BioWare is only the latest victim of a long string of studio closures at EA, tracing back as far as the 1980s.
Yesterday evening, EA announced it was closing BioWare in its entirety, cancelling the next Mass Effect and dooming both it and Dragon Age to a netherworld of non-existence.
As tragic as this closure is for all the people involved, it was sadly predictable. Some will blame the leveraged buyout by an investor consortium (which has put EA in $18 billion of debt) while others will point to how BioWare has been mishandled for years.
Despite its skill with role-playing games, BioWare’s attempt to make a live service game with Anthem failed and so too did Dragon Age: The Veilguard, making their position very precarious – especially as the new Mass Effect game never seemed to get off the ground properly.
However, BioWare’s fate was perhaps inevitable the moment it was sold to EA in 2007. The publisher’s legacy is littered with closed studios; ones that were downsized, stripped of their assets, and eventually discarded as the company chased trends and higher profits.
We’ve looked back at the history of EA acquisitions and found a disturbing number of studios that have been culled in the company’s lifetime. So many, in fact, we’ve had to concentrate just on the 10 most famous ones.
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Origin Systems
You may have heard the Origin Systems name recently, as its two most popular franchises – role-playing series Ultima and space combat sim Wing Commander – are on the road to a comeback.
Don’t give EA too much credit for that, though. After Origin was forcefully pivoted into an online-only studio at the turn of century, it only existed to support Ultima Online and eventually shut down in 2004, 12 years after EA bought it.
Bullfrog Productions
British studio Bullfrog was the first to be founded by industry veteran Peter Molyneux and was responsible for key Amiga titles like god game Populous and management sim Theme Park.
After a long-standing publishing deal, EA snapped up the studio in 1995, but a lack of major hits and a change of priorities within EA led to Bullfrog’s closure in 2001 – and the subsequent founding of successor Lionhead.
Maxis
You may be confused by this one since Maxis is by all accounts still alive and managing The Sims 4. However, it’s not technically the same Maxis that EA bought in 1997.
The original Maxis was still responsible for creating The Sims, but after the disastrous launch of a SimCity reboot in 2013, a series of layoffs led to its complete closure in 2015. EA later established a brand new studio in 2019 and then just gave it the same name.
Westwood Studios, Virgin Interactive’s North American Operations, Burst Studios
EA acquired real-time strategy pioneer Westwood Studios, along with Virgin Interactive’s North American operations and Burst Studios in 1998. All three studios were eventually merged together into EA Pacific, but some underperformances led to EA Pacific being absorbed into EA Los Angeles in 2003.
Westwood’s most famous franchise is Command & Conquer but there hasn’t been a proper new entry in 16 years and, at this point, there probably won’t ever be again.
DreamWorks Interactive/Danger Close Games
The studio responsible for pioneering Second World War shooters with Medal Of Honor, DreamWorks Interactive was acquired by EA in 2000, as DreamWorks itself had been losing interest in releasing video games.
Rebranded to EA Los Angeles and then Danger Close Games, it continued to helm Medal Of Honor until the poor reception for 2012’s Medal Of Honor: Warfighter led to EA shutting the studio in 2013 and Medal Of Honor itself disappearing from view – outside of a random VR game in 2020.
EA studios that are still alive
Several studios that you might assume had been closed are still alive, although for how much longer remains to be seen…
Distinctive Software Inc. – Bought in 1991, this is EA’s oldest surviving studio. Initially, it made multiple sports and racing games, but it’s now called EA Vancouver and only works on the yearly football and NHL games.
Tiburon Entertainment – Tiburon began with a long-standing partnership to handle the Madden NFL games, although it did get to make other titles – such as the underappreciated Henry Hatsworth puzzle platformer – until relatively recently. Now though it makes only American football and golf games.
Criterion Software – Criterion was bought in 2004 for its expertise with the Burnout racing games. Yet while it continued the series and helmed Need For Speed for a while, it was slowly turned into a Battlefield support studio and hasn’t made anything of its own in years.
PopCap Games – The overwhelming success of Bejeweled and Plants Vs. Zombies must’ve made PopCap a very attractive purchase for EA in 2011, when mobile gaming became the industry’s new obsession. That was a long time ago now though and it hasn’t had anything new in years.
Codemasters – Bought in 2021, Codemasters is still open but we’re not confident of its prospects. EA announced last year it was calling it quits on making new rally games and Codemasters didn’t release a new F1 game this year.
Mythic Entertainment
Mythic Entertainment created some of the earliest online multiplayer games for PC, including MMO role-player Dark Age Of Camelot, which greatly influenced the genre, alongside Ultima Online.
That significance didn’t save it from being restructured and merged into BioWare in 2009. After only getting to helm two mobile games, including the infamously terrible Dungeon Keeper, EA closed the studio in 2014, eight years after acquiring it.
Black Box Games
While it wasn’t the originator of the series, Black Box Games was responsible for the Need For Speed games throughout the 2000s, after it was acquired in 2002 and eventually created Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater rival Skate.
11 years later, though, and EA opted to close the studio, which led to Skate languishing for years until the recent free-to-play reboot. Need For Speed passed between EA’s other racing developers before going dormant after the 2022 game flopped.
Headgate Studios/EA Salt Lake
Headgate Studios started out as a developer of golf simulators, being tasked by EA with releasing yearly PC versions of the PGA Tour games, as well as the unexpectedly good Godfather game.
After EA bought it in 2006, and renamed it EA Salt Lake, it only got two more golf games out before completely shifting to casual games aimed at small kids and families, as well as some expansions for The Sims 3. Like Mythic, its last two games were forgettable mobile titles, before its closure in 2017.
Pandemic Studios
The closure of Pandemic Studios is one of the most infamous closures as EA was keen to promote the developer as highly talented and vital to their future plans, and yet they still only lasted only a couple of years after the 2007 acquisition.
Pandemic was responsible for the original Star Wars: Battlefront games for the PlayStation 2 and original Xbox, although you might also know it as the developer of Destroy All Humans and the Battlezone reboot.
While EA considered Battlefront important enough to reboot in the 2010s (and is apparently planning to make a third one), Pandemic itself was shut down in 2009.
Visceral Games
Visceral Games is the one studio on this list not to have been bought out by EA. It was instead founded as EA Redwood Shores in 1998 and it boasts a varied track record of console releases, from licensed James Bond games to the MySims spin-offs.
It’s probably most famous for its work on sci-fi horror series Dead Space, but after the first game was a surprise hit, EA’s expectations for the sequels got out of control. Visceral was also meant to make its own Star Wars game, with the creator of Uncharted, but the studio was shuttered in 2017 and the project moved elsewhere, before being cancelled anyway.
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