BioWare is No More

The writing's been on the wall for a while now. EA downsized BioWare last year seemingly due to The Veilguard underperforming, and today they've pulled the plug on the studio as a whole. EA announced 400 layoffs and among them are 50 people who were working on the next Mass Effect. With the cancellation of that project, they've shuttered the studio and 30 years of developmental experience and history are being lost in the process. 

This sucks.

I have no personal stake in this so I don't know why it's affecting me so deeply, but I'm bummed out! The Veilguard wasn't perfect, but the fact that BioWare made a game where you could play as a nonbinary protagonist and the game not only respected that, but directly acknowledged it, was cool as hell!  Mass Effect and Dragon Age, in general, are some of my favorite gaming franchises. KoTOR was great! BioWare made some very special games so seeing them get tossed aside really freakin' sucks!

It seems like everywhere you look there's a beloved gaming company getting shut down or hit with layoffs and, yes, I know at least some of that comes with the territory of existing in a capitalist society, but the rate at which these things happens seems severe. I genuinely don't know what the AAA gaming landscape will look like in five years because everyone who isn't The Absolute Biggest seems to be getting shafted. It can't keep going like this.

BioWare's logo, as of The Veilguard.

To end things on a slightly more upbeat note, I wanted to say a few things. I wasn't running this blog when the Mass Effect Legendary Edition collection came out but I enjoyed replaying the series through that and highly recommend people pick that up. It goes on sale fairly often and the story told across those three games really is worth seeing for yourself. I first played those games as a teenager and I've loved them ever since. Andromeda's also better than people make it out to be and I liked my time with it.

I've even put up a little Mass Effect display on one of my shelves.

I wrote about my journey revisiting the Dragon Age series prior to The Veilguard's release, and then subsequently wrote about my experience with The Veilguard, if you're interested in reading my thoughts on Dragon Age. While I had played the first three games before, revisiting them (and going through all of the ancillary material) was a fun time. Thedas is a rich setting and I'm going to miss it.

I also made quite a few BioWare characters in Tomodachi Life.

KoTOR was a good (if somewhat flawed) time, and SWTOR is something I have a lot of affection for. Over the course of a few years I went through every "class story" in that game and while most of the side-content is pretty weak, the main plots of each of the campaigns are good! The Imperial Agent, in particular, holds a special place in my heart because that was the first one I played (and it also might be the best).

I haven't played Jade Empire or their earlier stuff, but maybe this news'll be the motivation I need to go back and do that. There really isn't anyone else out there quite like BioWare, and the industry is worse off without them.