George In The Meta
Why did EA close BioWare?
By George In The Meta ·
Short answer: EA closed BioWare, but I think both of them broke it. EA broke BioWare by making it build Anthem, a kind of game it wasn't good at making, while another EA studio made exactly the kind of game BioWare is known for. Then Dragon Age: The Veilguard was on BioWare itself.
What happened to BioWare?
On 21 October BioWare announced it is closing after more than 30 years, and that early development on the next Mass Effect is ending. The post had over 23 million views within a day.
https://x.com/bioware/status/2112953618093535510
EA is cutting around 400 jobs across the company alongside the closure, according to Bloomberg (PC Gamer). It's the first big cut since EA was bought out by a group of investors led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.
Which BioWare games have I played?
Heaps of them. Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate 2, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: The Old Republic, all three of the original Mass Effect games, Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2. Fuck, man. Baldur's Gate 2 and Neverwinter Nights were some of the earliest PC games I really, really got into.
I would have been 12, playing Baldur's Gate 2 on my own PC. I didn't play Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Anthem or the latest Dragon Age.
Why did EA close BioWare?
Because EA picks up companies, gets them to make a game they're not good at making, then complains when it's bad. I think that was most obvious with Anthem.
BioWare made story RPGs, and all its other games sit in that same genre. Anthem, an online multiplayer action game, is the odd one out. It came out in February 2019 to mixed reviews, and its servers shut down for good on 12 January this year (Anthem).
What did Respawn have to do with it?
At the same time, EA had another studio make exactly the type of game BioWare is good at. EA bought Respawn, the Titanfall studio, in December 2017 (Respawn Entertainment).
Respawn's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order came out that November, a single-player Star Wars story game, the same year as Anthem. It sold over 10 million copies by 2020 (Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order). BioWare made Knights of the Old Republic. That's exactly the type of game BioWare is good at making.
Bloomberg later reported that EA changed the next Dragon Age from a multiplayer live-service game to single-player because Fallen Order sold and Anthem didn't (Dragon Age: The Veilguard).
Was Dragon Age: The Veilguard BioWare's fault?
Yes, I think Veilguard was BioWare, not EA. Everything after Anthem feels more like it's in BioWare's wheelhouse. But I think the team that made Veilguard cared more about pushing their own messages onto people than about giving players the Dragon Age they wanted, and what came out was slop.
I'm not the only one. Åsa Roos, a senior designer who spent over five years at BioWare, called the game's writing heavy-handed and "a bit condescending" in places (TheGamer).
It also missed badly. Veilguard reached about 1.5 million players and missed EA's expectations by almost half, according to EA's own earnings report (Windows Central).
Is Mass Effect dead?
Yeah, I don't think Mass Effect is coming back. I don't even know if people want Mass Effect back.
The last two Mass Effect games both had their controversies. Mass Effect 3's ending went down so badly with fans that BioWare put out an Extended Cut to expand it (Mass Effect 3). Mass Effect: Andromeda's facial animations got turned into memes (Mass Effect: Andromeda). If you want to play the series now, the Mass Effect Legendary Edition collects the original trilogy.
Will anyone make Mass Effect or Dragon Age again?
I don't know. Now that I've remembered what the latest Dragon Age was, I want to say Mass Effect and Dragon Age are both dead.
Former Dragon Age boss Mark Darrah already thought the series was probably dead and buried back in July, calling EA "a hedge fund with a videogame hobby" (PC Gamer). Now Mass Effect is gone too.