Electronic Arts (EA) shut down BioWare and cancelled the next Mass Effect game so it could put its weight behind a new Star Wars Battlefront, according to a new report from Bloomberg.
Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier set out the reasoning in his newsletter on October 30th. Sharing the story on X (formerly Twitter), he pushed back on theories circulating online about the closure. "Twitter thinks the studio failed because it was too woke. BlueSky thinks Saudi Arabia killed the studio for being too gay," he wrote. "The real reason? Star Wars."
Debt and the need for predictable releases
In a follow-up post, Schreier tied the decision to the debt EA took on when it went private. "EA needs predictable annual cash flow to service its debt," he wrote. "So a Battlefront 3 that hits its deadlines is more valuable than a Mass Effect that will likely be delayed multiple times." EA has not publicly responded to the report.
EA's sale to a consortium of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake and Affinity Partners closed on August 4th. When the roughly $55bn deal was announced in September 2025, EA said it would be funded by about $36bn of equity and $20bn of debt financing committed by JPMorgan Chase.
What EA said at the time
EA confirmed the closure of BioWare and its Edmonton office in a memo published on October 21st. The memo said "a small team at BioWare" had been working on early development for Mass Effect, and that EA had decided not to move forward with it. "BioWare is a legendary studio that helped define the role-playing genre, and we do not take this decision lightly," it read. BioWare, known for Baldur's Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age and Mass Effect, announced its own closure the same day, ending more than three decades of work.
The same memo said EA would bring its Respawn and DICE studios together on an unnamed "future project" to grow its shooter line-up, alongside future Battlefield titles. EA did not say what that game is. In action-adventure, it said it would focus on Marvel's Iron Man and the next Star Wars Jedi game, then run "fewer simultaneous, large-scale projects."
