A new report has revealed that EA closed BioWare because it was forced to choose between investing in one of two sci-fi projects: a new Mass Effect game or a new Star Wars Battlefront game. And it chose the latter.
The revelation comes from Bloomberg, which heard from “people familiar with the company’s strategy” that the “recent emergence” of an opportunity to develop a third Battlefront game meant EA – a company saddled with $18bn in debt because of the recent leveraged buyout – would have two sci-fi projects, each likely to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make.
It couldn’t afford to make both of them so EA executives chose Star Wars Battlefront 3, because it was seen “as a less risky, more predictable bet than a new Mass Effect”, Bloomberg reported – despite development for the game not even having begun yet.
An EA spokesperson said the company had “collectively reached this decision following months of planning, review, and analysis, including careful consideration of evolving business conditions, industry dynamics, and our long-term priorities”. “While this is never easy,” the spokesperson went on, “we ultimately have to make tough decisions to focus our teams on the biggest opportunities for our future, including investing in new projects across our portfolio.”
The report highlights a few other contributing factors in EA’s decision, including BioWare’s unfavourable recent track record and a reorganisation of its executive ranks to include more EA Sports people, in favour of those advocating for BioWare. EA bosses even lamented Dragon Age: Veilguard’s sales, suggesting it would have been better if the title was ‘a live service game’.
Last week, following the announcement of BioWare’s closure and the cancellation of Mass Effect 5, an internal video for the project – known as Mass Effect Universe – was leaked, showing what appears to be a pre-rendered visualisation of it. The game was said to take place 600 years after the Reaper war, in the midst of a galactic cold war, and to have the player be “a cross between John Wick and James Bond” in terms of what they’d be capable of.
There was a promise of “Hitman-style freedom” in approaching levels, romance that “wasn’t being sanitised”, and for connections between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. It’s not clear how much work was done on it, but clearly a lot of planning had been done – far more, certainly, than has been done on Battlefront 3.
EA’s Star Wars Battlefront 2 was released in 2017 and struggled, initially, to convince – partly because it was riddled with loot boxes. But years of adjustments and improvements left it in a much better place.
