EA shuts down BioWare

[u/3Sayndre]

https://variety.com/2026/digital/news/ea-layoffs-bioware-shutting-down-respawn-dice-star-wars-battlefront-3-1236918715/

[u/Rukasu17]

Honestly the studio was just a shell of it's former self. I mean the latest dragon age shows it.

[u/WonderSignificant598 → u/Rukasu17]

Been coming for a long time. This news will throw old gamers for a loop (millenials and older gens) but bioware hasn't been BIOWARE since 2015. Lots of unsuccessful titles, games in development looked expensive.

[u/HeretikHamster → u/WonderSignificant598]

It’s not throwing me for a loop. BioWare hasn’t been BioWare for a very very long time. Andromeda was the start of the fall and I pretty much wrote them off after Anthem.

[u/EyeAmKnotMyshelf → u/HeretikHamster]

I wrote them off after Andromeda.

[u/TheNightHaunter → u/HeretikHamster]

why in gods name did they not let you play as other fucking aliens in andromeda? if that game had let you play as an asari, taurian, salarian or hell krogran it would've sold better.

[u/Redcoat-Mic → u/TheNightHaunter]

I doubt it.

It was a badly designed, boring game. Having a choice of cosmetic skin in character creator wouldn't have changed that.

[u/EyeAmKnotMyshelf → u/TheNightHaunter]

A ME game where you actually got to choose your race would've been too easy a win for EA.

[u/Hemingways_Shotgun88 → u/HeretikHamster]

I enjoyed Andromeda and Inquisition a lot even if the drop was obvious.

[u/Captainbuttman → u/WonderSignificant598]

millenial fans of bioware have been watching the decline the whole time,

[u/liteAvvikandeIsASlut → u/WonderSignificant598]

Millennials definitely saw this coming ever since the last Mass Effect, just took way longer that it should.

[u/PanthalassaRo → u/liteAvvikandeIsASlut]

Everything I heard about DA Veilguard until the first trailer screamed flop and from that point onwards was like watching a trainwreck in slow motion.

[u/MachBonin → u/liteAvvikandeIsASlut]

DA:I was good and I believe their best selling game.

[u/HarpersGeekly → u/WonderSignificant598]

Why would it throw us for a loop when we lived through it all and predicted this would likely happen?

[u/brainsapper → u/Rukasu17]

Hard not to notice a Ship of Theseus that has happened with a lot of childhood game studios.

[u/NohFyoochur → u/brainsapper]

People made this comment about Bungie. I forget which Bungie guy it was, but he replied with a list of names of people around since the Halo days. The problem is even if there are like a dozen or so old guys, their last game had hundreds of other people on it. Halo Studios' last halo remake had over a thousand names. The original Halo was made by like 50 people.

This would be like having one single light fixture on a ship that's original and claiming it's the same ship.

[u/donjulioanejo → u/NohFyoochur]

It probably doesn't help that all the old guard (who just want to make good games) just get told to get with the times, or be labeled as toxic male gamer bros.

[u/VagueSomething → u/NohFyoochur]

Yeah Bungie currently has something like 4% of their staff being OGs. At that point you're into Homeopathy dilution and you're basically trying to tell us Bungie bathwater is the same thing.

[u/Hemingways_Shotgun88 → u/Rukasu17]

Reddit is the only place where you see people still defending Veilguard, purely on political grounds of course while pretending that's not the reason why.

Last I saw from the Veilguard defenders is they were saying it's at least equal to Inquisition lol

[u/sadacal → u/Rukasu17]

People who think a studio's name means something is just stupid. It's always been about the developers working in those studios. When those people leave, how can the studio be the same?

[u/lankeykong_ → u/sadacal]

The problem with this line of thinking is that usually there is a lot of legacy talent left at these studios and crucially, even if a company managed to hold onto the exact same people their output still wouldn't be the same because people change over time. I don't hold the same values as I did 15 years ago, I like different things, I draw inspiration from different wells, etc. and the developers aren't any different.

[u/Slazor → u/sadacal]

Ever heard of Theseus’ paradox ?

[u/sadacal → u/Slazor]

This is a bit different than Theseus' paradox. The developers are more like the crew of the ship rather than the ship itself. People are expecting because one crew were able to pilot the ship to do heroic feats then that means another crew of completely different people would on the ship would be just as capable of doing those same heroic feats.

