EA关闭《质量效应》《龙腾世纪》开发商BioWare，结束30年游戏开发

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Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic developer BioWare is shutting its doors after thirty years of game development.

The storied studio—which was acquired by Electronic Arts in 2007 through VG Holding Corp—announced the news in a post on social media. "There is nothing easy about writing those words," the statement reads. "Our focus right now is on our incredibly talented team who put their hearts into these games, and supporting one another through this transition." Bloomberg News also reports that EA is also laying off 400 employees, 50 of whom were working at BioWare on a new entry in the Mass Effect series.

According to Bloomberg, those other 400 layoffs come with the cancelation, downsizing, and reprioritization of other projects. A planned entry in the Sims series code-named "Project Lotus" has been canceled, while another game code-named "Project Evergreen" is being prioritized. It's also diverting resources away from Full Circle Studios' online skateboarding game skate while still maintaining active development on the game. Respawn and DICE studios are apparently set to collaborate on a new game which is "likely" to be another entry in the Star Wars: Battlefront series.

EA chief operating officer David Tinson and chief studios officer Cam Weber apparently sent a letter to EA staff saying that these decisions followed a "hard look at the business" that took place over the last several months. "Across our portfolio, we’re making deliberate choices to align talent and investments where we see the greatest opportunities for players and long-term growth," the letter said.

These layoffs come a few months after a joint investor group including the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake and Affinity Partners purchased EA in a $55 billion transaction. Many developers criticized the purchase, with EA employees telling GameDeveloper.com that they only received "vague reassurances" about the company's future after the deal closed. Despite promises that EA would continued to "operate independently" under its new corporate ownership, workers expressed concern about the possible influence the deal would give Saudi government.

One anonymous employee expressed fear that layoffs or cuts would be inevitable for underperforming teams. "It's hard to see how teams or games that underperform wouldn't be dissolved or sold off," they said.

From Shattered Steel to Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Founded in 1995 by Ray Muzkya, Greg Zeschuk, and Augustine Yip, BioWare's first game to hit the market was the 1997 mech combat simulation game Shattered Steel. In 1998, the Edmonton-based studio released the Dungeons & Dragons-themed title Baldur's Gate, the first of many interactive role-playing games inspired by tabletop game systems that would define its oeuvre for three decades. The most recent entry in the series, Baldur's Gate III, was developed by Larian Studios.

After moving on from Dungeons & Dragons, BioWare went on to develop Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire, each game winning exceptional praise from critics and players alike. It continued its run of hits with the release of Mass Effect in 2007 and Dragon Age: Origins in 2009, each kicking off a series of games with multiple sequels and spin-offs. A new division of the company was spun up in Austin, TX to develop Star Wars: The Old Republic, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) now owned and operated by Broadsword.

After the 2014 release of Dragon Age: Inqusition, BioWare began to struggle as its parent company began to prioritize multiplayer live service games (that's according to former executive producer Mark Darrah, who has chronicled his time at BioWare on his YouTube channel). It released the single-player game Mass Effect: Andromeda in 2018, which failed to earn the same praise as BioWare's earlier work, and then would become the subject of investigative reports that detailed a troubled development process (EA has never provided public sales numbers for this title).

The company began work on an online science fiction RPG that would become the 2019 title Anthem, which failed to gain traction as a long-lasting live service game, only going on to sell around 5 million copies before being shut down. Its development became entangled with work on the next Dragon Age game, which at first was set to be a single-player role-playing game, then was planned as a live service title, before eventually being reworked as a single-player game that would hit the market in 2024 called Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

As work finished on The Veilguard, EA announced that BioWare would begin work on a new game in the Mass Effect series. In the post announcing its closure, the studio confirmed that said game has now been canceled.

About the Author

Senior Editor, GameDeveloper.com

Bryant Francis is a writer, journalist, and narrative designer based in Boston, MA. He currently writes for Game Developer, a leading B2B publication for the video game industry. His credits include Proxy Studios' 4X strategy game Zephon, Iron Anchor Studios' Down With The Ship, and Amplitude Studio's 2017 game Endless Space 2.