The Electronic Arts developer BioWare – known for famous RPG series such as Baldur’s Gate, STAR WARS: Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect – has announced it is “eliminating approximately 50 roles” at the studio.
In order to match the changing needs, it will shift towards a “more agile and more focused studio” – allowing developers to iterate quickly, unlock more creativity and form a clear vision of the games being built before development is ramped up. This “extremely difficult” decision will also apparently “preserve the health of the studio” and allow it to focus more on what it does best: “create exceptional story-driven single-player experiences filled with vast worlds and rich characters.”
Impacted colleagues will be given “internal opportunities” throughout EA, but not everyone will necessarily be guaranteed a new role. As for current projects in development such as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, BioWare insists its commitment remains steadfast. Pre-production on the new Mass Effect game also continues.
As cliche as this sounds, there truly is never a good time to enact changes like this, but we trust that we have the right leaders and team in place with vision, passion, and proven track records to deliver world-class Dragon Age and Mass Effect experiences that our fans will love. – BioWare general manager, Gary McKay
Although there haven’t been any new BioWare projects released on the Nintendo Switch, a lot of the company’s older titles have made their way across to the hybrid system thanks to other developers and publishers. Some of these titles include Never Winter Nights and the original Knights of the Old Republic Star Wars game.
If we hear any other developments, we’ll let you know.
