American company Electronic Arts ( The EA has decided to shut down the renowned BioWare Video Games studio and cancel the development of the new section of the series Mass Effectão, as part of a wide business restructuring.
The decision to shut down the studio in Edmonton, Canada, was communicated with employees on 21 October, under a wave of cuts affecting about 400 jobs throughout the company, including approximately 50 bioWare employees.
This development comes after buying EA from a consortium of investors led by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund ( PIF, along with Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, in a deal worth 55 billion dollars.
Founded in 1995, BioWare was one of the best-known videogame industry studios, creating successful titles such as Baaldurs Gates. Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age and Mass Effect.
After being purchased from EA in 2007, the study continued to develop some of the best – known games of role games ( RPG). In recent years, however, they were accompanied by problems in developing projects, changes in creative direction, and worse results than expectations.
Among the projects that failed to achieve the desired success were mass Effect: Andromeda and Anathem. And Dragon Age: The Veilward, the latest studio game, went through some changes during development and failed to meet sales expectations.
The closure of BioWare also means the halting of work for the new part of Mass Effectı, which was still in early stages of development and had been warned since 2020.
Under the new strategy, the EA aims to focus resources on fewer projects and on games with greater commercial potential. The company has confirmed that it will continue investments in the Battlefield and Apex Legenses, as well as in the new game, Star Wars Jedii and the project March Iron Maní.
The EA also plans to restore the series of game boxing Night and develop new projects in the field of sports and interactive entertainment.
The closure of BioWare marks the end of one of the studios that have largely influenced the development of deep history games and complex characters, leaving behind an inheritance that has earned millions of fans worldwide for more than three decades. /Telegraphy/