Bloomberg reports that Electronic Arts will lay off roughly 400 employees, shut down its BioWare studio, and cancel the next game in the Mass Effect series. BioWare confirmed in a post on social media that it would be shutting down.
“Now, after more than three decades of shared adventures, BioWare is closing and early development on the next Mass Effect project is ending.”
— BioWare (@bioware) October 21, 2026
— BioWare (@bioware) October 21, 2026
The closure is the latest casualty of parent company Electronic Arts going private in a massive $55 billion buyout by the Saudi Arabian private investment fund with help from Affinity Partners, a private equity fund owned by President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. As part of the buyout, EA was saddled with $18 billion in debt and its board of executives promised investors $700 million in annual cost savings, which has resulted in several rounds of bone-cutting that now includes a studio that was once the jewel of its narrative video game business.
BioWare has been repeatedly rocked by layoffs both before and after the launch of its most recent game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, sales of which EA said had failed to meet expectations. Now the studio known for Baldur’s Gate, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and more is gone.
In addition to announcing the shutdown of BioWare, a letter to EA staff also included the news that it would cancel a project related to The Sims franchise code-named Project Lotus, to instead focus on another project code-named Evergreen.
EA plans to focus on its sports game offerings, Apex Legends, and its Marvel and Star Wars projects.
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