How else are you meant to interpret this other than it being a bad sign for the studio? Laying off staff in the “home stretch” of a project? I’m sure getting an end game credit will be sufficient consolation for getting ditched at the last stages of a multi year development.
Also no leadership changes either? Not even after andromeda? Sure it’ll be super humbling to sack workers for what seem like incompetent leadership in BioWare since ME3.
Frankly I’m surprised it’s taken this long for BioWare to begin the traditional EA pipeline of being “taken out back” after being squeezed for every bit of profit.
EA has not said when Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will ship.
Yeah, I won’t believe it’s actually shipping until I see it for sale on store shelves. I literally said, “Because it won’t” when I read that line.
At this point, if BioWare survives long enough to ship Dreadwolf, I’ll be surprised.
I think it’ll ship, because EA has probably sunk a lot into it already. But there will also be a huge amount of pressure for it to make a shitload of money so it’ll most likely release half-finished and loaded with microtransaction nonsense.
Then there will most likely be a backlash like there was with Anthem and possibly Bioware will limp along for a bit, maybe become a support studio for someone else for a while, but I don’t really see them making another big game after this, at least in their current form.
There was talk of a new Mass Effect game IIRC but that could really be made by any of EA’s studios, it’s not like anyone who made the originals special will still be at Bioware anyway.
