BioWare recently announced that it’ll be laying off roughly 50 jobs from across its studios as it looks to become a more “agile” studio while focusing on the development of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and the next Mass Effect. According to journalist Jeff Grubb, however, the studio has hit development roadblocks behind the scenes with its upcoming projects.
Speaking recently on his Giant Bomb podcast, Game Mess Mornings, Grubb said that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf has been hit with a series of internal delays. It was originally targeting a September 2023 release, before being delayed internally to March 2024, and then again, with BioWare now targeting a Summer 2024 release date. According to Grubb, however, there’s a high chance that the RPG ends up getting delayed again, and might even be pushed back into the final months of 2024, if not early 2025.
With Dragon Age: Dreadwolf currently being the studio’s primary focus, in the wake of its recent layoffs, Grubb says people have been pulled in to work on the fantasy RPG from the team working on the next Mass Effect instalment, which means that project is likely to be delayed further as well.
According to Grubb, these changes have come as a result of multiple factors. One of them is that Apex Legends is no longer making money on the same level it was in the past, while with EA Sports and EA Entertainment now being two financially separate entities, commercially successful titles released by the former like Madden and FIFA are also not helping cover up fiscal deficiencies for other EA studios any longer. As such, all EA studios are now more accountable for their finances.
Earlier this year, BioWare announced that it was going to be focusing exclusively on single player, narrative-driven games going forward. At the same time, it was announced that further development of long-running MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic was being handed off to Broadsword Online.