The Bioware of the last decade was not one of them.

Each release made it clearer and clearer that Bioware as we knew it was already dead. And now it's finally being laid to rest.

Best wishes to the individual developers affected and I hope they find their feet.

Well, that sucks...Guess that means there won't ever be any shot of revisiting Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, then...

(...As if anybody was going to be missing THAT game...)

This is devasting. Mass Effect was the star wars for consoles frfr.

@Bobarino sad but I secretly hope that those devs were connected enough to create perhaps 4,5 indie studios and that perhaps this EA collapse can be turned into lemonade...

The Saudi sale foullout will only continue. EA is already defaulting on the debt they encurred over it.

What a bunch of morons that leadership cesspool is.

As far as I'm concerned Bioware has been shut down for many years already.

For all the amazing IPs lost

I hope EA will licence out the mass effect IP rather than do nothing with it

Come on Sony your chance to make it right is right now

Wonder if they will start selling off dormant IPs? Would love to see someone buy the burnout up and do.something with it

@psmr This BioWare was basically a skinwalker wearing the BioWare name, sadly.

Will not be missed after Veilguard and Andromeda

@dskatter I get you… but this still feels particularly sore for me regardless of what has transpired since EA bought them. This one tops the Bluepoint closure as the worst one for me personally.

lots of great games

Baldurs gate, 2
neverwinter nights
KOTOR
mass efect 1,2,3
dragon age origins, 2, inquisition

This Bioware is not the same Bioware that created DA origins or the mass effect trilogy. Vast majority of those talented developers are long gone.

The developers there now are the kind that produce veilguard. While its not great to see people losing their jobs, they dont hold a candle to the old devs.

So overall we are not going to miss out on any future great games with current year bioware at the helm.

Oh wow, they made it SO MUCH easier to ignore them as a company now, that was the last thing they had that I gave a crap about.

What an absolute joke of a company, hope it loses Douche-ner a lot of stacks, ***** chump.

Thanks Saudi Arabia. Thanks Jared Kushner. You scum f$#ks!!

It's a bummer, but I feel like ME and Bioware has been on it's last legs for a decade. I loved the original ME trilogy but nothing they've done since has come close to that level of quality IMO.

RIP.

A real shame. I wonder if we’ll see employee numbers at nearby Arcanaut Studios rise.

This is partly the liquidity crisis, and the mess in the middle east. There's a lot higher bar to a worthwhile investment now, and what counts as profitable than there was ten years ago.

Lots of companies in lots of industries are going to turn turtle

You know, for once, I’m not going to blame EA. They gave them ample money and time to create new games in the series and they failed miserably. How many times did Casey Hudson leave then be re-hired to turn their fortunes around? It hardly struck you as a studio that was well managed.

its a shame the first 3 mass effect games were amazing , the last mass effect game wasn't awful , it just wasn't a mass effect game, i never played dragon age , i think i played the older one and it wasn't bad. but this isn't the bioware every one fell in love with , died many years ago.

now does that mean they will turn off multiplayer for mass effect 3 and andromeda ?

I know this one was coming but it still hurts regardless. RIP to the devs who gave me some of the most important games of my early gaming years

@Blaze215 yep. The Bioware that I loved was already dead, clearly. It still feels a little sad to see it stated officially though. Luckily it looks like a few other devs are picking up the torch to fill the Mass Effect slot, but I don't know that anything feels quite like how Dragon Age did , especially origins.

@psmr Fair, in my mind BioWare died years ago. This was just having the life support removed.

But I get how you feel.

Sad but after the monstrosity that was Vanguard the writing was on the wall! The studio heads of western studios really need to wake up! because this will keep happening. Bioware was one of my favorite studios at one point.

Hopefully the Expanse game and Exodus are great games and sell well. Would love for another studio to fill the void.

So the vegetable has been finally plugged out.

@Alpine

CoD: Vanguard wasn't developed by Bioware.

Brutal. A once great dev.

@BusyOlf
He had been rehired exactly one time.

@Frank90 Holy trinity of Bioware were Ray Muzyka,Greg Zeschuk and James Ohlen. Love Casey but he is not even close to OG guys.

Very unfortunate but in my eyes the industry does need a good cleanse and that is putting all of these reptitive, rinse and repeat games in the bin to start anew and that is including games like fortnite, roblox, call of duty, fifa and so on.

Not mass effect 😔

I guess we say sad news to say sad news, but like Bioware literally haven't done anything good in over10 years so like what are we even missing?

@BusyOlf it's wild to think the last successful thing they made was in 2014. That's A LOT of time to try and make games worth playing.

The writing has been on the wall for this one for awhile. Three failed games in a row will do this to ya.

Thanks Veilguard and Andromeda.

But I thought the player count for the latest "dragon age" was such a sign of success! *sarc

The good blokes that made EA buy that studio left years ago.

Bye-oware... Too soon? I mean it was pretty much on life support after ME Andromeda and Anthem.

They made some incredible games from 2007-2012, but it's been a LONG time since they've made anything near the quality of those titles. Dragon Age: Origins is one of the most memorable RPGs of my lifetime, and it's a shame they didn't continue the series in that direction. I didn't play the Mass Effect games until I played the Legendary editions in 2021, and it was one of the best video game experiences I've ever had. Hopefully everybody left who is effected by this lands on their feet. Maybe some day, a studio will pry the Dragon Age IP from EA's cold, lifeless hands and make a spiritual successor to Origins...

Maybe EA will sell some IP like Wing Commander, Ultima, Dead Space, Dragon Age and Mass Effect.

Man, imagine if Larian owned Mass Effect.

Bartender, a round of CHUD Lites for my men!

