Electronic Arts (EA) has unceremoniously shut down Canadian studio BioWare, and with said closure, the cancellation of an upcoming Mass Effect game. It was part of a wider layoff, which saw 400 staffers losing their jobs. The obvious contributing factor was the huge debt accrued as a result of the publisher’s leveraged buyout, but in the case of BioWare specifically, there was another contributing factor – the prioritisation of an upcoming Star Wars Battlefront title.
Bloomberg previously reported that in closing BioWare, EA will continue to invest in sports games, Apex Legends, and action-adventure projects. Part of that latter category was an upcoming Star Wars title, with mention of Respawn Entertainment and DICE working on a new project that is believed to be a new Star Wars Battlefront entry. More recently, the outlet cites sources that claim EA was recently offered the opportunity to make such a game by Walt Disney’s Lucasfilm.
Company execs decided that, with the publisher’s current debt situation, it could not simultaneously fund two projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars each. Because of this, the upcoming Mass Effect title was canned in favour of a new Star Wars Battlefront game, as it is deemed the safer option of the two. This is despite the fact that the former was already in early development when its studio was canned, while the latter has not even begun development yet.
Another factor in the closure of BioWare may be corporate politics. The report mentions the publisher shuffling its executive ranks, promoting EA Sports veterans David Tinson and Cam Weber while sidelining Laura Miele, who was an advocate for both BioWare and Mass Effect. It lines up with the company’s focus in ball and gun games, with the two aforementioned veterans of the ball half of the publisher being the ones to announce the layoff of 400 employees, including BioWare’s remaining 50.
(Source: Bloomberg)
