It hasn’t been a great year for BioWare, honestly it hasn’t been a great decade for Bioware. In the wake of both Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda being critical and commercial flops, all eyes were on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, BioWare’s latest outing in their attempts to recapture their past glory days. Sadly, Dragon Age: The Veilguard failed to live up to expectations or, depending on your view on Bioware as a whole, lived up to exactly what one would expect from them. And, with their latest decade plus project down the drain EA has decided to downsize the BioWare office leading in to Mass Effect 4.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s director Corinne Busch had already left the company after a long 18 year tenure there, and following Busch seems to be a bevy of other Bioware employees including 20 year Bioware veteran Trick Weekes as revealed on Bluesky. Along with Weekes are Michelle Flamm, Karin West-Weekes, Jen Cheverie, Ryan Cormier and likely many others.

I’m now looking for a new writing/narrative position. It’s been a privilege to work with so many amazing devs over my 20 years at BioWare, and I will cherish the memories of the wonderful folks in the community I’ve met along the way. Thank you all.

— Trick Weekes (@trickweekes.bsky.social) January 29, 2025 at 4:58 PM

It is always tragic when a mass layoff like this occurs, but this definitely isn’t unexpected. In the eyes of EA, BioWare must be more a liability than anything else. As stated before, Mass Effect: Andromeda didn’t exactly turn heads and Anthem was an straight up failure. After a decade of development, EA no doubt expected Dragon Age: The Veilguard to perform much better than it actually did, and with ten years of works not giving the expected returns something had to give. The future definitely isn’t looking too bright for the future Mass Effect 4 and, sadly, BioWare as a whole. But if a shuddering of BioWare offices and the burial of its name are in the cards for the one-time celebrated RPG pioneer then nobody can really say it came out of nowhere.