Key developers from the Dragon Age series have announced their departure from BioWare following a studio restructuring aimed at focusing on the upcoming Mass Effect 5. On January 29, IGN reported that BioWare had shifted several of its 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 successfully placed an unspecified number of BioWare developers into equivalent roles elsewhere within the company. However, a smaller group of Dragon Age team members are facing termination and are being given the opportunity to apply for other positions within EA.
Following this announcement, several BioWare developers, including editor Karin West-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 confirm their departure and to seek new employment opportunities.
BioWare had previously experienced layoffs in 2023, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard director Corinne Busche announced her exit from the studio just last week.
When asked by IGN about the specifics of the changes at BioWare, including the number of affected individuals, potential layoffs, and the number of remaining staff, EA provided a non-specific 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."
The development of Dragon Age: The Veilguard concluded last week with what appears to be its final major update. Despite being the first new game in the fantasy RPG series in a decade, Dragon Age: The Veilguard's launch was underwhelming. BioWare confirmed that the game would not receive any post-launch DLC, disappointing fans who expected expansions similar to those of previous Dragon Age titles.
EA recently disclosed that Dragon Age: The Veilguard fell short of sales expectations by 50%, achieving only 1.5 million players against a target of three million. The game's development was fraught with challenges, including layoffs and the departure of several key project leads at various stages.
Meanwhile, EA confirmed that a dedicated "core team" at BioWare, led by veterans from the original Mass Effect trilogy such as Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, and Parrish Ley, is currently working on the next Mass Effect game.
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