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

Key developers from the Dragon Age series have announced their departure from BioWare following the studio's recent restructuring, which aims to shift its focus entirely to the next installment of the Mass Effect franchise. On January 29, IGN reported that BioWare had reassigned several of its developers to other projects within EA as part of this strategic pivot.

BioWare's general manager, Gary McKay, explained 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."

While EA has successfully placed an unspecified number of BioWare developers into equivalent roles within the company, a smaller group of Dragon Age team members are facing termination. These individuals are being given the opportunity to apply for other positions within EA.

In the wake of 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, have taken to social media to announce their departure from the studio and their search for new employment opportunities.

This news comes on the heels of a round of layoffs at BioWare in 2023 and the recent departure of Dragon Age: The Veilguard director Corinne Busche. When asked by IGN about the specifics of the impact on BioWare's staff, EA provided a vague response, stating, "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 what appears to be its final major update. BioWare confirmed that the game would not receive any post-launch DLC, disappointing fans who had anticipated expansions similar to those of previous Dragon Age titles. EA also revealed that Dragon Age: The Veilguard fell short of sales expectations by 50%, achieving only 1.5 million players against a target of three million.

Meanwhile, a "core team" at BioWare, led by veterans from the original Mass Effect trilogy including Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, and Parrish Ley, is currently developing the next Mass Effect game.