[u/Turkeybaconisheresy → u/Rukasu17]

Yea if this was 15 years ago I would be devastated. But Bioware has missed with every release after DA:I. Its sad to say but better it goes this way than they keep pushing out slop and continue to destroy any positive memory of the studio.

[u/Bentok → u/[deleted]]

Sorry to get in the way of your hate train, but DAI was really good.

[u/Rukasu17 → u/Bentok]

Personally i forced myself to finish it when i was younger. There was just something about the open world and dialogue that didn't get to me

[u/horrorpunx138 → u/Rukasu17]

And Anthem... and Andromeda.

[u/Ravendead → u/Rukasu17]

Yeah, this was a long time coming. Over the last decade they have release 3 games and one remaster of the original Mass Effect trilogy. And those 3 games were, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Anthem, and Dragon Age: Veilguard. Andromeda was not received well, and had a terrible launch, Anthem was a colossal flop, and Veilguard made half of what they wanted it to make.

This is not EA's fault, this is mismanagement, inflated budgets, bad writing, and no focused vision during their games design phases. Most of their last games spent a lot of time in development only to be completely changed closer to launch. This was not EA meddling with their development this was BioWare management failing to do a good job.

[u/crazyfighter99 → u/Rukasu17]

We really did see this coming for a long time. The last good game was probably Inquisition which came out in what, 2014?

Still sad to see one of the "OG" developers gone, even if it was just a name at the end.

[u/commentBRAH]

F

[u/Rigman-]

One day, hopefully, the parasite class will let go of this industry so it can finally fucking recover.

BioWare was gutted years ago and is a shell of its former self; this result is not really a surprise, but it still sucks to see once legendary studios close their doors. From that, skills fail to carry forward to the next generation, AI will continue to accelerate us toward further atrophy, and IPs remain locked in a vault inaccessible for the foreseeable future.

It's up to us indie developers of today to carry the legacy of this industry forward and hopefully restore it to its former glory. Tough times are still ahead, but I remain optimistic about the future.

[u/PestilentPaladin → u/Rigman-]

At some point, folks in all economic sectors will have to realize that the corpos and the ghoulish boards of directors they're beholden to will never deal fairly with normal people without being forced to do so.

Your options are go your own way or organize. Or both. It can and should be both.

Deny them business where possible and build parallel systems for yourselves. If they want an economy without workers they can have it, but without customers too.

[u/Tactical-Donkey → u/Rigman-]

Parasite gonna parasite unfortunately. 

[u/Pyotr_WrangeI → u/Rigman-]

Why only this industry?

[u/treehumper83 → u/Pyotr_WrangeI]

All industries are in the death grip of parasites

[u/Rigman- → u/Pyotr_WrangeI]

I was only speaking through the lens of my industry, but I agree; ideally, we can cure the world of the parasite class in general. 

[u/314kabinet → u/Rigman-]

You'd need to change the fact that the ghouls are the ones with the money.

[u/ProjectPlugTTV]

bioware has essentially been dead for like 10 years with EA at its helm, this is just a formality at this point

[u/_Gravitas_]

 Visceral (Dead Space) - shut down in 2017

Mythic (Dark Age of Camelot) - Purchased by EA in 2006; shut down in 2014.

Bullfrog (Syndicate, Dungeon Keeper) - Purchased by EA in 1995; shut down in 2001.

Origin (Ultima, Wing Commander) - Purchased by EA in 1992; shut down in 2004.

Westwood (Command & Conquer) - Purchased by EA in 1998; shut down in 2003.

DreamWorks Interactive/Danger Close/EA Los Angeles (Medal of Honor) - Purchased by EA in 2000; shut down in 2013.

Phenomic (SpellForce, BattleForge) - Purchased by EA in 2006; shut down in 2013.

Black Box Games (Need for Speed, Skate) - Purchased by EA in 2002; shut down in 2013.

Pandemic (Destroy all Humans, Mercenaries, Star Wars Battlefront, The Saboteur) - Purchased by EA in 2008; shut down in 2009.

PlayFish (The Sims Social) - Purchased by EA in 2009; shut down in 2013.

NuFX (NBA Street) - Purchased by EA in 2004; shut down in 2007.

Maxis (Sims, Spore, SimCity) Purchased 1997; gutted by 2019

Codemasters (Dirt, F1, Overlord) Purchased 2021; gutted by 2023

Bioware (Baldur's Gate, Kotor, Neverwinter Nights, DA:O, Mass Effect) - Purchased by EA in 2007; shut down 2026

Respawn (Call of Duty, Titanfall, Apex Legends) - Purchased 2017; layoffs and cancellations, SOON?

