Highlights
- EA is closing BioWare and cancelling its next Mass Effect, while continuing work on Iron Man and Star Wars Jedi.
- Hasbro retained Exodus and Warlock through a portfolio review that cancelled later projects and produced a $56M impairment.
- Owlcat began developing Osiris Reborn in 2021, spending almost a year on prototypes and production changes for its move into cinematic action RPGs.
I spent much of my teens in BioWare games, with Knights of the Old Republic as my first real RPG. I have over a hundred hours logged in each of the first three Mass Effect and Dragon Age games. I have played each of them multiple times, wanting to explore the worlds and different decisions repeatedly. The latest games may not have been my favorites, but the worlds BioWare created still have a hold on me. Despite BioWare’s recent record, I was still optimistic about Mass Effect 5. BioWare had a sword hanging over it. I just hoped they’d have one last shot.
On Oct 21, EA announced that it was closing BioWare and ending early development of the next Mass Effect. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported roughly 50 job losses at the studio, among approximately 400 across EA. The developers who had spent years trying to make that next game would leave without finishing it.
Cinematic supervisor Tony de Waal described the team’s ambitions in a LinkedIn post. They had been looking at Larian and CD Projekt’s recent work and trying to give players more freedom within Mass Effect. He asked readers to remember the people still doing that work: “Please consider those who stayed with BioWare until the very end.”
Archetype Entertainment’s Exodus and Owlcat Games’ The Expanse: Osiris Reborn both put players in charge of a crew, with relationships and decisions extending beyond the next firefight. Their development began well before BioWare’s closure. What makes that work worth continuing at Hasbro or Owlcat when EA has stopped paying for its own Mass Effect?
The Crew Between Missions
In Mass Effect 2, recruiting the people needed for the final mission occupies much of the game. Helping them with their own problems changes their relationship with Shepard and can affect whether they survive. Returning to the Normandy creates time to talk to them between assignments. The ship gathers those relationships in one place, so the larger threat remains connected to people the player has come to know.
A new setting can still support the rhythm of leaving with a crew, coming home with consequences and finding that someone aboard now sees things differently.
EA
The games BioWare built felt real and lived-in, but more than that, they felt important to me. They made me care about the world and people in it. The Old Republic is my favorite era of Star Wars, as blasphemous as that might sound to some.
BioWare also helped other studios acquire the means to make their own RPGs. In an Oct 21 tribute on X, CD Projekt co-CEO Michał Nowakowski recalled a relationship that began with localizing Baldur’s Gate. BioWare later supplied technology and advice for the first Witcher, and gave CD Projekt space at its E3 booth.
De Waal’s account describes the remaining Mass Effect team learning from a company BioWare had once helped. Closing the studio ends its part in that exchange even as other developers keep using what they learned from it.
What did EA Choose to Stop?
BioWare’s games over the last decade or so have admittedly, even in the opinion of a superfan like me, ranged from fine to subpar. Andromeda expanded Mass Effect’s world and lore but lacked quite the same feeling as the original trilogy. Anthem’s flight mechanics still make me want an Iron Man game built around them. However, in trying to make a live-service game, they lost some of that cinematic storytelling and companion relationships. The Veilguard left me hoping Mass Effect 5 would learn from recent RPGs by CD Projekt and Larian. De Waal’s description is close to what I had hoped for. That makes the cancellation worse.
The studio had already been reduced after Dragon Age: The Veilguard missed EA’s sales expectations, as Schreier reported. Game File’s Stephen Totilo reported earlier transfers of some BioWare employees to other projects, including Iron Man. Experienced developers had left, and others had been reassigned within the publisher.
EA’s public announcement said it would continue Iron Man and the next Star Wars Jedi, while concentrating its action-adventure investment on “fewer simultaneous, large-scale projects.” Mass Effect lost its place among them.
EA / Steam
Schreier reported that EA’s $55B leveraged buyout, completed in August 2026, put around $18B of debt on its books. Earlier in the year, EA had told investors it planned to save up to $700M, partly through cuts to research and development.
In an Oct 2025 statement, United Videogame Workers-CWA questioned which studios would be sacrificed to service that acquisition debt, particularly those considered less profitable. EA’s announcement does not disclose how heavily debt weighed in the decision to cancel Mass Effect.
EA chose to stop this project while retaining other expensive single-player games. It has not published the remaining cost or internal commercial assessment of Mass Effect that would explain the selection better.
Schreier has since reported on Oct 30 that EA chose to fund Star Wars Battlefront 3 over the next Mass Effect. Both projects were expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and executives considered Battlefront the less risky, more predictable investment, even though it had not yet entered development. The report also identified BioWare’s recent record and corporate politics as factors in the closure.
Exodus Makes Leaving Matter
Archetype was founded in Austin in 2019, backed by Wizards of the Coast and its parent Hasbro. Its team draws on BioWare veterans alongside developers from other studios. It is building an original universe around Jun Aslan, a salvager who becomes a Traveler, venturing out to recover technology needed by the people back home.
Archetype’s description of time dilation says days spent on an interstellar mission can mean decades passing at home. Choosing to leave has consequences even if the mission succeeds. A return can bring the player face to face with changes that took years to develop for everyone else. The writing has to make those absent years matter through the people and places that stay behind, and players have to care about the world before its transformation can mean much to them.
