BioWare has been restructured, following the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, with some staff reportedly joining other teams within EA, and others having their roles terminated entirely. A new blog post attempts to put a positive spin on these developments, with BioWare general manager Gary McKay claiming the team is now turning focus to Mass Effect 5, and this project doesn’t need a full studio yet.
“In keeping with our fierce commitment to innovating during the development and delivery of Mass Effect, we have challenged ourselves to think deeply about delivering the best experience to our fans,” McKay wrote. “We are taking this opportunity between full development cycles to reimagine how we work at BioWare.”
“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. Today’s news will see BioWare become a more agile, focused studio that produces unforgettable RPGs.”
It appears BioWare has been downsized in this process, although the company has elected not to confirm how many staff have been moved to other departments in EA, or how many have been laid off. In a statement to IGN, a spokesperson simply said: “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.”
Read: Dragon Age: The Veilguard, EA Sports FC 2025 reportedly underperformed on expectations
Notably, BioWare has been impacted by a range of layoffs in recent years. In late 2023, around 50 employees were laid off, as a means to “meet the needs” of the studio’s upcoming projects. At the time, this was described as necessary to “iterate quickly, unlock more creativity, and form a clear vision.” In early 2025, it was reported that some key staff had begun departing BioWare, including Dragon Age: The Veilguard director, Corinne Busche.
At this stage, it appears this new, “agile” version of BioWare will be a smaller unit, focussed on the promise of Mass Effect 5 – although it’s worth noting there’s still plenty of secrecy about this game, and what it currently looks like. It’s been in development for several years now, but beyond a handful of teasers, we haven’t seen anything really tangible from the project just yet.
“Now that Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been released, a core team at BioWare is developing the next Mass Effect game under the leadership of veterans from the original trilogy, including Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, Parrish Ley, and others,” McKay noted in his latest studio update.
This team will continue to develop the next Mass Effect, with a reduced team of an indeterminate size. While this team will likely grow as plans shape up, it’s unclear how far away this eventuality is.
As always in cases like these, our thoughts are with those developers now out of work.