BioWare studio shuttered by EA after more than 30 years of video games

In 1995 three Canadian doctors, joined by a love of video games, pooled their money to launch a studio which would provide countless hours of entertainment, joy and magical storytelling to people all over the world.

Thirty-one years later, on October 22, 2026, that dream died.

BioWare, the studio which created Mass Effect, Dragon Age and the first two Baldur's Gate games, released a statement on social media announcing the closure and the cancellation of development of Mass Effect 5, which had loosely been slated for release in 2028.

"There is nothing easy about writing these words," it said.

"Our focus right now is on our incredibly talented team who put their hearts into these games, and supporting one another through this transition."

Fan farewells flowed in.

Facebook user Melantha Justice wrote: "I would not be me without Dragon Age. Dragon Age: Originsmeans more to me than anyone could ever know. I salute you BioWare."

On Reddit, users expressed dismay at the closure and the uncertain future of the studio's intellectual property, however some said the writing had been on the wall.

"After Dragon Age: The Veilguard I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner," commenter Matt Pierce wrote.

Some commenters blamed the poor sales performance of recent games and called the closure predictable, many also blamed Electronic Arts (EA), which bought BioWare in 2007.

Regardless of its recent titles, BioWare's impact on gaming and the role-playing genre is indisputable.

From Doctors to Dungeon Masters

Founders Greg Zeschuk, Ray Muzyka, and Augustine Yip, met in medical school at the University of Alberta and in 1995 they started BioWare, releasing their first commercially successful game by 1996.

But the first feather in their cap came in 1998 in the form of Baldur's Gate, which cost an estimated $CAD1 million to make and sold more than 2 million copies on release.

Set in the world of Dungeons and Dragons, Baldur's Gatelet players create their own characters and have a say in its outcome.

In 2000 Baldur's Gate 2 was released, matching the first game's success.

It was followed by Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in 2003, which also received critical acclaim.

Founder of Melbourne-based Summerfall Studios game company, David Gaider, was brought on as a writer for Baldur's Gate 2.

He said he joined the company at a time it had just 50 employees, including two of the founders, and the game would help BioWare flourish.

"Baldur's Gate 2 kinda put BioWare on the map,"

Gaider said.

These successes were just a prelude for what came next.

The golden era

In 2004 BioWare began work on its first new intellectual properties.

"The bosses were tired of having a third-party IP owner always on the line," Gaider said.

"So we're gonna start our own fantasy IP and sci-fi IP."

Mass Effect, set in a future Milky Way Galaxy, let players step into the role of Commander Shepard, an interstellar special forces operative on a mission to save the galaxy from obliteration.

It took a team of 130 people three years of work to deliver the game.

The game featured multiple-choice, fully-voiced conversations and had more than 20,000 lines of spoken dialogue which, according to lead writer Drew Karpyshyn, was equivalent to 20 movies or four to five novels.

Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 sold millions of copies with the latter widely regarded as one of the best games ever created.

Mass Effect 2 was Good Game Spawn Squad presenter Gemma Driscoll's first BioWare game.

"It kind of just dazzled me," Driscoll said.

"It was my first choose your own adventure kind of game.

"I'm on my 30^th or 40^th full play through of the series now."

The games also featured romance, with players being able to pursue a relationship with different companions.

These relationships were a hallmark of BioWare's title and fans remain invested in them to this day, including Driscoll who described Mass Effect character, Thane Krios, as "the love of my life".

"There was something kind of revolutionary in the idea that companionship could be found in such an interactive way that could still hit you emotionally even if it isn't real," she said.

Between the two releases, and a surprise success, was the fantasy Dragon Age: Origins, whose world was created by Gaider.

"I had no idea what I was doing," he said.

"It was sort of like I was a dungeon master for a DND game run amok."

With three hits between 2007 and 2010, BioWare was enjoying a golden age and Gaider said there was "a lot of skill and imagination under one roof".

