BioWare, the acclaimed video game studio behind the highly influential Mass Effect and Dragon Age game series, has been closed by its parent company Electronic Arts (EA).

While neither video game series ever achieved financial success to the scale of series like Grand Theft Auto, whose upcoming instalment is expected to be the largest release in video game and perhaps all entertainment history, they were considered highly influential and were beloved for their characters and narratives.

The Mass Effect series has been hailed as ‘one of the grandest—and most personal—sci-fi epics in any medium’, ‘some of the best sci-fi ever made’ and one of ‘the most important science fiction universe of our generation’.

Dragon Age’s third instalment, Inquisition, was named video game of the year by multiple outlets upon its release in 2014.

Both the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series also spawned merchandise such as books, toys, collectables and more as well as a highly engaged online community.

But despite their acclaim, cracks have been showing for years. Mass Effect 3’s release in 2012 was met with controversy with its ending disappointing loyal players.

A visitor plays 'Mass Effect 2' at 'gamescom', Europe's biggest trade fair for interactive games and entertainment in Germany, 2009 (Alex Grimm-Getty)

BioWare’s next Mass Effect release, Andromeda, had a lukewarm reception; a far cry from its predecessors.

In 2019 BioWare released Anthem, a multiplayer video game in contrast to their prior single player, narrative focused games, after a lengthy, seven-year development cycle. The game also had a lukewarm reception and was closed in 2026.

Ten years after Dragon Age Inquisition, BioWare finally released the next video game in the series: Veilguard.

The game also suffered from a lengthy development time, changed its narrative focus and upon release some players considered it too different from the previous games in the series.

EA confirmed the game underperformed commercial expectations by 50 percent.

With that in mind, it is easy to see how BioWare became an easy target for shutdown by EA.

And EA, because it was subject to the largest buyout ever by a private equity firm in 2025, has massive new debt to service.

It has been estimated that the interest on that debt is more than EA earns.

EA had been expected, if not feared, to turn their attention to more sports and multiplayer video games, which are considered to be more reliable at producing profit than single player titles.

However, other studios owned by EA that had been producing single player narrative games, such as Respawn Entertainment, have survived.

But Respawn Entertainment had released two highly acclaimed single player video games since 2019, while you would have to go back to 2014 to find the latest highly acclaimed BioWare game.

BioWare has also been said to have a chaotic development process with the studio expecting games to come together with ‘BioWare magic’ resulting in massive overtime and burnout, according to video game journalist Jason Schreier.

Given BioWare’s repeated less than stellar market offerings and development processes, it seemed that EA did not consider the studio worth the financial bet.

A gamer plays the video game 'Dragon age the veilguard' developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts on Xbox console during the 'Paris Games Week' in Paris, 2024 (Chesnot-Getty)

There was a sliver of hope for BioWare, though. Their 2021 remaster of the Mass Effect trilogy exceeded sales targets and BioWare was working on the fifth Mass Effect game.

But the litany of fumbles seems to have reduced both consumer and corporate trust in the studio and EA closed it and cancelled the game.

It is a sad end for a studio that was highly influential and industry luminaries have decried the closure.

Players have also started petitions to save Mass Effect.

Unfortunately, BioWare has become another victim of EA, who are notorious for buying up studios and closing them down.

But BioWare’s fate also serves as a warning as to what can happen if studios do not offer video games that players consider authentic to their previous ones in the series. Trust had been eroded; expectations were not met and more and more players were wary.

BioWare had also suffered through layoffs including key writers, who had long worked on Dragon Age and Mass Effect.

It has been estimated there were less than 50 people still employed at BioWare, who had already spent 6 years working on Mass Effect 5 with the game still considered in ‘early development’.

Ultimately BioWare was an easy mark for EA and, with hindsight, the writing (and warning) was on the wall.

That said, the closure of a narrative focused studio like BioWare is sad news for players, who prefer video games with deep stories and have followed BioWare for years.

BioWare weren’t what they once were, but many players, including myself, have fond memories of the hours spent playing the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series.

For the sake of the video game industry, let’s hope more narrative games take their place.

Disclosure statement

Dr Jacqueline Burgess is member and the Treasurer of the Digital Games Research Association of Australia and has accepted funding from Screen Australia to research video games and video game players.