Star Wars Battlefront 3 has just been added to the list of reasons why BioWare and Mass Effect are no longer with us, a new report says.
BioWare’s doom had been spelled out over the past decade after multiple failed releases (Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard), but according to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, it was the development price tag that really sealed the deal…and a galaxy far, far away was involved in the decision-making process, too.
“Financial pressures” mounting as part of the $55 billion purchase of EA led by Saudi Arabia’s investment fund that left the publisher $18 billion in debt meant that cuts were coming, and some cuts are easier to make than others, especially considering when it comes to two similar spacefaring sci-fi franchises: Star Wars and Mass Effect.
With both games set to cost “hundreds of millions of dollars,” EA and its executives chose the iconic film franchise over BioWare’s RPG series (this really kind of feels like a no-brainer in hindsight, unfortunately for me and many other Mass Effect fans), and decided to also shut down the erstwhile studio as a part of its cost-cutting measures.
“Star Wars Battlefront 3 has not even begun development yet, but EA executives saw it as a less risky, more predictable bet than a new Mass Effect — and the publisher behind Battlefield has always been more comfortable with shooters than RPGs,” Schreier said.
There’s no debating that many factors went into BioWare’s closure, but the biggest has to be the fact that the studio hasn’t made a game reflective of its past successes in quite some time. It starts and ends there. But I do find it interesting and a little bit sad that Star Wars was also a factor in Mass Effect’s demise, given that they are two of the most beloved sci-fi franchises ever made.
This feels especially tough to swallow considering that EA decided to go with a live-service FPS over a singleplayer narrative-driven RPG, because that’s the least surprising part of all of this.
