EA’s Coming Soon page lists zero games after BioWare closure

This is a new development in a story we reported earlier: Electronic Arts closes BioWare after more than 30 years.

Electronic Arts’ official Coming Soon webpage listed zero forthcoming games on Oct. 23, 2026, a development that follows the publisher’s shutdown of BioWare and cancellation of the next Mass Effect on Oct. 21. TheGamer reported on Oct. 23 that the empty page became noticeable after BioWare’s closure and the Mass Effect cancellation, leaving EA without any publicly announced upcoming titles on its own site. EA’s Latest Games list remains up to date while the Coming Soon page shows zero games, TheGamer wrote.

EA shut down BioWare and ended early development on the next Mass Effect on Oct. 21, 2026, closing the studio and its Edmonton workspace. Bloomberg reported that Electronic Arts planned to cut roughly 400 jobs, about 3 percent of total staff, including around 50 positions at BioWare; EA did not publicly provide those figures in its announcement. BioWare’s farewell post appeared at 17:06 UTC on Oct. 21 with no text and the statement in a single image, and Wario64 shared Bloomberg’s headline three and a half minutes later. EA’s staff memo included a farewell paragraph: “BioWare is a legendary studio that helped define the role-playing game genre, and we don’t make this decision lightly.”

EA Chief Operating Officer David Tinson and Chief Studios Officer Cam Weber wrote to staff that the company is making deliberate choices to align talent and investments where it sees the greatest opportunities for players and long-term growth. The memo described three strategic priorities: Deepen Our Core, Expand Our Reach, and Transform Our Business. EA said it will continue with sports games, Respawn’s Apex Legends, action-adventure games including Star Wars Jedi 3 and Marvel’s Iron Man, and Battlefield, which TheGamer lists as games already known to be in development.

EA Sports will continue the FC franchise, with two new projects due to be revealed in the next few months: Project Gridiron, a social-first open-world American Football experience, and Fight Night, in pre-production; IGN says these announcements appear in EA’s staff communication. The publisher is continuing The Sims project codenamed Project Evergreen while Project Lotus is paused or canceled; PlayStation LifeStyle says Project Lotus has been canceled and EA is shifting focus to Project Evergreen, while IGN says Project Evergreen continues, but Project Lotus is paused. EA will invest heavily in Respawn’s Apex Legends over the next few years, introducing brand-new multiplayer gameplay modes and other new experiences to expand the universe.

EA is reducing the skate. team to a smaller, more focused team to deliver a clear roadmap for a healthier and more sustainable business; IGN quotes EA saying skate. had success bringing players in and needs an experience that keeps them engaged long-term. EA expects fewer simultaneous, large-scale projects in the action-adventure genre while supporting Marvel’s Iron Man and the next Star Wars Jedi game, which IGN presents as EA’s stated explanation for its action-adventure strategy. EA described last year’s Battlefield 6 as a great success and said future Battlefield games are on the way, placing this statement in the staff memo where EA discusses franchises and global communities as its greatest opportunity. Variety reported that Respawn and DICE are working on Star Wars Battlefront 3, as had been rumored.

It is unclear whether the canceled Mass Effect game was ever on EA’s Coming Soon page because the Wayback Machine has no archived versions, TheGamer wrote. TheGamer guessed the game was absent from Coming Soon because it lacked a confirmed final title before cancellation, offering this as a guess to explain the lack of any archived record.

EA completed a leveraged buyout, a purchase financed mainly with borrowed money, and went private on Aug. 4, 2026, in a deal valued at approximately $55 billion including debt, backed in large part by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners. Heise Online wrote on Oct. 22, 2026 that EA must repay $20 billion in debt from the leveraged buyout and described the company as debt-ridden and private-equity-owned, calling the closure an obvious move for that owner. Whether the buyout debt caused BioWare’s closure is disputed: VGTimes frames the debate around whether debt pushed EA to cut sooner, noting Kotaku connects the cuts to buyout borrowing while EA’s letter omits debt. Bloomberg said on March 23, 2026 that EA projected cost savings reaching $700 million a year for debt investors, with $170 million coming from organizational efficiencies.

Kotaku called those efficiencies layoffs.

On Sept. 29, 2025, EA announced an agreement to be acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners. Shareholders were offered $210 a share in cash, 25 percent above the Sept. 25 price of $168.32. The acquisition financing plan included about $36 billion from investors, including PIF’s existing 9.9 percent stake, and JPMorgan Chase committed $20 billion in debt financing, with $18 billion expected when the acquisition closed. On Aug. 4, 2026, EA announced the acquisition closed, shareholders would receive $210 per share, and trading ceased on Nasdaq; VGTimes said Chairman and CEO Andrew Wilson struck a triumphant tone when the deal closed, months before BioWare’s farewell.

Vertical Slice reported that the restructuring also affected Maxis, Full Circle, Ripple Effect, Motive and apparently Respawn, using an anonymous source and LinkedIn posts; VGTimes said these reports concern other teams in the same round of cuts and do not constitute an official EA breakdown of the roughly 400 positions Bloomberg reported. EA reported approximately 14,600 employees as of March 31, 2026. EA’s October 21 announcement did not discuss Star Wars: The Old Republic, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, support for Dragon Age: The Veilguard or the studio’s other existing games; VGTimes says the Mass Effect and Dragon Age brands remain with EA, and that ownership of a game universe is separate from the decision to fund another game in that universe.

