BioWare is shutting down and the next Mass Effect game is canceled, EA has announced.
Bloomberg said BioWare closes its doors amid mass layoffs at Electronic Arts, which amount to 400 people losing their jobs (approx. 3% of total staff). Roughly 50 of these roles were at BioWare.
After the franchise-best sales of Dragon Age: Inquisition, BioWare sought live-service success with Anthem, then spent the best part of a decade on the troubled Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Both underperformed. Mass Effect, meanwhile, has seen mixed success. Mass Effect Andromeda is widely considered a disappointment among fans, though the series' more recent Legendary Edition remaster was well-received.
BioWare had spent the past half a decade gradual teasing the next Mass Effect's setting and story. We'd had it confirmed that Mass Effect 5 would have been set hundreds of years after Mass Effect 3, and feature a narrative that re-centers the action on the franchise's original Milky Way setting, long after the Reapers were defeated. Now, fans will never find out what happens next.
It is unclear what this means for Amazon's live-action Mass Effect series, which was also meant to be set after the events of Mass Effect 3 and tell a fresh story. Earlier this year, Mass Effect TV series co-showrunner Daniel Casey refuted a report that suggested the upcoming adaptation had recently undergone rewrites to be "more appealing to non-gamers."
