Dragon Age Devs Laid Off as BioWare Shifts Focus to Mass Effect

In a significant shift at BioWare, key developers behind the Dragon Age series have announced their departure following the studio's restructuring to prioritize the next installment in the Mass Effect franchise. On January 29, IGN reported that BioWare had reassigned numerous developers to other projects within EA to focus solely on 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 further 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 transitioned an undisclosed number of BioWare developers into equivalent roles within the company, some Dragon Age team members are facing termination. These individuals are being given the opportunity to apply for other roles within EA.

In the wake of these changes, 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, have taken to social media to announce their departure from the studio and their search for new opportunities.

This restructuring comes on the heels of a round of layoffs in 2023 at BioWare, and the recent departure of Dragon Age: The Veilguard director Corinne Busche. When asked about the specifics of how many BioWare employees were affected by these changes, EA provided a vague response:

"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 game in the fantasy RPG series in a decade, but its launch was underwhelming. BioWare confirmed that Dragon Age: The Veilguard wouldn’t receive any post-launch DLC, disappointing fans who expected expansions similar to those of previous Dragon Age titles. Last week, EA revealed that Dragon Age: The Veilguard fell short of sales expectations by 50%, achieving only 1.5 million players instead of the anticipated three million. The game's development was fraught with challenges, including layoffs and the departure of several project leads at various stages.

Moving forward, EA stated that a "core team" at BioWare, led by veterans from the original Mass Effect trilogy such as Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, Parrish Ley, and others, is now developing the next Mass Effect game.