BioWare, the video game studio behind popular titles such as Baldur’s Gate, Dragon Age and Mass Effect, said on Wednesday that it was shutting down after three decades amid expected layoffs at its parent company, Electronic Arts.
As a result of the closing, BioWare said in a statement on social media that it was canceling the upcoming installment of Mass Effect, the science-fiction action shooter game. BioWare also developed Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Star Wars: The Old Republic.
“What generations of BioWare built together is something to celebrate and remember,” BioWare said in a statement. “These games became so much more because you played them, debated your choices, fell in love with the characters, and made these worlds your own.”
Electronic Arts, a top video game publishing company, is expected to make some limited layoffs of its work force as part of cost cutting.
In August, Electronic Arts closed a deal that sold the company, valued at roughly $55 billion, to a group of private investors that includes a firm managed by President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
BioWare, founded in Canada, popularized role playing in its video games, allowing its players to develop romances and emphasizing narrative arcs. This resonated with audiences.
Baldur’s Gate 3, which was developed by Larian Studios, not BioWare, sold more than 10 million copies after its release in 2023 and became an instant standard for character romance writing.
“BioWare is a legendary studio that helped define the role-playing genre, and we do not take this decision lightly,” Cam Weber, the president and chief studios officer at Electronic Arts, and David Tinson, president and chief operating officer, said in a memo.
BioWare was in the early-development stage for its fifth Mass Effect game. The original Mass Effect trilogy, which ran from 2007 to 2012, was critically acclaimed and became widely popular for its world building and space-opera feel.
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