BioWare Cuts Roughly 50 Jobs, But Still Confident Dragon Age: Dreadwolf Will Reach 'Full Potential'

these two games i think are make or break for bioware

Cutting 50 jobs while having a Dragon Age and Mass Effect game in development. Doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence, and they’ll 100% end up outsourcing development work to devs that they can pay less and work harder in a country with lax labour laws.

Boy Anthem really messed up Bioware big time. I'm still rooting for them to come out of this alright but I can't deny that's it is difficult to remain optimistic.

To me, this sounds like it means one of two things:

1) Either... Dreadwolf is fairly far along and BioWare can afford to thin the development team as things slowly start wrapping up. Shedding employees is pretty normal as projects come to a close, based on contracts, etc.

2) Or... BioWare's still having trouble getting Dreadwolf to a point where it can push through to the final stages of development, and it's having to cut costs in order to prolong development, which never sounds healthy.

I agree with @trev666, I really do think Dreadwolf especially is make or break for BioWare. It's been in development for far, far too long, and if it doesn't land, I'd be surprised if BioWare is granted access to the necessary resources to create the new Mass Effect it's envisioned.

I think it'll be worth keeping a very close eye on BioWare from this point on.

This is never a good sign. Also, $10 that Dreadwolf doesn’t release until next gen at the earliest.

I would give anything to see BioWare have a Capcom like turn around. I just don't see it. The core people aren't even there anymore.

I loved Anthem but totally agree that it was the straw that broke the camel's back. And dreadwolf being in the oven for this long surely it's burning by now. I hope BioWare bounce back. They have been one of my favorite studios for a long time.

I honestly think if BioWare doesn't succeed in their next game EA is going to shut their doors down like they did with many other developers.
They buy a creative studio, force the creativity out of it to make their games more "mainstream", the game inevitably fails because it lacks personality and quality, EA blames the developer and shut their doors.

EA could buy them some more time for DreadWolf if they decided to do a Dragon Age Collection. It would help build up hype for Dragon Age 4 and get BioWare some goodwill going into this game after how bad Anthem was and how decent Andromeda was.

I think Laurian (I’m sure that’s misspelled) with BG3 is taking BioWare’s spot in the industry. Bioware made the old BG games BTW, so that’s happening with BW own legacy in a way.

@somnambulance
They probably figure the news will get out somehow if it's a decently sizable number of people affected like this anyway so they may as well control the message instead of leaving it up to a journalist with the scoop to establish the narrative.

@somnambulance Sometimes if there's no official announcement, news of the layoffs comes through journalists who tend to paint the situation in a negative light (and let's face it, layoffs are negative).

So in this case, BioWare probably thought that being relatively transparent was a good idea, as it lets the developer set the perspective.

Larian is the new Bioware. The old Bioware guys left long ago. Mass Effect Trilogy will always be one of gaming's highest points, but it's time to pass the torch. I have little faith in ME4 making headlines for the right reasons.

@somnambulance Fully agreed, I think the blog post comes across as a bit... Like it's trying too hard to say "don't worry, everything's fine". Maybe we're just reading into it too much!

@gollumb82 100% agree with this comment. Larian are in an entirely different sport compared to modern Bioware. I hope the new ME is great too but not holding out hope either.

The old bioware is already dead, just like the old blizzard, what we have here is only the name without the people 😕

Dreadwolf seems to be in a state of development hell. The game was rebooted three times since 2017, and now still seems to be struggling to get completed. We haven't seen anything substantial from the game at all. It makes me think they are rebooting it yet again if you read between the lines.

Bioware just handed off development of The Old Republic to Broadsword Online Games, so it could be a part of that process that has ended the need for these positions. It could also be that certain development milestones on their next two games have been met, and certain jobs are now surplus to requirements.

@GuttyYZ
Yeah. I can see the current Bioware looking at Larian and BG3 thinking: How can Dragon Age possibly top this? Larian may be humble enough to dismiss the praise they are getting, but BG3 is the new benchmark for rpgs now. I say this as someone who isn't big on fantasy settings and huge rpg games (yet loving BG3).

Just give us a dragon age collection for all 3 games in a package. More interested in playing Origins and 2 again on PS5. Alot of bugs and crashes playing through back compat on xbox

I only remember the name Casey Hudson because he left, returned, left, returned then left again. Jokes aside, this is par for the course with EA laying off testers. They did the same with Apex Legends testers and clearly are confident in their games.

Place bets for faceless npcs in Dreadwolf and contorting character models?

"Lay Offs" could mean many things folks...hedoublematchsticks, we lay off @ my job all the time, and not because of $$ or what not. It's because lazy people/slackers/fake workers eventually get caught and tossed and someone new gets hired to replace them and ACTUALLY do the job... Or, as others have said, this foreshadows next gen, as it's reported 2027/28....so this gives them another 5 years to make the game...I really hope not, but it's what it is....

I have little hope for this...I believe it will come out to average at best reviews....which will then most likely get mass effect canceled....and I really want more mass effect

@ShogunRok I'd say the projects need quite a lot of time in development still. But the studio is running out of money, hence the attempt to reduce the spending in hopes that reorganisation will compensate for the loss.

I was looking forward to dreadwolf, but with the arrival of Baldurs Gate 3 on ps5, it looks like my choice of rpg has changed. Larian seems so much better at the moment, like the old days of bioware and obsidian, hopefully they stay independent so that we get more great RPGs on PlayStation.

I wonder if this includes the SWTOR developers that transfered to the new studio with the game.
If it did, it's not so bad as those kept their jobs. If not... yikes.

BioWare games are some of my favorites I hope all goes well for the company.

Making games is very cut throat. I think many gamers don’t seem to understand this. It’s also very expensive to make games. I think it’s important to support the developers who make the games you love, by buying those games at full price. I support Capcom and FROMSOFT this way, and I’m certainly not rich - I save.
It’s cringeworthy and entitled to refuse to buy anything until it’s in the bargain bin or heavily discounted.
This sort of behaviour literally creates a climate where there are less AAA games. It’s working against your own interests.