BioWare was founded in 1995 and acquired by EA in 2007. Its 31-year history included Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age and Mass Effect. BioWare’s most recent major release, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, launched on Oct. 31, 2024, and engaged approximately 1.5 million players during the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2024, nearly 50 percent below EA’s expectations; VGTimes says this was a player count rather than copies sold, and EA’s preliminary announcement attributed most of the change in its annual outlook to its soccer business rather than Dragon Age.

EA announced Anthem’s shutdown in July 2025, and its servers went offline on Jan. 12, 2026, making the game unplayable; VGTimes says Anthem was shut down instead of transferred, contrasting with Star Wars: The Old Republic, whose development moved to Broadsword Online Games in June 2023 while EA remained publisher. In June 2023, Gary McKay announced Star Wars: The Old Republic moved to Broadsword Online Games with EA remaining publisher, calling it a continuing success nearly 12 years after launch. EA announced Visceral Games’ closure in October 2017, and Motive’s Dead Space remake launched on Jan. 27, 2023; VGTimes used Dead Space as an example of a franchise returning through a remake by another studio more than five years after the original developer closed.

In January 2025 BioWare general manager Gary McKay announced the studio was getting smaller, with some employees assigned to other EA teams while a core group continued Mass Effect; VGTimes said some employees had been assigned to other EA teams while a core group continued Mass Effect. Bloomberg reported on Jan. 31 that transfers became permanent and roughly two dozen more employees were laid off, leaving fewer than 100 people compared with more than 200 two years earlier. Former BioWare executive producer Mike Gamble posted on Oct. 21, 2026: “Your support has meant everything to me over the past 17 years at BioWare”; IGN notes Gamble celebrated N7 Day less than 12 months earlier, saying the next Mass Effect was still in development and expressing excitement about the Amazon TV series.

A trailer for the canceled Mass Effect project, later called Mass Effect: Universe, leaked on Oct. 22, 2026. IGN verified it was real and said it was made in 2025 for an internal presentation to EA leadership, not for the public; VGTimes says the trailer was posted from an anonymous account and follows a former Alliance soldier, while TheGamer says someone from the studio leaked the trailer barely 24 hours after BioWare closure news broke. Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier confirmed on Oct. 22 that the leaked trailer was real and said he thought it was an internal trailer for executives, challenging speculation it was planned for N7 Day or The Game Awards; VGTimes notes some coverage speculated the video might have been intended for N7 Day on November 7 or The Game Awards, but Schreier’s answer preserves uncertainty in his own wording.

EA announced no plans to transfer the canceled Mass Effect project to another developer or revive it in another form. EA’s Oct. 21 announcement named no replacement project for Mass Effect or Dragon Age, did not rule out a future Mass Effect game, did not name a studio to take over, and did not say the franchise was being offered to another company; VGTimes said those brands remain with EA and that owning a game universe is separate from deciding to fund another game. The Prime Video live-action Mass Effect television series remains in development at Amazon MGM Studios, and IGN reported the BioWare closure would not affect the project. Reports in November 2024 revealed Amazon MGM Studios was developing a Mass Effect TV series with Daniel Casey as writer and executive producer, alongside Karim Zreik, Ari Arad and EA’s Michael Gamble; VGTimes said IGN reported on October 21 that anonymous sources indicated Amazon intended to move forward with the series after BioWare’s closure.

Mike Gamble said at N7 Day that the next Mass Effect was still in development, he was excited about the Amazon series, and EA and BioWare remained committed to more stories. In November 2025 Mike Gamble said BioWare was focused exclusively on Mass Effect, and an April 2026 update said the team was still hard at work; ScreenRant said these reassurances came before the announcement that EA was shutting down BioWare and ending development on the next Mass Effect. BioWare released a farewell statement on X confirming the studio is closing and development of the next Mass Effect is officially over; ScreenRant said the statement reflected on more than three decades of history and emphasized supporting affected employees as the immediate priority. Senior writer Derek Künsken said he worked on the next Mass Effect on and off for five years as a contract writer and senior writer on staff; VGTimes said these accounts put years of work behind the phrase “early development” but express writers’ confidence rather than a completion percentage or release date.

The next Mass Effect game had been in development since its initial reveal in 2020, nearly five years before its cancellation. BioWare had confirmed that Mass Effect 5 would be set hundreds of years after Mass Effect 3 and re-center the narrative on the franchise’s original Milky Way setting long after the Reapers were defeated; IGN states this was confirmed before cancellation and says fans will never find out what happens next now that development has ended. The next Mass Effect was first teased during The Game Awards in December 2020, with an original teaser showing Liara T’Soni discovering a fragment of N7 armor; ScreenRant said subsequent materials teased connections between the original trilogy and Andromeda. Concept art for N7 Day 2025 hinted at a future Krogan civil war.

EA’s internal memo called the company “the number one publisher in Western HD gaming” and said “our industry is changing quickly,” with players having more choices, competition intensifying, and growth opportunities lying beyond traditional markets, platforms and business models; IGN said the executives continued that this is where they had to make their hardest choices and that saying no allows focus on biggest opportunities. Former BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah said EA could become more willing to sell the Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises or leave them unused in its vault; VGTimes said these are Darrah’s interpretations of publisher choices, not an announced sale or revival plan.