Was BioWare Sacrificed for Star Wars Battlefront 3? What's Confirmed, and What Isn't

EA shut down BioWare on October 21, 2026, after more than thirty years, cancelling the next Mass Effect game in the process. A Bloomberg report published nine days later claims the real reason lies elsewhere: EA reportedly chose to fund a new Star Wars Battlefront instead of the next Mass Effect. EA has not publicly confirmed or denied that part.

What EA has confirmed

On October 21, 2026, BioWare announced its closure in a short statement: "there is nothing easy about writing those words," "after more than three decades of shared adventures, BioWare is closing and early development on the next Mass Effect project is ending." In its internal memo, EA said it decided "not to move forward" with that early development, and would therefore be "closing the studio and our Edmonton workspace," while calling BioWare "a legendary studio that helped define the role-playing genre." The next Mass Effect, reportedly code-named Mass Effect Universe, will not be moved to another internal studio.

The cuts total roughly 400 jobs across EA, about 50 of them at BioWare (based in Edmonton), which according to PC Gamer had already lost much of its staff in recent years following the commercial disappointments of Anthem (2019) and Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017), then Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024), reportedly missing its sales targets by roughly half. In the same memo, EA confirmed that Respawn and DICE will team up on "a future project," without naming it.

What the Bloomberg report claims

On October 30, 2026, journalist Jason Schreier (Bloomberg) published a report, based on anonymous sources, claiming EA "chose to invest in making a new Star Wars Battlefront and chose to shut down BioWare as a result." The report notes that this Battlefront has reportedly not even officially begun production. On X, Schreier summed up his thesis in one line: "The real reason? Star Wars," adding that EA "needs predictable annual cash flow to service its debt." It's that unnamed Respawn/DICE project that several outlets, including Variety, believe to be this new Battlefront, a belief relayed by the press, not a confirmation from EA.

As of this writing, EA has not publicly responded to the report.

Why now? The debt from the Saudi PIF buyout

The timing is partly explained by EA's financial situation. The buyout of the publisher by a consortium led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, worth roughly $55 billion ($36 billion in equity, $20 billion in debt), closed on August 4, 2026. According to the Bloomberg report, that debt load is pushing EA toward safer revenue bets, at the expense of riskier projects like a new Mass Effect RPG.

Thirty years of history, cut short

Founded in 1995 in Edmonton by Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk and Augustine Yip, BioWare helped define much of modern Western RPGs: Baldur's Gate (1998), Neverwinter Nights (2002), Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003), Jade Empire (2005), the Mass Effect trilogy (2007-2012) and the Dragon Age series (2009-2024). EA had bought the studio in 2007 for $775 million. Nineteen years later, it's also EA ending its existence.

Sources

• Video Games Chronicle (October 30, 2026)
• Inven Global, relaying the Bloomberg report (October 30, 2026)
• Game Developer (October 21, 2026)
• iPhone in Canada (October 22, 2026)
• Insider Gaming (October 21, 2026)
• Wikipedia — BioWare

The bottom line

What EA has confirmed: BioWare's closure, the cancellation of the next Mass Effect, roughly 400 job cuts company-wide including about 50 at BioWare, and an unnamed future Respawn/DICE project. What remains unconfirmed: that this project is Star Wars Battlefront 3, and that funding it directly cost Mass Effect its sequel. That's the claim of an anonymously sourced Bloomberg report, not a statement from EA. The two deserve to be kept separate as long as EA confirms neither.