Dragon Age Devs 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 is now focusing solely on the next Mass Effect game. On January 29, IGN reported that BioWare had reassigned several of its developers to other projects within EA, allowing the studio to concentrate entirely on Mass Effect 5.

BioWare's general manager, Gary McKay, stated that the studio is using the time between major development cycles to "reimagine how we work." He explained, "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 unknown 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 publicly announced their departure from the studio and are seeking new opportunities.

This follows a previous round of layoffs at BioWare in 2023, and the recent exit of Dragon Age: The Veilguard director Corinne Busche. When asked about the specifics of the impact on BioWare's staff, EA provided a vague response, emphasizing that the studio's priority had been Dragon Age and is now shifting entirely to Mass Effect.

EA stated, "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 latest entry in the fantasy RPG series and the first in a decade, concluded its development with what appeared to be its final major update last week. The game's launch was underwhelming, with BioWare confirming that it would not receive any post-launch DLC, much to the disappointment of fans who expected expansions akin to those of previous Dragon Age titles.

EA also revealed that Dragon Age: The Veilguard fell significantly short of sales expectations, achieving only 1.5 million players against a target of three million. This shortfall comes amidst documented development challenges, including layoffs and the departure of several key project leads at various stages.

Meanwhile, a 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 developing the next Mass Effect game.