Dragon Age: The Veilguard Executive Producer Mark Darrah reported in a recent video that EA has begun cutting BioWare staff and relocating them to other studios within the company.
As part of his video, Darrah discussed BioWare’s upcoming Mass Effect game and said, “Mass Effect isn’t ready to suddenly have a team of 250, 300 people working on it.”
“In the past when BioWare was toying with being just one project, like on Anthem, like on The Veilguard, that project was up and running at full speed so it was able to suck in every available resource. It had enough existing infrastructure that it was able to absorb everything,” he said.
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Darrah continued, “So, that’s not exactly what’s happening. You see this when you go on to people's social media profiles. People who worked on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, some of them are moving over to Mass Effect, but some of them are moving into other parts of the EA organization because Mass Effect isn't ready for them."
“In the past, the plan, this many irons in the fire strategy was to make sure there was always something for people to do, that there was always work to be done,” he relayed. “One of the side effects of that, of course, was that you were always slightly out of balance. So you would end up being short.”
“And in the early days the solution to that was to grow,” he elaborated. “In the later days, in the consumption phase was to eat all the other projects.”
Darrah then shared, “But now there isn’t things for other people to do. There is a need to find other work for them within the rest of the EA organization while 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.”
“And this might be great because what it means is that BioWare for the first time really ever is able to singularly focus on a single project, is able to put all of its tension on a single project, is able to put everything it has towards a single goal, which is making the best Mass Effect it possibly can,” he speculated.
However, he then noted, “The thing that remains to be seen is whether or not BioWare will be able to get its people back when it looks for them, when it’s ready, when it wants to add people, if those people will be close at hand, if they will be easily removed from wherever they are being temporarily placed.”
“And there’s a couple of reasons why that might prove difficult,” he added. “The first is that it’s always hard to let go of people. If I loan a level artist to another project within the EA organization unless that project has shipped at a conveniently perfect time they still probably need that level artist. They’ve integrated them into their planning. That level is running slightly behind. They need someone to fix bugs. Whatever. It’s hard to give someone up. It’s very difficult for projects to release people before they shipped. And if they aren’t shipping it’s going to be hard to get people back.”
Next, he stated, “The other problem potentially is the people themselves. If I am a BioWare employee and I’m temporarily on the big head cart racing game. Maybe I love that big head cart racing game. Maybe I want to stay on that project. So when Mass Effect comes looking to pull me back, maybe I say, ‘No.’ Maybe I try to switch over permanently to this other project.”
Darrah’s report comes in the wake of one from Rolling Stone back in November 2024 that claimed BioWare was shifting its entire attention to Mass Effect following the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
George Yang reported, “With Dragon Age: The Veilguard now complete, BioWare confirms that there are currently no plans for downloadable expansions.”
He added, “The developers’ full attention has now shifted entirely to the next Mass Effect as their current project.”
What do you make of Darrah noting that EA is cutting staff from BioWare and relocating them within other EA-owned studios?
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