Summary
BioWarehas announced that it’s being restructured following the release ofDragon Age: The Veilguard, as the studio aims to become “a more agile, focused studio that produces unforgettable RPGs”.
Considering how long it’s been since BioWare last released a game (and with that game beingAnthem),it’s fair to say that Dragon Age: The Veilguard had a lot riding on its shoulders. Despite receiving generally solid reviews from critics, it seems thatEAviews the game as a disappointment compared to previous releases.
Earlier this week, EA revealed in its quarterly earnings report that both EA Sports FC 2024 and Dragon Age: The Veilguardhadn’t performed as well as it hoped, with The Veilguard in particular selling 1.5 million copies less than anticipated. Fans have been a little worried about BioWare’s future since that was revealed, and it seems that was a fair assessment.
EA Is Restructuring BioWare, Full Focus On Mass Effect
Earlier today, BioWare shared a studio update on its official website that confirms that EA is restructuring the studio now that Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been released.The blog post, which comes from general manager Gary McKay, says that the studio is taking the time between projects to “reimagine how we work at BioWare”.
As reported by IGN, this means that EA is moving a number of the studio’s developers onto other projects within the company while a “core team” puts its full focus on the next Mass Effect game. The blog post notes that the next Mass Effect game is being developed under the leadership of original trilogy veterans such as Mike Gamble and Derek Watts.
Given this stage of development, we don’t require support from the full studio. We have incredible talent here at BioWare, and so we have worked diligently over the past few months to match many of our colleagues with other teams at EA that had open roles that were a strong fit. - Gary McKay
IGN also reported that EA has already moved an unknown number of developers from BioWare into equivalent roles within the company and that some of the Veilguard team members are being let go altogether. Some of those who have had their roles terminated will be offered time to apply for other roles within EA.
For now, though, it seems that a very small team is putting all of its efforts into Mass Effect, which is in such an early state that it won’t need support from the rest of BioWare. It sounds like it’s going to be a long road for the developers, especially in the wake of The Veilguard being deemed a let-down by EA.