Not surprised but still disappointing. BioWare has been on the ropes for a while and it was a shadow of its former self. Hard to be a good rpg studio when your writing staff is god awful at their job

What happens when investors infect the gaming industry EA will be gone and they'll change it to something else soon but it will be only

Battlefield
FC football
Sims 4
Apex legends
Madden and college footbak

Mothwrfuckers

I wonder how much the hate towards Veilguard had to do with this.

But but but wasn't Veilguard a 10/10

Sadly not surprising but still, another legend bites the dust...🥀
Wish the best for all who lost their jobs.

And after ruining the reputation and profitability of one studio, Andrew Busche will continue to fail upwards at a different studio, where he will create the equivalent of Taash 2.0 and the troon cycle will repeat again

Damn Bioware in their prime were amazing. Sad to see another studio go and no doubt something to do as result of their recent buyout.

EA could turn in the next Microsoft with studios being "streamlined" across the board.

@allahver_fist "We may be dead... but at least we owned the chuds, right!?"

Bioware was really just a name with nothing back it up at this point, but it's still sad to see them go as a big fan of KOTOR, Jade Empire and the Mass Effect trilogy. Back then they were really spectacular.

Zero love for EA but they did this to themselves and get no sympathy from me. Multiple failed games in succession. The team wasn't thr same as the one that last madr something good, they had more rope than most get and they hung themselves with it. But also, whilst we're here, screw EA.

I legit was hoping I'd see Mass Effect 4 some day. This is sad. Someone needs to get that IP.

EA strikes again. I wish i could say i was surprised, but i'm not.

Considering the shuttered studios and job losses in the games industry over past few years, it’s a far from secure job, if there is such a thing nowadays. The rate these job losses keep going, I’m surprised there’s many developers/studios left. Such a sad state of affairs!

Hope all the affected people get another job soon.

@johnedwin
EA won't sell it if they have already shut it down.
They have what they want, Biowares IPs

@Veritas7Ax EA wont sell it, they'l sit on it like all the other long dormant franchises they have hidden up their butt.

The only Bioware games that i played was Jade Empire which i really enjoyed and Mass Effect 1 which i didn't enjoyed.

So...RIP Bioware 🥀 . I hope those 400 devs can find a new job asap.

As for EA, they've been pretty irrelevant for me since 2017/18? I love Titanfall 2 and Mirror's Edge Catalyst but EA doesn't care about those IP anymore. Their new venture under the Arabs seems doesn't look like it will make EA great again 🫤

All of the people who made it great were long gone. It's a sad day, though. The cancelation of the next Mass Effect is a gut punch.

ea had had the ultima ip for 30 plus years and done nothing with it

but due to copyright laws the creator of ultima can reclaim his original games and make remasters if he chooses to.

Sad to see, this studio once made (one of?) the best trilogies in gaming. Haven’t made anything great in 14 years and Andromeda and Veilguard were just mediocre. This was a matter of time sadly.

I dislike EA soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo MUCH!!!!!!

The fact that their latest projects were the weakest Mass Effect title and the most forgettable Dragon Age title makes this all the more depressing.....

Love the ME trilogy, but this had to happen. Yet another cautionary tale of western game development's problems over the past 15 years. Talentless ideologues allowed into the industry to subvert and destroy once great IPs. Thankfully, more studios are going under in the coming months and years and we will see a return to common sense.

Such a terrible piece of news.
Thank you for single handedly bringing me into the western RPG space with DA:Origins and the Mass Effect trilogy. You were the gateway to broaden my gaming palette.

You gave us so many hours of great escapism...I hope everyone involved and their families can transition to a new phase without struggles.

Honestly, it's sad to say, but after the playable lecture of Veilguard, this was deserved. Hopefully most of the talented devs are either scooped up quickly or even cooler, form their own new studio with some private investors and create a true Dragon Age sequel with the heart of recent DawnWalker AA love.

Sometimes the world just makes sense. Get more of these skinwalkers posing as legacy studios out of the industry.

@get2sammyb I felt it was more after Andromeda was released. I never felt confident again in BioWare after that.

I am so sad about this. I love Mass Effect and Dragon Age. This was pretty clearly coming for a while, but it is still a sad day for gaming.

I hope all impacted find jobs soon. And for us, less importantly, I hope Exodus or some other game scratches that ME itch.

Thanks for the memories. I will always be fond of Baldur’s gate , KOTOR and Mass Effect. What a run.

Shocked but not surprised

Well, the ideologues at Bioware achieved their goal of destroying the games we love, and taking them away from us.

Unfortunately for them, they took themselves down with it.

They can drop down and do ten push ups as a heartfelt apology to the innocent staff who are also sending their CV’s to Mac D.

Meanwhile we win due to other developers stepping up and filling the void. No shortage of good rpgs recently.

Mohammed bin Salman why u killed our loved Bioware? you've got no shame?

i know it’s been said a hundred times already but the mass effect trilogy was one of the greatest moments in gaming and i’m so happy it exists

@Blauwe_Chimay mass effect 2 is the peak of the series. very fun game from start to finish!

The Mass Effect Trilogy. What a series! Up with the greatest trilogy's of all time. Star Wars, the first 3 series of the Simpsons, Tyson fury Vs Deontay Wilder, Ham egg and chips.

It's just unfortunate the indoctrinated EA had a chat with the star child and decided to pick the destroy option.

Bioware was probably on borrowed time at this point, but closing the studio that makes their queer friendly games after being bought out by the Saudis and inherit billions in debt is not a good look. Canceling The Sims is also pretty telling, considering that is easily one of EA's strongest brands.

They should’ve pulled a bharv after releasing Failguard.