After Dragon Age: The Veilguard Comes Up Short, BioWare Undergoes Changes

In the wake of EA's announcement that Dragon Age: The Veilguard failed to meet the company's expectations, BioWare has announced that it is "changing how we build games" in an effort to hold the company to "the highest quality standards."

In a blog post, BioWare GM Gary McKay said "a core team" at BioWare is making the next Mass Effect, while other team members are departing. McKay said BioWare has "worked diligently" in the past months to find new positions for BioWare staffers at other internal EA teams. Whether or not there were layoffs connected to these changes, however, is unknown. The Veilguard game director Corinne Busch has left BioWare.

"In keeping with our fierce commitment to innovating during the development and delivery of Mass Effect, we have challenged ourselves to think deeply about delivering the best experience to our fans. We are taking this opportunity between full development cycles to reimagine how we work at BioWare," McKay said.

McKay added that, because the next Mass Effect game is so early in development, the studio doesn't "require support from the full studio."

"Today's news will see BioWare become a more agile, focused studio that produces unforgettable RPGs. We appreciate your support as we build a new future for BioWare," McKay said.

EA management said earlier this month that The Veilguard "engaged" 1.5 million players, which was a big miss from the 3 million that EA expected. Whether or not this had anything to do with the structural changes at BioWare is unknown.

BioWare's track record in the past decade has been checkered. Dragon Age: Inquisition won Game of the Year in 2014, but 2015 saw the cancellation of BioWare's multiplayer game Shadow Realms. Then in 2017, BioWare released Mass Effect: Andromeda, and many remarked that it failed to live up to the franchise's lofty quality benchmarks. BioWare followed Andromeda up with Anthem, a multiplayer live-service game that faced its own share of issues and criticisms. Mass Effect Legendary Edition, which included remastered versions of the original Mass Effect trilogy, followed in 2021 and was well-regarded.

As mentioned, BioWare is now working on the next Mass Effect with a veteran team, but no one should expect it to release anytime soon.

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