Well, here we are again. Somehow, we once again find ourselves in the aftermath of a high profile BioWare failure, once again find the studio scrambling to recover, and once again find ourselves wondering what its future is going to look like. For a decade, at this point, BioWare has been caught in a relentless downward spiral, for the third time in a row, a major new BioWare release has ended up disappointing in more ways than one, casting doubts over the studio’s capability to deliver the sort of high quality games it was once so strongly associated with.
The failures of Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem – critical or commercial – are well documented and don’t need to be relitigated for the thousandth time, and sure, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is certainly nowhere near as much of a disaster as those two were (especially Anthem). But even though it represent a gradual climb in the studio’s graph, it’s still a far cry from BioWare at its best. The fantasy action RPG suffered a horrendously long development cycle, one that was marked with numerous delays and reboots and behind-the-scenes development issues, and you can certainly feel a lot of that in the game itself. The fact that it comes as a largely underwhelming experience after an interminable ten year gap separating it from its predecessor didn’t make things much better.
Sure, Dragon Age: The Veilguard has some fans of its own, and no, it’s not a bad game- but it is one that, according to large portions of its playerbase, is a disappointing one, to one degree or another. Not only has that been reflected in the lukewarm reception for the game since its October release, it has also not sold to the level that BioWare or publisher EA would have hoped for. EA recently revealed that the game had only been played by 1.5 million players since its launch, and that its underperformance contributed to a whopping $6 billion market value loss for the company. Clearly, on multiple fronts, the game underperformed.
Unfortunately, repercussions have followed, as they often do in the wake of a high profile AAA failure. We know that BioWare has no plans for Dragon Age: The Veilguard DLC, and that the studio is now fully focused on the next Mass Effect. But as it turns its attention to the long awaited sci-fi RPG series’ revival, it’s restructuring and reorganizing in a way that doesn’t seem to be for the best by any stretch of the imagination. The manner in which these changes are taking place, meanwhile, only make the situation that much worse.
We are, unfortunately, talking once again about layoffs. BioWare GM Gary McKay recently confirmed in a blog post that the studio is restructuring for Mass Effect 5’s development. The project is still in the early stages of production, which means it’s not as a stage where it needs a large team working on it. As a result, a number of people from BioWare have been reallocated to other in-development projects across other EA studios, while several who worked on Dragon Age: The Veilguard have also been laid off.
Layoffs always suck, of course, but this round in particular seems to have been handled especially poorly. In McKay’s aforementioned blog post, for instance, there has been no mention of any roles being eliminated whatsoever. It’s only because many whose roles have been cut have taken to social media to confirm the same. Worse still is the fact that a number of people who have been let go were long-time BioWare veterans who had had crucial roles to play in the development of some of the studio’s best past titles.
This comes on the back off another round of layoffs in 2023 that eliminated 50 roles at the studio, which also included several longtime studio employees who had had heavy involvement in past successes. Studio leadership stated at the time that the cuts were made to turn into a “leaner” and “more agile” team, which, incidentally, is the exact same messaging going along with this fresh round of cuts. One has to wonder, however, just how lean and agile a studio that has been hollowed out from the inside out is going to be.
Which brings us to what might be one of the biggest problems BioWare continues to face- the slow erosion of the studio’s identity. Over the course of recent years, the developer has bled a shocking amount of talent, and of particular note has been the mass exodus of veteran talent that had been responsible for so much great work. Either through successive rounds of layoffs or people choosing to depart themselves, BioWare has lost a great many people who made significant contributions to some of its best games ever. And one can’t help but wonder with growing concern whether the “BioWare” name even means what it used to mean anymore, given the fact that the vast majority of the people who made that studio what it is no longer work there.
Some of the studio’s older heads are still there, of course. McKay’s blog post made it a point to note that the next Mass Effect, for instance, is being led by a team of veterans who also worked on the original trilogy, including including Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, and Parrish Ley, and obviously, we’re desperately hoping that that team will be able to recapture that old BioWare magic again. The original Mass Effect trilogy was arguably BioWare at its very best, so for a fan of the studio and the series, there would be nothing better than seeing a new Mass Effect game finally pulling BioWare out of its slump.
But this is a slump that has dragged on for a decade now. Yes, Mass Effect Legendary Edition offered a temporary retrieve a handful of years ago, but it was, in the end, only a remastered collection. The last three major games the developer has put out have all been disappointments to varying degrees, and at this point, even the most blindingly hopeful and optimistic person will be feeling some concern about what the future will bring. Our doubts are only doubled by how slowly Mass Effect’s development seems to be progressing. It was all the way back in 2020 that the series’ next outing was confirmed to be in the works, but half a decade later, it is still only in pre-production and evidently several years away from release.
With a team of veterans working on it, with the internal development pipeline hopefully being fixed and rethought (hopefully leading to fewer development reboots this time), and with so much riding on it, our hope is that the next Mass Effect game will be able to flourish. Because honestly, if it cannot, if it somehow ends up being a fourth successive failure for BioWare and once again fails to come anywhere close to its past glories- if that happens, I’m afraid the studio might not survive another prominent failure.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