Dice (Battlefield, Battlefront, Frostbite) - Purchased 2006; SOON

[u/Gangleri_Graybeard → u/_Gravitas_]

God, I hate EA so much.

[u/TheStrigori → u/_Gravitas_]

At least with Ultima, the IP has reverted to Richard Garriott, and he plans to do something with it.

[u/geileanus → u/_Gravitas_]

Why do they do this? Genuinely what is happening here?

[u/YeeYeeBeep → u/geileanus]

So there is something called a Private Equity Firm. Now a lot of bullshit is needed to explain them in detail but ill keep it brief and as ELI5 as possible. A company, in this case EA, buys another company, Bioware, now owning this company and its legal rights and all that jazz, they make the dev company produce games that can range from bad to good. The quality dosent matter because since its Bioware who made the games, that company eats any losses, meanwhile EA will take any profits from the company and pay out the execs. Now once Bioware is too debt ridden to be profitable for EA, they will simply shut down the studio and the studio will take all debts with them to the grave, because the debt belongs to Bioware not EA. EA gets to keep the pofits while pushing the losses onto Bioware until Bioware is a blood-drained corpse and thrown into a shallow grave.

Yes, EA is not a private equity firm, but thats why they buy up dev studios, run them into the ground, and shut them down when its too much. Just rampant capitalism for ya, the green line must stay green and going up forever.

Cant post short links in this sub but go to google and search what i place below if you want to learn about PE firms and why they are a parasite.

The Dark Side of Private Equity | The University of Chicago Business Law Review

[u/N0va-Zer0 → u/YeeYeeBeep]

I'm tired of people copping out with "capitalism" being why studios go under.

You don't think it has ANYTHING to do with the slop they were putting out? The complete 180 from the previous games direction and stlye?

No? Just "muh captiliasm"?

Great.

[u/rainstorm0T → u/geileanus]

either they're trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle that was their purchase of Maxis back in the late '90s, or they're just pump and dumping studios to make as much profit as they can with them.

[u/GoldClassGaming → u/_Gravitas_]

Respawn makes a wildly successful live service shooter and critically + commercially praised star wars single player franchise.

Like I get that EA sucks and all but Respawn is one of EA's best performing studios right now.

[u/SamsungAppleOnePlus → u/_Gravitas_]

Maxis is such a travesty, fumbling such an important studio in the history of the simulation genre, killing SimCity and milking the hell out of The Sims 4 for 11+ years only finally putting focus on another mainline Sims title as announced today that’ll probably get milked for another decade lol.

Don’t even get me started on Codemasters, Dirt 5 was good and even under EA Grid Legends was pretty good too. The studio had a future that should’ve been far more than just F1.

[u/Ghost403 → u/SamsungAppleOnePlus]

The thing that stops me being a Sims guy is that the basic innovations from DLC in previous iterations do not carry over for mechanics in each new sequal.

[u/lemons_of_doubt → u/_Gravitas_]

Step one: buy the competition.

Step two: gut them

Step three: exploit what ever good will/love for the IP the public had. by having the remains of the team churn out under funded crap until all the good will is used up.

Step four: shut them down.

Step five: Use the money you made doing this to buy your next victim.

[u/Docccc]

damn.. RIP BioWare. Another legendary studio run into the ground.

[u/poo-people → u/Docccc]

To be fair they've been dead for over a decade.

[u/CelestialFury → u/Docccc]

Baldur’s Gate trilogy, KotOR, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Jade Empire are some of the GOATest games of all time.

[u/Cannon__Minion → u/Docccc]

They've been pumping mid to trash games for like 15 years now.

[u/Deathgripsugar → u/Docccc]

They join Bullfrog and Sierra in video game Valhalla

[u/DOOManiac → u/Docccc]

We can bury them next to Westwood.

[u/Pleasant-Lie-2105]

Well, thankfully we've got Exodus coming out in 2027, which will be a true alternative to the Mass Effect series (with former Mass Effect employees working on it)

[u/TaxOrnery9501 → u/Pleasant-Lie-2105]

There's also The Expanse: Osiris Reborn which is trying really really hard to be Mass Effect

[u/Deathgripsugar → u/TaxOrnery9501]

Don’t be hating on Owlcat.

