EA to reorganize the studio behind Mass Effect: Andromeda

By admin On May 11, 2017

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Website Kotaku has learned from various sources that publisher Electronic Arts has cut the workforce at BioWare Montreal, the studio behind the recently released Mass Effect: Andromeda. Some of the staff has been transferred to EA Motive.

Kotaku spoke to four sources “around the studio” who confirm that Electronic Arts has implemented a reorganization at BioWare Montreal. The studio will no longer make its own games for the time being, but will support BioWare Edmonton. In addition, part of the BioWare Montreal team has been transferred to Montreal-based EA Motive to work on Star Wars Battlefront II.

The part that is allowed to stay with BioWare Montreal will participate in the game that is currently only known under the working title Dylan and over which the studio in Edmonton is in charge. Dylan has been in the works for over five years in Edmonton. BioWare’s third studio, in Austin, is also collaborating on the game. It is the game that EA announced earlier this week via the quarterly figures that it has been postponed by a year. Dylan now appears in fiscal 2019, which runs at EA from April 2018 through March 2019.

It’s not uncommon for a publisher to cut back on a studio’s workforce after a major project has been completed. At the end of the development process, extra staff are often hired, who are fired again after the release. Kotaku does not clarify whether this is the case at BioWare Montreal. It is painful that BioWare Montreal is not allowed to continue with its own project. The studio had previously provided support services to its Edmonton headquarters, but took charge of a game’s development process for the first time with Mass Effect: Andromeda. However, there was a lot of criticism of Andromeda. For example, late in the trajectory, major changes were made to the game, which according to many reviewers led to an unbalanced game that was plagued by bugs. The Edmonton studio took the lead in the first three games in the series, which were much better rated by the press.