BioWare Closing After 30 Years, Mass Effect Is Dead

BioWare is closing after more than 30 years, and early development on the next Mass Effect is ending with it, according to a statement the studio posted today. The statement says the team’s focus right now is on the developers who worked on its games and on supporting one another through the transition, and it lists Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Anthem as the studio’s body of work. BioWare was founded in 1995 and is based in Edmonton, Alberta, and Electronic Arts acquired it in 2007 for $775 million, the same year the original Mass Effect released. Its last game was Dragon Age: The Veilguard on October 31, 2024.

Much of the studio was already gone before today, going back to the studio update BioWare shared in January 2025 that moved several employees to other EA teams and left a core group working on the next Mass Effect under original trilogy veterans Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, and Parrish Ley. I said at the time that the statement felt intentionally vague about layoffs, and when Anthem’s shutdown was announced that July, I noted that the January layoffs had gutted much of the studio. As recently as N7 Day last November, Gamble said the next Mass Effect was still in development with the team focused exclusively on it, and that EA and BioWare remained committed to the franchise.

All of this comes less than three months after EA’s $55 billion buyout by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners closed on August 4, taking the company private with no layoffs or studio changes announced alongside it. “There is nothing easy about writing those words,” BioWare’s statement reads. “Our focus right now is on our incredibly talented team who put their hearts into these games, and supporting one another through this transition.” The studio closed the statement by thanking players for being the most meaningful part of its story.