They are one of the last crpg studios out there.

[u/TaxOrnery9501 → u/Deathgripsugar]

Hating? I have no problem with them. Their marketing is just really obviously trying to cater to a specific audience

[u/barcode_soma]

Wait... So what'll happen to the Mass Effect game they've been teasing?

[u/RedditIsNoFunsies → u/barcode_soma]

They ended development. It's dead.

[u/-Weezmo → u/RedditIsNoFunsies]

it was in ''early dev'' for like a decade lol

[u/barcode_soma → u/RedditIsNoFunsies]

Man that's sad, I was actually hoping for it, what a waste.

[u/outfoxingthefoxes → u/barcode_soma]

Ubisoft pulled the same movie with a Prince of Persia remake game that was teased like 7 years ago. It was virtually finished and got cancelled

[u/TheSuperTest → u/barcode_soma]

alpha testing was slotted for March, it's such a shame :/

[u/MassiveShape4 → u/barcode_soma]

You hoped for that game even after veilguard?

[u/daynsen → u/barcode_soma]

They announced that it gets canceled

[u/KebabGud → u/barcode_soma]

thats been dead for years now.
Cant develop AAA games with less then 100 employees spread over 2 locations these days

[u/Isash39 → u/barcode_soma]

Its canceled

[u/Gabochuky]

Their last truly great game was Mass Effect 3 (DA:I was good not great). Which was released almost FIFTEEN years ago.

Their "legendary" status is what made them last so long, any other studio would've been shut down after the shitshow that was Mass Effect Andromeda.

[u/Seeker-N7 → u/Gabochuky]

I'd argue that even ME3 was good and not great. It got carried hard by MP and later DLCs, but the base game is IMO worse than ME1 and even ME2.

[u/nullptr777 → u/Seeker-N7]

100%. We were promised an epic finale, and what we got were retconned decisions from ME1, other decisions that made us choose between our companions (admittedly some of these were pretty good), a cringeworthy cyberninja with plot armor, TIM/Cerberus reduced to another Saren/Geth, and a stupid Ex Machina ending that ultimately invalidated everything Shepard ever did.

I used to be a huge BioWare fan, but the company died with ME3, and nobody will ever change my mind about that.

[u/KebabGud → u/Seeker-N7]

Never forget Marauder Shields, he tried to save us from that shitty ending

[u/nick12233]

Wait. What !?! F--king BioWare?!?

[u/Dudi4PoLFr → u/nick12233]

The king has been dead for many years now, and EA just used his corpse as a corpo flag.

[u/__ICoraxI__ → u/nick12233]

can a corpse really die? many people are wondering

[u/Prolapse-Licker]

Dragon Age: Veilguard took the whole damn studio down

Better not take away chances of another Mass Effect >:(

Edit: FRICK

[u/Kolby_Jack33 → u/Prolapse-Licker]

They shut down the studio that makes Mass Effect, so...

[u/KulaanDoDinok → u/Prolapse-Licker]

Article says EA pulled the plug on it.

[u/RandoDude124 → u/Prolapse-Licker]

Uhhhh…

[u/Cubey42 → u/Prolapse-Licker]

[u/nthpwr]

RIP Mass Effect the best story ever told in video games 🤧

[u/HattedSandwich → u/nthpwr]

Liara, my beloved

[u/RyokoKnight]

When you flop as bad as Anthem and Veilguard you can't expect your studio to survive, you could even argue they haven't made a great game since maybe star wars the old republic back in 2011... and great is kind of stretch even there...

[u/Alert_Courage_7722]

They're really pushing to be the most hated company in America again. 

[u/SomeoneNotFamous → u/Alert_Courage_7722]

Is there even something American left ?

EA is now Saudis's bitch

[u/CluelessNFLFan → u/SomeoneNotFamous]

EA is now Saudis's bitch

read this as 'Even America is now Saudi's bitch'.

[u/Expl0r3r → u/Alert_Courage_7722]

They aren't American anymore though

[u/Trowaway151 → u/Alert_Courage_7722]

Has BioWare made a good fame in the last decade?

[u/t3hmuffnman9000 → u/Alert_Courage_7722]

They've always been my most-hated company.

[u/Kenny1323 → u/Alert_Courage_7722]

ok we cant blame EA fully for this one tho bioware hasnt made a good game in over a decade

[u/xXRHUMACROXx → u/Kenny1323]

No shit Sherlock, EA’s been bleeding them dry of their talents since the acquisition and reduced the employee count x10 in the last decade.

