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BioWare veterans confirm they were laid off by EA, including senior Dragon Age and Mass Effect devs | EA refused to acknowledge layoffs in yesterday's announcement about BioWare's downsizing, but they're happening.

EA refused to acknowledge layoffs in yesterday's announcement about BioWare's downsizing, but they're happening.

Collectively, the cuts represent a major loss of creative talent for the studio, and bears echoes of BioWare's layoff of roughly 50 employees in 2023, which included Mary Kirby, a writer on all the Dragon Age games and creator of some of the series' best-loved characters. The whole episode casts an ugly light on EA's insistence that all is well at BioWare, and particularly that the next Mass Effect game—which seemingly remains in pre-production despite being confirmed more than four years ago —is being developed "under the leadership of veterans from the original trilogy." Not that it's untrue—longtime BioWare producer Michael Gamble is leading the effort—but it is galling to see vague promises about an anticipated videogame used as a smokescreen for the removal of veteran staff that EA won't specifically identify the departure of.

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