EA Is Closing BioWare and Cutting About 400 Jobs, Cancelling the Next Mass Effect

Electronic Arts is closing BioWare, the Edmonton studio behind Baldur’s Gate, Mass Effect and Dragon Age, and cutting about 400 jobs across the company. EA told staff in a memo on October 21, 2026, after Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported the plan. Early development on the next Mass Effect is ending. About 50 of the cuts are at BioWare. A person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg the round affects roughly 3% of EA’s workforce.

What EA announced

The memo came from COO David Tinson and chief studios officer Cam Weber. It said EA had taken “a hard look at our business” over the past several months and was “making deliberate choices to align talent and investments where we see the greatest opportunities.” EA called BioWare “a legendary studio that helped define the role-playing genre.”

The memo did not give job numbers. The totals come from Bloomberg: about 400 cuts, with roughly 50 at BioWare and the remaining 350 or so elsewhere in the company. EA is closing the studio and its Edmonton workspace. No closure date has been reported.

BioWare confirmed the news on its official X account: “BioWare is closing and early development on the next Mass Effect project is ending.” The studio also wrote: “There is nothing easy about writing those words,” and “What generations of BioWare built together is something to celebrate and remember.”

EA says it will help affected employees look for other roles within the company and has scheduled a Global Town Hall for November, according to GamesBeat.

What happens to Mass Effect and Dragon Age

The next Mass Effect game was in early development with a small team, six years after EA teased it in 2020. Insider Gaming reports the game will not move to another EA studio. The reported memo does not address Dragon Age or the future of the Mass Effect franchise beyond the cancelled game, and EA has not said what it plans to do with either IP. Inven notes there are also no details on the Mass Effect TV series in production at Amazon.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is not affected by the closure as reported. Broadsword Online Games develops it and it continues to receive updates. Anthem’s servers shut down at the start of 2026.

Other cuts across EA

• skate.: Full Circle will keep working on the game with a smaller team. The studio already announced layoffs in February 2026, after skate. launched in Early Access in September 2025.
• The Sims: EA is dropping Project Lotus and moving its resources to Project Evergreen. GameSpot, Insider Gaming and others call Lotus cancelled, while GamesBeat describes it as paused.
• Large studios: GamesBeat reports big cuts at The Sims and Battlefield studios. EA has not published a studio-by-studio breakdown.

EA says it will run fewer large projects at once and concentrate on sports games, Apex Legends, Battlefield, the next Star Wars Jedi game and Marvel’s Iron Man. Apex Legends will get heavy investment, including new multiplayer modes. Respawn and DICE will work together on a new project, which Bloomberg says is likely another Star Wars Battlefront game. EA has not confirmed that. EA SPORTS is developing Project Gridiron, a social-first open-world American football game, and is in pre-production on a new Fight Night.

Earlier in 2026 EA also cut staff on skate. and Battlefield 6, and in June it cut recruitment, customer support, trust and safety and IT roles, according to Checkpoint, which cites Kotaku.

Two months after the $55 billion buyout

The layoffs come about two months after EA went private. A consortium of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners closed the $55 billion deal on August 4, 2026, paying $210 per share. Andrew Wilson remains CEO.

J.P. Morgan committed $20 billion of debt financing, and $18 billion was funded at closing. EA told investors it planned to save up to $700 million, partly by cutting R&D costs. Insider Gaming calls the layoffs the “first major domino” under the new owners and reports that its sources expect more cuts over the next 12 to 18 months. It also reports that EA looked at selling BioWare at one point, but those talks did not progress far.

BioWare’s history

Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk and Augustine Yip founded BioWare in Edmonton in 1995. EA announced the acquisition of BioWare’s parent company, VG Holding, in October 2007 for $775 million. The studio’s catalog includes Baldur’s Gate (1998), Neverwinter Nights (2002), Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003), Jade Empire (2005), the Mass Effect trilogy (2007 to 2012), Dragon Age: Origins (2009), Star Wars: The Old Republic (2011) and Anthem (2019). Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017) and Anthem disappointed, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard (October 31, 2024) missed EA’s sales targets.

BioWare laid off about 50 developers in August 2023. After Veilguard, EA restructured the studio in January 2025. Wikipedia reports that headcount fell from more than 200 two years earlier to under 100. A small Mass Effect team stayed, and that is the team now being closed.

What to watch next

The closure timeline, the future of the Dragon Age and Mass Effect IP, confirmation of the Respawn and DICE project, and EA’s November town hall.

Sources: GameSpot, Insider Gaming, GamesBeat, The Next Web, Massively Overpowered, Inven Global, Quartz, TheWrap, VGC, Checkpoint, Wikipedia: BioWare