[u/Julch → u/Alert_Courage_7722]

At least they're good at something - becoming this universally despised doesn't happen overnight after all.

[u/Possibly_Naked_Now → u/Alert_Courage_7722]

Comcast holdings strong b

[u/KoriJenkins]

It was a doomed studio, but this entire industry is fucked and a crash is now inevitable.

ALL we see now are layoffs, studio closures, and price hikes. There's no creativity or innovation left. The most popular games atm are all 10 years old.

[u/TardDas]

Fuck bros

[u/GrippySockAficionado]

Probably for the best at this point. The studio was a hollowed-out shell of its former glory and seeing the most recent Dragon Age struck me with the inescapable realization that Mass Effect 4 would end up being just like this.

I am sorry one of my most beloved studios is closing, but at the very least Mass Effect remains untainted by their recent decay.

(Do not mention Andromeda to me; I do not and will not acknowledge its existence)

[u/Elec7roniX]

I mean to be honest I'd assume most of the people that worked on the great Bioware games are no longer there. I even thought Andromeda was ok but man this latest Dragon Age was a massive dissapointment

[u/Zealousideal-Star-11]

The writing was on the wall for quite some time now.

[u/Grizzack]

Make games not checklists

[u/rope113]

BioWare died a long time ago

[u/Nbsroy]

man was really hoping for ME return. oh well, maybe it's for the better.

[u/RabidTurtl]

Add them to the EA graveyard.

[u/KulaanDoDinok]

Holy shit! I didn’t know they cancelled the Mass Effect game. That’s unfortunate. Hopefully somebody buys the rights and does that series and Dragon Age justice.

[u/MasterArCtiK → u/KulaanDoDinok]

This is them cancelling the mass effect game

[u/WinterOrb69]

[u/TheReviewerWildTake]

Wait, wasn`t Veilguard a glorious return to the form???? :D

[u/Soleks2000]

everything EA touches falls to shit

[u/mikehiler2 → u/Soleks2000]

Except franchise sports games. I mean, they’re still shit, but they sell really well.

[u/Cannon__Minion → u/Soleks2000]

Don't think that we can blame EA for this one. This has been a long time coming.

Even during Veilguard's release people were wondering how tf Bioware was not shut down.

[u/KoalaBarry]

Wait but according to the internet dragon age veilguard was a smash hit success. How can this happen

[u/crushkillpwn → u/KoalaBarry]

It was a smash hit in a the little echo chamber it even echoed off the walls a few times

[u/beanlikescoffee → u/KoalaBarry]

Reddit thinks BioWare deserves a 5th chance at making another blunder of a game and if EA doesn’t want to fund them anymore, than they’re just an evil corporation (they are but this isn’t a contributing factor).

[u/geileanus → u/beanlikescoffee]

idk man I see lot of redditors in this thread (including you) shit on bioware.

[u/itz_me_shade → u/KoalaBarry]

Smash hit success or Mediocre failure, chopping block comes for all.

[u/SwashNBuckle]

WHAT

[u/Stackitu]

More reason to not buy EA games. They destroy everything they touch.

[u/Longjumping_Cell5040]

biowere

[u/Dyyrin]

Rest in piss bozos

[u/-Codiak-]

For EA it all boils down to Bioware games don't sell microtransactions and that's all they really care about.

[u/dj_samuelitobx]

Literally my hatred for EA is bottomless

[u/Helldiversneverdive]

at least they owned the chuds

[u/beanlikescoffee]

This is what happens when you’re terrible at your job. They couldn’t ship a successful game for over a decade. And yet Reddit is furious that EA doesn’t want to fund this sinking ship?

[u/DragonNegro89 → u/beanlikescoffee]

BioWare always had a falling out with EA regarding Dragon Age and Mass Effect.

EA always wanted more online and action, while BioWare wanted more traditional RPGs with deep stories. The Anthem situation was purely and simply due to pressure from EA; BioWare had no experience with that.

Now we have to wait for Exodus. That's where BioWare's successors are currently working, and it shows.

[u/BigDaddyReptar → u/beanlikescoffee]

A very harsh truth about a lot of the layoffs in the gaming industry is that they simply didn't make good games for like a decade. I don't want to fault any individual devs but at some point we gotta acknowledge the work just isn't getting done

[u/Flonkadonk]

The real BioWare died years ago to be fair. But this is still sad.

