EA Is Shutting Down BioWare

The rest of EA’s cuts

BioWare is the biggest piece of a restructuring that will lay off about 3% of EA’s global workforce. EA last reported 14,500 employees, which puts the cuts at roughly 400 people. It is the company’s first major move since going private this summer, and EA says it will help affected staff look for other roles inside the company.

The same memo touches several other teams:

The Sims: EA is pausing development on “Project Lotus” so the team can focus on “Project Evergreen.”

Skate: the studio is being reshaped into a smaller team working to a fixed roadmap.

Respawn and DICE: the two studios will work together on a project the memo doesn’t name. Multiple sources told Variety it is Star Wars: Battlefront 3 for Lucasfilm.

So on the same day EA closed its RPG studio, it put two of its shooter studios on a new Star Wars multiplayer game.

How BioWare got here

The closure finishes a decline that started with Dragon Age: The Veilguard in October 2024. EA said the game fell short of its sales expectations, and one report put it at about half of the internal target.

In January 2025, general manager Gary McKay announced BioWare would downsize. Some developers moved to other EA teams, many longtime Dragon Age staff were laid off, and a core group stayed on Mass Effect under original trilogy veterans Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, and Parrish Ley. By this summer, reporting put BioWare at fewer than 100 people, down from more than 400 at its peak, with every one of them on that single game.

Then EA changed hands. A $55 billion leveraged buyout led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, with Silver Lake and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners, took the company private this summer. Andrew Wilson stayed CEO and promoted Cam Weber, who had run EA Sports, to oversee every EA studio. Former BioWare lead writer Trick Weekes was among those who predicted the new EA would narrow its focus to its biggest franchises. In August, insider Mike Straw claimed EA was looking to cut $700 million in annual spending and that BioWare could be sold or closed.

The server shutdowns came first. Anthem went offline for good on January 12, 2026, and Dragon Age: Inquisition’s co-op multiplayer followed on April 28 after 12 years.

What happens to the games

The next Mass Effect is dead. BioWare teased it in December 2020, and it was still in pre-production nearly six years later when EA cancelled it.

Dragon Age was already dormant. Mark Darrah, who spent 23 years at BioWare and produced the series, said this summer he didn’t know who at the studio could even pitch another one. He also pointed out that almost nobody outside BioWare understands the Aurora engine the early games run on, which makes a remaster of Origins hard for any other team to take on. With the studio gone, Veilguard won’t get the DLC that was never announced in the first place.

The existing catalog should stay playable. Mass Effect Legendary Edition, the Dragon Age games, and KOTOR are single-player releases, though EA hasn’t said anything about storefront listings or future patches. Star Wars: The Old Republic has been run by Broadsword since 2023, so it should be insulated, but nobody has confirmed that yet.

The biggest open question is the IP. EA didn’t say whether it will keep Mass Effect and Dragon Age on a shelf, give them to another internal studio, or sell them. Darrah’s take is that EA now works like “a hedge fund with a video game hobby.” Former Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider has said he’d return to the series only if it were made outside EA. Whether either franchise gets that chance is up to the new owners.