Bioware announces staff 'restructuring' but former Dragon Age developers say dozens have been quietly laid off
"Given this stage of development (of Mass Effect), we don’t require support from the full studio,” Bioware general manager Gary McKay said
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Edmonton-based game studio Bioware announced a “restructuring” of staff Thursday saying they’ve been moved to positions at Electronic Arts (EA), however, several former developers say the studio also quietly laid off dozens of staff.
In a blog post on Bioware’s website Thursday, general manager Gary McKay said the studio is “taking this opportunity between full development cycles to reimagine how we work,” referring both to the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and the ongoing development of the fifth Mass Effect game.
With the completion of the latest Dragon Age game, McKay said the studio is singularly focused on developing Mass Effect.
“Given this stage of development (of Mass Effect), we don’t require support from the full studio,” McKay said. “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.”
Meanwhile, several developers who worked on Dragon Age: The Veilguard took to social media to reveal they were, in fact, laid off.
That includes former editor Karin West-Weekes, narrative designer and lead writer Trick Weekes, editor Ryan Cormier, producer Jen Cheverie, senior systems designer Michelle Flamm, and writer Ann Lamey, who all confirmed their exits on Bluesky.
EA did not immediately respond to Postmedia’s request for an interview. However, they told IGN Thursday that “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.”
The staff changes come one week after Corinne Busche, game director for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, announced her departure from the studio. That same week, EA revealed a quarterly financial statement that showed that Dragon Age: The Veilguard unperformed sales expectations by 50 per cent, with only 1.5 million “engagements”, but did not say how many.
BioWare already suffered a round of layoffs in 2023, letting go of 50 staff across the studio.
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