[u/AggravatingAmount438]

Dragon Age didn't deserve to be treated with Veilguard, and it didn't deserve this.

[u/sunnz2]

Say what you want.

But I fucking loved anthem and while I know it was long dead, the tiny hope I had is gone now.

Rip, so much potential.

[u/Indaarys]

Went the way of Westwood.

[u/Cumcentrator]

Their last worth while game was ME3 and that was 2012
they've been dead for such a long time

In the last 14 years we've had inquisition, andromeda,Anthem, MELE and veilguard...

[u/blaze92x45]

Remember most game studios that made bangers in the past are merely skinsuits

Bioware was long dead before the shut down

[u/Busy-Key-1419]

Ehh no biggie. EA studios largely suck and BioWare shoveled out hot steaming turds as of late.

Plus Squadron 42 will be the better mass effect

[u/PiousStag]

Losing swtor to broadsword was the studios death sentence it was the only thing making the studio any money.

[u/Jcobinho]

[u/Cat_Sith4919]

When successful studios let themselves be bought out by bigger corporations, this is the result.

[u/Combine54]

It is sad - but after mea and, especially, datv, I don't think that they were capable of developing a good (not even great, good) game that is not trying to shovel an agenda. So, it is a logical outcome, even outside of saudi deal. Who knows, maybe thats for the better - at least, me4 won't disappoint more than it not existing.

[u/burdizthewurd → u/Combine54]

Legitimate question: what exactly is the agenda their games were trying to shovel? Outside of inclusion of queer/trans characters I never understood this

[u/MattRazor → u/burdizthewurd]

Baldur's Gate 3 managed to achieve inclusivity and sold outstandingly well. The difference is always in the quality of the writing

[u/ChaosReaper → u/burdizthewurd]

Regardless of having queer and trans characters, forcing us to sit through someone explaining what it means to be nonbinary to their parents isn’t what anyone wants from a dark fantasy RPG.

The sales and player numbers clearly rejected this game, and the discourse online was almost entirely focused on that aspect. It was absolute cringe.

[u/littleemp → u/burdizthewurd]

Putting aside the question of how right or wrong it is to have those kind of discussions as part of the lore, the industry as a whole needs to understand something that they have forgotten: Demographics.

Who is this game for? By making/doing this, will I be catering to my audience or will I alienate them?

This is a question that many games in recent memory have failed to answer when pursuing their writing.

You simply can't expect that the 18-34 male demographic is going to be there for you no matter what you do. You can be successful without them, but you won't be wildly successful as they are still the core gaming audience.

Most people don't have a strong opinion about the topics that they chose to write about, but shoving it in their faces is definitely going to turn people off. It's not just the bigots, but the disinterested majority that you are giving up.

[u/ThinGold2115 → u/burdizthewurd]

Being Queer/Trans shouldn't be only and main aspect of a character.

[u/The-Dutcher]

Guess the Saudi want to invest more in hangings and not in games after all.

[u/lankeykong_ → u/The-Dutcher]

"But they have a Chili's!" - Bill Burr

[u/Mr_Jackabin → u/[deleted]]

Was

[u/BrokAnkle]

why did I smirk ?

[u/serendibbb]

Finally should been shut down after dragon age origins

[u/RingingInTheRain]

From GOTY to lol......like all they had to do was make Inquisition 2 but fix some of the gameplay.

[u/--Icarusfalls--]

Is that the same EA owned by the Saudis?

[u/AdLatter3755]

This was coming. But a lot of the early BioWare devs started a new studio and I’ve been keeping tabs on the game they’ve been working on. Looks awesome Exodus is the game.

[u/Furyio]

I guess they shut down the studio and retain the licensing as opposed to selling the studio and its license for games like Mass Effect and Neverwinter nights ?

Just pure greed.

[u/Abbatoir346]

What a waste. Pourin one out for the Normandy tonight boys. I also expected this but as a huge mass effect fan I hoped for a better outcome. Was hoping ME4 would get things back on track for the series. 

[u/outfoxingthefoxes]

EA should change their name to FT

[u/Ok_Explorer9455]

Haven't seen anything good from them since ME 2 anyway.

[u/ClubChaos]

I literally just want NHL on PC

[u/RandoDude124]

Fuck!!!

[u/SPEZ_IS_A_JABRONI]

fuck.

