BioWare is closing, and the next Mass Effect has gone with it. EA confirmed this week that it’s shutting the Edmonton studio and ending early development on the next game in the series. Within hours, fans were tagging Xbox CEO Asha Sharma on social media and asking her to buy Mass Effect. I understand why. But my answer is a cautious one: buy the name if it’s cheap, then leave it alone for now.
First, to be clear: there’s no sign Microsoft is interested. No statement, no reported talks, nothing. Former BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah has suggested EA could look to sell IPs like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, but he also said it could just as easily lock them away. Everything below is a “what if”.
What EA actually announced
On 21st October, BioWare posted that it “is closing and early development on the next Mass Effect project is ending”. In a memo published by Variety, EA said only “a small team” had been working on the game, and that it would now focus on “fewer simultaneous, large-scale projects”. Reuters reports EA is cutting around 400 jobs, roughly 50 of them at BioWare. The BBC notes it all comes months after EA’s $55bn sale to a Saudi-led group of investors, which left the company with $20bn of debt to pay back.
Why Mass Effect feels like an Xbox game
As bad as it sounds, GTA has always felt like a PlayStation game to me. Mass Effect is the same for Xbox, and the history backs it up.
The first Mass Effect was published by Microsoft Game Studios as an Xbox 360 exclusive in November 2007. EA had agreed to buy BioWare a month earlier, and the deal closed in January 2008. The PC version followed in 2008, but PlayStation owners didn’t get the first game until December 2012, when it finally reached PS3 as part of the Mass Effect Trilogy.
Mass Effect 2 launched on Xbox 360 and PC in January 2010, and only arrived on PS3 in January 2011, a year later. Mass Effect 3 was multiplatform from day one in March 2012, but even then the 360 version had something extra: Kinect voice commands. You could order your squad around, trigger powers and even pick dialogue options by speaking out loud.
I played the whole trilogy on 360, and I own the Legendary Edition too. For a whole generation of Xbox players, Shepard was ours first. So the urge to “bring it home” makes complete sense to me.
But Xbox is in reset mode
Here’s the problem. Xbox is in the middle of the biggest cost-cutting drive in its history. Sharma’s Resetting Xbox memo in July set out around 3,200 job cuts through the financial year. It also sent Compulsion Games and Double Fine back to independence, and moved Ninja Theory and Undead Labs to new ownership. Undead Labs is now an independent studio, still making State of Decay 3. Fortune reports more rounds of layoffs are planned, and Le Monde reports Microsoft wants to close Arkane Lyon, the studio behind Dishonored and Deathloop.
When you’re trying to save money, why would you take on more cost and more risk? Xbox already has big games of its own to get right. Fable is now due on 23rd February 2027, and Sharma herself reportedly told staff that Xbox needs to back its strongest franchises and create new IP. A studio buy-out or a rescue mission for a cancelled project doesn’t fit that.
Where BioWare had drifted
There’s a second reason I’d keep the studio side of this at arm’s length, and I want to put it carefully. BioWare’s last two releases, Anthem and Dragon Age: The Veilguard, didn’t meet EA’s expectations, according to the BBC. For me, some of its more recent writing also leaned harder into messaging than the games I fell for on 360.
I’ve got no problem with politics in games. I want games to be bold and to push their writers and designers. But whichever way a game leans, left or right, if it feels like it’s pushing a message, you risk losing a big chunk of your audience in one go. A blockbuster RPG needs as many players as possible. You’ve got to cut your cloth to fit, and not shrink your potential audience before launch day.
My verdict: buy the IP, then let it sit
If a deal meant taking on BioWare’s team or picking up what was already made on the cancelled game, it’s an easy no from me. That’s a massive gamble, and Xbox doesn’t need a massive gamble right now.
Buying the IP on its own is different. If EA ever sells, and if the price is right, I’d say yes. Then let it sit until Xbox has the right team, the right budget and the right moment. Mass Effect would be back with the platform where it started, with no pressure to rush anything out. In the meantime, Insider Gaming has crunched the numbers on what a new game would cost to make. It’s worth a read.
Want a Mass Effect fix now?
You don’t need Xbox to buy anything. Mass Effect Legendary Edition is already included with Game Pass Ultimate through EA Play, and you can stream it with Xbox Cloud Gaming. It’s also in PC Game Pass. That’s all three games and over 40 DLC packs, remastered. Not a bad way to say goodbye to BioWare.
Should Xbox buy Mass Effect, just the IP, or leave it with EA? Tell us on X or Facebook.
