BioWare Shutting Down, Next Mass Effect Canceled

BioWare is shutting down and the next Mass Effect game is canceled, EA has announced.

Bloomberg said Mass Effect closes its doors amid mass layoffs at Electronic Arts, which amount to 400 people losing their jobs (approx. 3% of total staff). Roughly 50 of these roles were at BioWare.

EA will continue with sports games, Respawn's Apex Legends, action-adventure games (Star Wars: Jedi 3 and Marvel's Iron Man), and Battlefield. Bloomberg said Respawn and DICE are likely working on Star Wars: Battlefront 3, as had been rumored.

The drastic cuts come just a few months after EA went private in a leveraged buyout worth $55 billion, backed in large part by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, as well as the U.S. private equity firm Silver lake and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners.

In a memo sent to staff today, Cam Weber, president and chief studios officer, and David Tinson, president and COO, described itself as "the number one publisher in Western …