[u/kira862]

Honestly I have zero viceral feelings for this. Fuck EA and all, but Bioware hasn't been a good RPG studio for well over a decade at this point. Well gone are the days of BG1, KOTOR, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect, and DAO

[u/Gassyking]

Haha oh my. You told me this back in the day I'd say you were insane. The Mass Effect series is one of my all time favourites.

What a fall from grace man

[u/No-Young3557]

RIP my beloved mass effect

[u/JuniorDeveloper73]

Nobody will put money on gamming any more,congratulations to the kids doing crap with AI.

Enjoy your last GTA

[u/H0vis]

EA will kill your studio. Sometimes it does it quickly, sometimes it does it slow.

[u/timbotheny26]

Well, so much for the next Mass Effect or the KOTOR remake.

[u/YouW0ntGetIt]

Evil

[u/TomasMichele69]

Don't forget to pre order the next big videogames fellas! Because that's what this rotten industry needs of course 

[u/hypocritobobo]

S

[u/heyitsmeFR]

I use to think, not everybody needs to be a developer. We need great business minds to accompany the developers to make a great product. With AI recently, and lay offs across the industry, I have come to the conclusion that these individuals aren’t even fit for business.

[u/AkiStudios1]

Respawn and dice on Battlefront 3 sounds like it could be cool

[u/MasterSparrow]

After Veilguard I'm not surprised.

[u/a_man_has_a_name]

Seeing a wiki article updated "20 minutes ago" is like seeing history be written.

[u/NoLocal1776]

[u/oogawooga42]

Pouring myself a drink tonight

[u/a_man_has_a_name]

12 years they have gone without a well regarded game, or commercial success, so it's not surprising, once again EA runs a studio into the ground.

[u/itchriswtf]

o7.. thank you for the memories!

[u/CandyNecrosis]

Whoomp whoomp

[u/l_______I]

So another one bites the dust

[u/Koermit]

I know I know guys, bioware and EA are big doodoo after failguard, anthem and andromeda... But that still hurts somehow.

[u/LamesMcGee]

Normally I don't like what EA does, but I would have shut down BioWare a few failed games ago... And that's coming from Mass Effect Trilogy diehard.

The studio keeps screwing it up, tarnishing beloved IPs, missing sales goals, getting poor reviews. It's not like they are the same studio that they were 15+ years ago.

[u/Living-Hornet7857]

there are alot of "well actually" in these comment

[u/SheActuallyFarts]

EA is the leading company when it comes to closing down studios

[u/Cefalopodul]

Looking on the bright side all former employees can start a new studio free of EA's yoke.

[u/yankeewithnobrim420]

We will not bang anymore :c

[u/TimmyChips]

> EA also will continue to “invest heavily” in the “Apex Legends” franchise

I can’t believe they’re referring to the Titanfall franchise as Apex now. Please let Apex die and focus on a Titanfall game. Though I guess at this point all the talent for that at EA is gone, so I guess it’s good they’re not making a new Titanfall game.

[u/katheb]

I still haven't forgiven them for destroying Westwood. 

[u/Gaidax]

Deserved.

[u/Enigmatic_Penguin]

Many of my all times favourite games came out of BioWare, but the modern studio was a Potemkin village with their last three games all failing from a combination of management failures and bad ideas on the creative side. 

If not for the banner name, I don’t think they would have lasted even this long post-Covid entertainment boom. 

[u/Trans_Techpriest]

They've been dead since Anthem. Still sucks to see. They made some masterpieces.

[u/Ashamed-Astronaut42]

Saudi government owned company shuts down one of its unsuccessful brands that ten to fifteen years ago was still somewhat functional.

[u/Vulcan90001]

Another great studio consumed by EA. I will continue to NEVER buy anything from EA as long as I live

[u/PolicyWonka]

Interesting it says DICE is working on Battlefront 3 when a rumor just this week was that somehow Bungie was working on it.

[u/DesastreUrbano]

Fuck EA. I hope their new owners take terrible decisions and end up burning them to the ground

[u/AlecTheBunny]

😭

[u/jdlyga]

Sad when these studios get gobbled up and all the life gets sucked out of them.

[u/Extension-Report-491]

EA should shut down, they're just garbage.

[u/Sylvers]

Cries in Jade Empire.

[u/TheGoldBowl]

I haven't played anything by then since Anthem. They've been gone for a long time. Still sad though.