BioWare is “downsizing” as next Mass Effect remains in pre-production

thesixthaxis.com:

BioWare Gnereal Manager Gary McKay has confirmed that the studio has been “downsizing” following the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard last year and prior to spinning up full development of the next Mass Effect game.

Pre-production on a game typically requires a smaller core team, and McKay states that “[BioWare] 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.”

That’s seemingly coded phrasing for job losses, though he does assert that “over the past few months to match many of our colleagues with other teams at EA that had open roles”. Hopefully job losses alongside that have actually been minimal, and we hope anyone affected is able to find new work soon.

This is a sign of where the new Mass Effect game is at, and an indication that it will be several years away from release. Having been teased back in 2021, and again in 2022, we’ve known for years that a team led by Mike Gamble is in pre-production on the next game. We might have hoped that this would allow for production to scale up following Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s release, but it seems BioWare isn’t quite there yet.

While well received by critics, Dragon Age: The Veilguard underperformed EA’s expectations, leading to a cut in financial forecasts – EA Sports FC 25 had a bigger share of the blame, to be fair. Additionally, BioWare released what seems to be the last major update for Veilguard last week, winding down active support to only bug fixes for game-breaking issues.

Here’s the statement from Gary McKay:

Hello Everyone,

Today, we are turning towards the future and preparing for the next chapter in BioWare’s story. As we announced in August 2023, we are changing how we build games to meet the needs of our upcoming projects and hold ourselves to the highest quality standards.

Now that Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been released, a core team at BioWare is developing the next Mass