
Now that BioWare's all but done with Dragon Age: The Veilguard — barring any updates, but we've heard absolutely nothing on that front for months — the developer's attention is fixed firmly on the next Mass Effect. Except, it sounds like that project is still years away.
As explained in his latest video on his own personal YouTube channel, BioWare and Dragon Age veteran Mark Darrah — who most recently worked as a consultant on The Veilguard — the next Mass Effect title is only just getting off the ground, both in terms of team size and planning.
"Mass Effect isn't ready to suddenly have a team of 250, 300 people working on it," says Darrah (as transcribed by GamesRadar). His reasoning is that the new Mass Effect wasn't "up and running" in parallel to The Veilguard, and so unlike past BioWare projects, it's not a case of simply having everyone jump from one game to another.
Basically, Mass Effect is still in some phase of pre-production; it can only take on staff once the project's leads have nailed down its scope, development timelines, and more.
Until then, Darrah says that the team will "need to find other work for them within the rest of the EA organization". In the meantime, "the Mass Effect team figures out what Mass Effect is going to be, figures out the structure, and then gets ready to ramp up to a much bigger team size".