Dragon Age Team Laid Off as BioWare Shifts Focus to Mass Effect

Key developers from the Dragon Age team have announced their departure from BioWare following the studio's restructuring to focus on the next Mass Effect game. On January 29, IGN reported that BioWare had reassigned several developers to other projects within EA to concentrate solely on Mass Effect 5.

BioWare's general manager, Gary McKay, stated that the studio is "taking this opportunity between full development cycles to reimagine how we work." He added, "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."

According to IGN, EA has already placed an unspecified number of BioWare developers into other roles within the company. However, a smaller group of Dragon Age team members are facing termination, though they are being given the opportunity to apply for other positions within EA.

Following the announcement, several BioWare developers, including editor Karin Weekes, narrative designer and lead writer on Dragon Age: The Veilguard Trick Weekes, editor Ryan Cormier, producer Jen Cheverie, and senior systems designer Michelle Flamm, took to social media to announce their departure and seek new opportunities.

BioWare had previously experienced layoffs in 2023, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard director Corinne Busche announced her exit last week.

When IGN sought details from EA on the number of affected individuals at BioWare, the potential layoffs, and the remaining staff, EA provided a vague response: "The studio's priority was Dragon Age. During this time there were people continuing to build the vision for the next Mass Effect. Now that The Veilguard has shipped, the studio's full focus is Mass Effect. While we're not sharing numbers, the studio has the right number of people in the right roles to work on Mass Effect at this stage of development."

Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the first new game in the fantasy RPG series in a decade, concluded its development last week with its final major update. Despite high hopes, the game's launch was underwhelming. BioWare confirmed that Dragon Age: The Veilguard would not receive any post-launch DLC, disappointing fans accustomed to expansions from previous Dragon Age titles.

Last week, EA revealed that Dragon Age: The Veilguard fell short of sales expectations by 50%, with only 1.5 million players against a target of three million. The game's development had faced numerous challenges, including layoffs and the departure of several project leads at various stages.

Looking ahead, EA mentioned that a "core team" at BioWare is working on the next Mass Effect game, led by veterans from the original trilogy, such as Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, and Parrish Ley.