Electronic Arts is closing BioWare, the Canadian studio behind the Mass Effect and Dragon Age games, and canceling the next Mass Effect game. Bloomberg's Jason Schreier broke the news Wednesday. EA is cutting about 400 jobs, including roughly 50 at BioWare. EA chief operating officer David Tinson and chief studios officer Cam Weber wrote to staff, "we've taken a hard look at our business." BioWare has made games for more than 30 years, and EA bought it in 2007. In August, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners finished buying EA for about $55 billion. EA hasn't said whether the new owners drove the decision.

The Buyout Debt Did This

Critics say EA's new owners loaded it with debt, and the studios are paying for it.

One analyst saw this coming a year ago. The buyout left EA with about $18 billion in debt and roughly $1.8 billion a year in interest. EA told debt investors it would cut $700 million in yearly costs. Before the deal closed, business analyst Michael Futter told CBR that debt this big "likely means layoffs, studio closures, and [selling] of IP."

Fans and analysts are furious. Fans online tied the closure straight to the buyout, and Kotaku described the reaction as mostly anger. Circana video game analyst Mat Piscatella reacted on Bluesky: "It's all being burned to the ground. And for what."

But EA Was Failing BioWare Long Before the Sale

A former BioWare leader says EA never knew what it wanted from the studio.

EA never seemed to understand what it had. Mark Darrah was an executive producer on Dragon Age and left BioWare in December 2020 after 23 years. In a YouTube interview reported in September, he said, "I would argue that BioWare was an accidental acquisition." He said EA mostly wanted Pandemic, the studio it bought in the same deal. He also said EA "never really understood what they wanted from BioWare."

Critics say EA pushed BioWare toward the wrong games. Kotaku said much of the anger targets EA's push for live-service hits, games built to keep players coming back for years. BioWare's live-service game, Anthem, launched broken and was shut down. In July, Darrah repeated a line calling EA "a hedge fund with a video game hobby" and said it still holds. Games writer Hayes Madsen said on Bluesky that EA has "committed nothing short of cultural vandalism in video games."

And BioWare's Games Stopped Selling

EA's numbers show BioWare's latest big game fell far short, and EA is betting on its bigger franchises instead.

Its last game reached about half the players EA expected. EA said in January 2025 that its game Dragon Age: The Veilguard reached about 1.5 million players in its launch quarter. That was "down nearly 50%" from what EA expected. CEO Andrew Wilson said Dragon Age "underperformed." Anthem flopped before that. BioWare's best seller is still Dragon Age: Inquisition, from 2014.

EA is moving money to its biggest games. The staff letter said EA is moving "talent and investments where we see the greatest opportunities." EA is keeping its sports games, Apex Legends, Battlefield, the next Star Wars Jedi game and a Marvel Iron Man game. Kotaku said "some will likely say the news wasn't surprising," because BioWare had struggled ever since Inquisition.

EA tried to sell BioWare first. Insider Gaming reported that EA looked into selling BioWare before closing it, but the talks didn't go far enough.

Where This Lands

EA says it's moving money to its biggest games. Veilguard fell nearly 50% short of what EA expected. Critics say the buyout debt forced cuts like this one. One analyst warned about it before the deal closed. Darrah says EA never knew what to do with BioWare in the first place. Amazon has a Mass Effect TV show in development, but nobody has said what happens to the games.

Sources