Dragon Age Developers Reveal They’ve Been Laid Off After BioWare Puts ‘Full Focus’ on Mass Effect

Key developers from the Dragon Age series have announced their departure from BioWare following the studio's recent restructuring, which shifts focus entirely to the next Mass Effect game. On January 29, IGN reported that BioWare had reassigned numerous developers to other projects within EA, signaling a complete pivot to Mass Effect 5.

BioWare's general manager, Gary McKay, explained that the studio is "taking this opportunity between full development cycles to reimagine how we work." He noted, "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 developers are being given the opportunity to apply for other positions within EA.

Following the 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, took to social media to announce their departure and seek new employment opportunities.

This news comes on the heels of BioWare's layoffs in 2023 and the recent departure 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, 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 marked the first new entry in the fantasy RPG series in a decade, but its launch was underwhelming. BioWare confirmed that the game would not receive any post-launch DLC, disappointing fans who expected expansions similar to those of previous Dragon Age titles. EA later revealed that Dragon Age: The Veilguard fell short of sales expectations by 50%, reaching only 1.5 million players instead of the anticipated three million. The game's development was marred by challenges, including layoffs and the departure of several project leads at various stages.

Meanwhile, EA confirmed that 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 working on the next Mass Effect game.