BioWare is shrinking. This insight comes from an official blog post by General Manager Gary McKay. MeinMMO breaks down what this could mean for the next Mass Effect.
What exactly does Gary McKay write? The General Manager of BioWare explains on blog.bioware.com that they want to optimally position themselves for the future through restructuring measures.
Since the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, a core team led by veterans of the first trilogy has been working on the new game for the Mass Effect franchise. These include Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, and Parrish Ley.
As it wouldn’t be worthwhile to allocate BioWare’s full development capacities to the project right now, an unnamed number of employees have been working in other teams at Electronic Arts for some time to use their expertise beneficially.
The teaser trailer for the new Mass Effect:
The new Mass Effect is still a long way off
What does this mean for the new Mass Effect? Basically, it is normal in game development that varying numbers of developers are needed for the different phases of a production. In the conception phase, for example, a few creatives lay the foundation for what is to come. In the months before release, more hands than ever work on the completion.
If a release is achieved and there is no new project to which the now-unused forces can be allocated, unfortunately, layoffs are often on the horizon. The fact that BioWare is now reallocating part of the team to other studios at EA is therefore good news for now.
However, the announcements are likely disappointing for all Mass Effect fans who hoped that BioWare would fully focus on the development of the Sci-Fi RPG now that Dragon Age: The Veilguard is completed. After all, the announcement of the new Mass Effect was already made in November 2020 – over four years ago.
However, the fact that only a core team is currently working on the game shows that there is still a considerable distance to cover before entering full production. Whether this is because Dragon Age: The Veilguard has tied up almost all capacities over the years, or because previous development of Mass Effect has become convoluted and had to start almost from scratch midway, is unclear.
What is clear is that BioWare has not been known in the past for conducting game development according to plan and without major complications. A particularly tragic example of this was experienced by all fans of the studio on February 22, 2019: Developer talks about the catastrophe Anthem: “We knew it wasn’t finished”
