Electronic Arts is closing BioWare, the Edmonton studio behind Mass Effect and Dragon Age, after 31 years, ending early development of a new Mass Effect game.
EA said a small team at BioWare had been working on early development for Mass Effect. The company published the announcement on its website as a message shared with employees.
In its statement, EA said: “We’ve made the decision not to move forward with this development, which means we’re closing the studio and our Edmonton workspace.”
The statement also said: “BioWare is a legendary studio that helped define the role-playing genre, and we do not take this decision lightly.”
From Baldur’s Gate to Veilguard
BioWare was founded in 1995 and had its first big success with Baldur’s Gate in 1998, BBC News reported. Baldur’s Gate was a fantasy role-playing game based on Dungeons & Dragons. The studio also made Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in 2003, as well as the Mass Effect trilogy and the Dragon Age games.
Mass Effect is a science fiction role-playing series built around the character Commander Shepard, whom players can choose to play as a man or a woman. Players who chose a female Shepard heard Jennifer Hale’s voice throughout the trilogy. Dragon Age is a fantasy role-playing series.
The studio’s more recent run was harder. Anthem, an online multiplayer action game released in 2019, disappointed fans and critics, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard received lukewarm reviews in 2024. BioWare’s last two releases missed sales expectations, according to the BBC.
EA’s Wider Restructure
The closure is part of wider changes at EA, which has cut 400 jobs across the business, BBC News reported. It comes months after EA was bought for $55bn by a Saudi Arabia-led group of investors, a deal in which the company took on $20bn of debt.
EA also said it was pausing development on “Project Lotus” for The Sims, its long-running life simulation series, to focus on “Project Evergreen”.
“BioWare Lives On”
“Not a great day in the games industry,” Michał Nowakowski, co-CEO of CD Projekt Red, the Polish studio behind The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077, wrote, according to BBC News.
“BioWare lives on. Mass Effect lives on. We live on,” Hale said in an Instagram livestream, the BBC reported.
In Canada, Avi Lewis, leader of the New Democratic Party, a left-leaning federal party, called on the federal government to help BioWare’s developers buy the studio and run it themselves, PC Gamer reported.
He wrote on social media: “The developers at BioWare know how to run the studio. They know how to make the games we all love.”
What EA Keeps Building
EA said it is continuing with Marvel’s Iron Man and the next Star Wars Jedi game, and is bringing its Respawn and DICE studios together on a future project. Respawn made the Star Wars Jedi games and Apex Legends, and DICE makes the Battlefield series.
EA also named “Project Gridiron”, a social-first American football project, and a return of Fight Night, in pre-production.
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Sources: Electronic Arts, “Building EA’s Next Chapter”, October 2026 (https://www.ea.com/news/building-eas-next-chapter); BBC News, “BioWare: Mass Effect and Dragon Age video game studio to close”, 22 October 2026 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq8jzrxlkmwmo); PC Gamer, “Canadian politician calls on government to help BioWare employees buy the studio and run it themselves”, 22 October 2026 (https://www.pcgamer.com/games/mass-effect/canadian-politician-calls-on-government-to-help-bioware-employees-buy-the-studio-and-run-it-themselves/)
Photo: WinterE229, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Dawn breaks over downtown Edmonton and the North Saskatchewan River valley in September 2016. BioWare was based in the city; the picture shows no part of the studio.
