If we're being honest, the "real Bioware" died many years ago. Today was just a formality.

The good news is we have two great studios that are carrying the torch: Larian and CD Projekt Red.

Cherish them.

Today, something we knew years ago would happen has finally happened.

BioWare killed itself as a company because, after being bought out by EA, it chose to focus on politics instead of making games consumers actually wanted to buy. EA gave BioWare a lot of rope, and BioWare ultimately used that rope to hang itself.

Well, as Stanley Woo would say, end of line. Line ends here.
With that being said, Larian Studios is not necessarily the spiritual successor to BioWare. It can be in some ways, but it cannot do what BioWare used to do.

In order to push its political agenda, Larian Studios cannot simply make a new game from scratch and expect the same built-in audience. It has to get the rights to an existing IP that is already popular, and then it can go ahead and do what it did, for example, with the Baldur’s Gate expansions it worked on and insert real-world politics, such as Gamergate, into the actual game.

With that being said, we were never fans.

There was this disconnect after new management took over, with Dragon Age 2 leading the way and Mass Effect 3 continuing it, where BioWare seemed to believe its customers were loyal fans who would tolerate anything.

I do not know if people remember this, but Stanley Woo was actually banning people in ways that prevented them from playing single-player games, and EA had to step in and reverse it.

Then, even after Stanley Woo famously got fired, BioWare brought him back as a volunteer to work for free. Stanley Woo later posted on his blog that he was going to use the forums as an outlet for his “righteous indignation.”

Again, we are not fans.

We are customers first and foremost.

That disconnect is what destroyed a once-great company.

EA did not kill BioWare.

BioWare killed BioWare.

Read "EA to shutter BioWare studio, cut jobs as it narrows game slate" on SmartNews: https://l.smartnews.com/p-8Jc9wa5y/SSDaQG

Bioware brought me, and so many of us, wonderful memories. Mass Effect and Dragon Age 1-3 were amazing games. BioWare not only went to the cemetery to pick the plot, but they also hand sawn the casket and drove every last nail in it with their bare hands when it came to all their new games. They brought me so much joy for so many years, then killed it with a spiked baseball bat. I waited 10 years for Dreadwolf. Good riddance.

Just nothing else...

In case you needed a reminder who to blame today!

EDIT: It's not who you think

I still dont get why would they cancel a sure Hit. A 4th Mass effect would sell like hot bread.

Maybe im biased, i grew up playing Mass effect nonstop

What are everyone’s thoughts? I need to hear how our community is feeling.

I’m not surprised, just (extremely) disappointed. I wish they could have made ME5 before doing this but guess not. Rip BioWare. The game studio that gave us so many amazing stories that will be cherished forever. What was your favourite moment, memory, game or story?

Will the consoles and I guess by some extent the pc folks. Still be able to use dragon age keep, connect to ea servers for dlc for the dragon age games and mass effect andromeda game. Not to mention I’m pretty sure on console we have to connect to an EA server for profile connection purposes for mass effect legendary collection.

Will all this still continue or did we lose access to them too?

Today's a terrible day for those who worked at Bioware and for fans of their franchises. I myself was a huge dragon age fan, and to see the many stories and mysteries of Thedas go left unfinished feels like an injustice to the sacrifices and years of passion the devs put into crafting this world.

I'm not sure if anyone else here can find the specific interview or knows anyone who was in Bioware, but I distinctly remember an old interview between Inquisition and Veilguard saying that even with the changes that were made to Veilguard from it's many iterations, it still continues what was a planned Dragon Age arc. That there was a dev lore book that had the story beats and threads of an overarching narrative that Bioware (I think it was David Gaider in the interview) wanted to tell of the conflict against the dark spawn, the mages vs templar's, the mysteries of the titans with respect to lyrium, etc.

A bullet point list of the story beats couldn't replace the experience of a game, but like how that half life 3 leak from a valve dev from awhile back at least gave some closure to an iteration of what the conclusion of that series was supposed to look like, do you think we might see something similar for dragon age? Was something like this ever mentioned or am I just confabulating something that I wish existed?

To preface, it's a shame what's happening to Bioware. I've been a fan since middle school, but the writing's been unfortunately on the wall for a while now. I had a feeling something like this would happen ever since EA got bought out and Veilguard underperformed (but this isn't about that).

What I wanna know is what you think's going to happen to Bioware's repertoire on third party platforms. For example, all four of the Dragon Age games are on Steam, but the earlier titles are walled by redirection to Origin or Play or... whatever they were calling it. Do you think the games will be straight up wiped off the face of Steam in light of the studio closure, or do you think they'll retool them so others may continue to play?

BioWare is getting shutdown. It sucks. I'm in mourning.

A lot of days I call Oblivion my favorite game of all time, but BioWare was the studio that shaped my gaming tastes.

It started with KOTOR, which I played because I loved Star Wars. I fell in love with the characters and choices and trying to build this "flawless" playthrough where my character perfectly aligned choices and dialogue to match who I thought they should be. I didn't know the value of RPGs as a genre at this time.

Next it was Jade Empire. I picked it up because I was obsessed with Asian cultures and loved the martial arts themes. Again, I fell in love getting to know a world, characters, and crafting a person in that world.

Later, I got my Xbox 360 and played Oblivion and some other RPGs and started to put together my genre tastes. I learned about Dragon Age: Origins and picked it off the GameStop shelf. I fell in love with Thedas, tried every origin, and beat the game four times in a row. It was my second Mythic/100% achievements game ever. It started something there. I then saw Dragon Age 2 was coming out and asked my parents to preorder it for me. I loved it.

Dragon Age was when I learned who the studio was. I retroactively learned this same team made KOTOR, JE, and DA. I learned about Mass Effect existing and decided to try it.

N7 is tattooed on my chest. RPGs are my favorite genre. I named my first car Avina. I started listening to podcasts to learn more about what was next from BioWare. I went to college for game design thinking I'd get a job at BioWare (pivoted to general software because life). So many little things that I can trace to repeated exposure to this studio and team. Today is tragic. I'm sad.

Thank you to everyone in the BioWare community, dev, fan, whomever.

I am deeply saddened by the news of BioWare closing. I am endlessly grateful for the countless hours, the intense emotions, the unforgettable characters, and the incredible stories they gave us. No one can ever take away the feelings and the headcanons that these games inspired in me. They will stay with me forever.

We've had some lively times.