The Exodus episode of Secret Level was built on this mechanic and shows its promise. It follows a father searching for his runaway daughter, with time passing at different rates for each of them.
Why Hasbro Kept Exodus
Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks gave a direct explanation of the opportunity to Christopher Dring of The Game Business in May. He pointed to the developers Archetype had assembled, Hasbro’s familiarity with role-playing games, and the long wait for another game serving the audience of Mass Effect 2 and 3.
Cocks also described premium PC and console games as a more attractive risk for Hasbro than trying to build its own live-service hit. A traditional game could sell enough to recover part of its investment even if it fell short, he argued. He was explaining the company’s expectations, with a clear reservation about Exodus: “Time will tell if it’s a good financial bet.”
In its July management remarks, Hasbro disclosed that it had cancelled several games scheduled for 2028 and beyond, recording a $56M non-cash impairment for its capitalized costs. It retained Exodus and the D&D game Warlock. Management said its digital investment would concentrate on trading card games and RPGs, including brands capable of expanding across media.
The wider Exodus project includes Peter F. Hamilton novels, tabletop books and an episode of Secret Level. Those projects give people ways into the setting before the video game arrives.
Hasbro reaffirmed Exodus’ April 7, 2027 release date in Oct. EA’s next Mass Effect was still in early development, so the time and money needed to finish each game could differ substantially.
Owlcat is Building the Experience Into The Expanse
“Many of us wouldn’t be in the games industry without your legacy,” Owlcat posted on Oct 22, thanking BioWare for its influence. Owlcat’s previous RPGs include the Pathfinder games and Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader.
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn puts the player in charge of a ship and a crew drawn into the setting’s conflicts. The captain can be an Earther, Martian, or Belter. Those backgrounds place the protagonist within a world whose political divisions already reach into its characters’ lives. Owlcat has chosen an existing universe in which personal loyalties can collide with much larger struggles.
Owlcat Games
In a developer post for Xbox Wire, community manager Gala Dolgikh described companions contributing even when they are outside the active squad. The mechanic, Zafar, can provide fire support; other recruits will offer further kinds of assistance. If that works, the player can feel the presence of a larger crew even while controlling a small party.
Creative director Alexander Mishulin told Wccftech’s Alessio Palumbo that Owlcat approached rights holder Alcon after developing a pitch it liked. Work started in 2021. The studio spent almost a year prototyping and establishing processes for a form of game it had not made before.
Mishulin described six early combat prototypes, testing approaches to shooting, cover, and enemies. The team moved to Unreal Engine 5 and hired developers with relevant experience, including people from CD Projekt. The third-person perspective was part of the original pitch: Owlcat wanted players closer to the characters and to the world they inhabited.
GamesRadar’s Andrew Brown reported in August, in an interview with publishing head Andrey Tsvetkov, that the studio had moved from crowdfunding its Pathfinder games to financing recent titles internally.
The Alcon agreement supplies the rights to adapt the setting. Osiris Reborn will join Game Pass Ultimate at launch, while pre-orders of Miller’s Pack and the Collector’s Edition include beta access. The full picture of how Owlcat finances this project is not public knowledge.
I recently watched The Expanse, and following the Rocinante’s crew through personal and world-ending crises reminded me of the Normandy. The setting Owlcat has chosen seems perfect for the Mass Effect-like game they are building.
Hudson Has Already Lost One Studio
Mass Effect trilogy director Casey Hudson founded Humanoid Origin in 2021 to make a character-driven project. In Nov 2024, the studio closed, citing a funding shortfall, as VGC’s Tom Ivan reported.
Hudson is now making Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic at Arcanaut Studios. The studio describes the game as a spiritual successor to Knights of the Old Republic. GreaterThan Group says its studios are co-owned with their founding teams, whose leaders also receive equity in the parent group. This gives Hudson another attempt, this time with a Star Wars licence and a stake in the company backing his studio.
What a Successor Has to Earn
A player can want another Mass Effect and still have little interest in a different universe. The new games have to create attachments of their own. Their companions need to earn the time spent talking to them, and their choices need to hold up after the immediate scene has passed.
I need these games to give me a world I care about. Osiris Reborn has The Expanse, Fate of the Old Republic has Star Wars, and Exodus seems promising. What I do not yet know is if they can give us companions to love (or hate), a ship that feels like home, decisions worth revisiting, and a franchise of multiple games to return to.
A day after the closure announcement, a trailer bearing the title Mass Effect: Universe leaked online. Schreier confirmed its authenticity. Ars Technica’s Kyle Orland described an ex-military officer in an N7 coat meeting an asari in a bar. The footage identifies itself as in-engine material using pre-production assets.
Dantics says he saw the project and gave feedback as part of BioWare’s community council. Between his description and the trailer, I was extremely excited for a moment. The idea of playing James Bond crossed with John Wick within the galaxy of Mass Effect. Hacking and manipulating the environment with Hitman-like sandbox missions. Understanding the Cold War and an alliance of humans, krogan and, of all things, batarians together. Companions that may not get along, like Miranda and Jack, and Tali and Legion. The return of Liara. And then I remembered reality, and the feeling was crushed. EA has shut down BioWare and cancelled this game I felt such excitement for.
