ⓘ Bloomberg
The $55 billion buyout finally has a body count. Ironically, the studio that defined the modern RPG is the first to go, but its not the only victim.
EA has confirmed that BioWare, the studio behind Mass Effect and Dragon Age, is closing after more than 30 years. EA has canceled the next Mass Effect game. Around 50 BioWare staff are affected, but that is only a fraction of the 400 roles EA is eliminating across the publisher.
The closure is the first major round of layoffs since EA was fully acquired by a consortium of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners in a $55 billion leveraged buyout earlier this year. When the deal closed, EA told debt investors it would cut $700 million in annual costs, including $170 million in "organizational efficiencies". BioWare is the most visible casualty of that promise.
The other 350 cuts are scattered across EA's most important studios
EA initially confirmed BioWare's 50 workers and a downsizing at Skate studio Ripple Effect, but did not say where the remaining 350 cuts would land. Reporting from Vertical Slice, corroborated by LinkedIn posts from affected employees, has now filled in the gaps. The Sims studio Maxis, Battlefield support studio Ripple Effect, Skate developer Full Circle, and Iron Man developer EA Motive have all been hit.
Maxis senior director Anna Huerta confirmed her departure on LinkedIn. Three Ripple Effect artists and a Ripple/Respawn operations product manager also posted that they were affected. EA Motive's senior gameplay designer Jamieson Shearer, Full Circle's senior designer David Milne, and seasonal creative director John Epler were among those cut.
The Respawn cuts are the most surprising. EA said it would be investing "heavily" in the studio to support Apex Legends and a co-developed project with DICE, reportedly Star Wars: Battlefront 3. EA also said it is throwing its "full weight" behind Motive's Iron Man game and Respawn's Star Wars Jedi sequel, its only two action-adventure projects currently in the works.
The buyout debt is the backdrop nobody can ignore
The timing is not subtle. EA went private two months ago carrying $18 billion in debt, and the layoffs are the first tangible sign of what that debt means for the people who make the games. The company is narrowing its focus to fewer, larger projects: Battlefield, Apex Legends, the next Star Wars Jedi, Iron Man, and its sports titles. Everything else is negotiable.
Community reaction has been grim but unsurprising. On LinkedIn, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier framed the news as EA shedding 400 jobs and shutting down a legendary studio to cut costs, two months after a buyout that loaded the company with debt. The pattern is familiar: private equity, cost targets, and the studios that built the publisher's reputation paying the price. BioWare survived the Anthem disaster and the mixed reception to Dragon Age: The Veilguard. It did not survive the balance sheet.