Electronic Arts says that they are restructuring their Dragon Age and Mass Effect studio, BioWare. As part of this restructuring, EA will move some developers onto other projects within other EA studios, some will move to working with the Mass Effect team on the sequel, and still others will be laid off.
BioWare's general manager Gary McKay wrote a blog post that talks about how they are "taking this opportunity between full development cycles to reimagine how we work at BioWare." McKay says that at this current point they "don't require support from the full studio."
According to a report from IGN, EA "has already placed an unknown number of developers from BioWare into other, equivalent roles within the company." However, they also report that some roles on the Dragon Age team have been terminated. Those who worked in those positions are being "offered time to apply to other roles within the company if they so choose."
The exact number of layoffs is unknown at present.
This information seems to align almost exactly with what former BioWare producer Mark Darrah said on a recent episode of his YouTube podcast.
In the episode, Darrah says that BioWare is now a studio that makes one game at a time. He notes that the team working on Mass Effect 5 simply isn't ready for the full force of the Dragon Age: The Veilguard team to suddenly shift over and begin working on Mass Effect 5. He continues on to say that because of this, many members of the Dragon Age team will be shifted to other projects at EA and that is precisely what was announced this week by EA and BioWare.
As part of the blog post from McKay, he notes that the next Mass Effect title is currently being worked on by some veterans of the original trilogy: Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, Parrish Ley, and more. It's also not stated yet whether the next Mass Effect title will be Mass Effect 4, Mass Effect 5, or Mass Effect: Something. Hell, maybe it'll be Mass Effect: Andromeda 2 for all we know. So if you see me calling it Mass Effect 5 in one article and Mass Effect 4 in another, just know that I'm talking about the same game.