Great expectations

Dragon Age 2 in 2011 didn't receive the same high praise as the first and the highly anticipated Mass Effect 3, while received well by critics, did not meet up to some fans' expectations.

On the other hand, Dragon Age: Inquisition launched in 2014 and sold more than 12 million copies, becoming the best-selling BioWare game to date.

Gaider felt Dragon Age was his baby.

"I created the world. There were other writers, but I was the first one with my toe in the water and I was the one who kicked it off," he said.

Although not all of his ideas were realised over the three-game run, he never begrudged the changes or cuts made.

After the release of Inquisition, Gaider felt he'd "written all the mage, templar and demon stories" he could and transitioned to a new title, Anthem.

EA's influence

Electronic Arts (EA), the publishers behind the FIFA, Dead Space and The Sims series, bought Bioware in 2007 for roughly $US1.2 billion.

Gaider said initially very little changed, but by the time he started work on Anthem its influence was being felt.

"When you have a corporation looming over you … their comparison for a game that sells well is their sports titles," he said.

He said the thought process at EA was: "If a BioWare game doesn't sell 10 million copies why are we doing it?"

"And BioWare games never sold 10 million copies," he said.

"We were the red-headed stepchild."

He said the focus went from making a good game to maximising sales and profit.

Anthem was developed as an online, multiplayer, action, role-playing game and released in 2019 to a mixed reception.

Gaider left Anthem's development midway through production.

It did not meet EA's commercial expectations and in January 2026 all servers supporting Anthem were shut and the game is now unplayable.

End of an age

Anthem's failure was preceded by the poor reception of the anticipated fourth Mass Effect game, Mass Effect Andromeda.

The last major release from BioWare, and a common fan scapegoat for its ultimate closure, was 2024s Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which had been in development since 2014 and had been intended as a monetised, live service, multiplayer game, similar to Anthem.

The failure of Anthem led to it being rebooted, more than once, and developers were pressed for time.

Gaider attributed its failure to the symptomatic issues plaguing BioWare.

"It's just changed too much, I suppose, internally," he said.

"The golden days are over.

"Whatever sort of mentality had taken hold which EA had put in there it was clear for Veilguard that Electronic Arts had set them up to fail."

Driscoll said she was empathetic to BioWare "being under the thumb of a publisher that demands insane numbers (of sales) again and again and again".

"We are seeing more and more, especially in the last five years, that it does not matter if you make a good game or a bad game; studios are getting axed left and right," she said.

"You are numbers on spreadsheets, and it doesn't matter if it means it can save some money."

On October 22 EA announced it was closing BioWare and cancelling the next Mass Effect game.

"BioWare is a legendary studio that helped define the role-playing genre, and we do not take this decision lightly," the publisher said.

A lasting legacy

Driscoll said BioWare's closure left her gutted, but the stories it created will "always remain very dear to my heart".

"The outpouring of support and emotion and for lack of a better term of grief is indicative of the impacts these games had," she said.

"For people out there, this meant a lot to them.

"That defies numbers on a spreadsheet."

Gaider said BioWare's impact on the gaming world was unmistakable.

"You can see (its) influence everywhere.

"The way a cinematic game is shot that everyone for quite a while … if a game had story they wanted to present it in the way BioWare did."

BioWare's intellectual properties are held by EA, but Gaider believes it's unlikely fans will see a new Mass Effect or Dragon Age game any time soon.

He also believes BioWare's games "represented a progressive view of the world" which doesn't match with EA's investors, which includes Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.

However fans have hope in the future and a petition to #SaveMassEffect has garnered more than 275,000 signatures.

Gaider said he feels sad about BioWare's fate.

"In an era where we're considering AI as a possible replacement for writing … this was a company that valued good story from humans," he said.

"Especially a little company out in the middle of Canada in Edmonton Alberta, where there's not exactly a hub of game development, here rose a world class studio that for a time made games the entire world paid attention to."