EA confirmed on 21 October that it is closing BioWare and has cancelled the next Mass Effect, in a restructuring that cuts about 400 jobs. GTA 6 launches on 19 November on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, 27 days from today, and two of its in-game brands have turned up in Florida: a Burger Shot inside Miami’s Kaseya Center and federal label approvals for Pißwasser beer. Elsewhere, Modern Warfare 4 launched in full on 23 October after a DMZ early access hit by server disconnects, and WoW: Forever name reservations open on 27 October.
EA closes BioWare and cancels the next Mass Effect
EA set out the closure in a staff letter from chief operating officer David Tinson and chief studios officer Cam Weber, published on 21 October. A small team at BioWare had been in early development on the next Mass Effect, and EA decided not to move forward with it, which means closing the studio and its Edmonton workspace. “BioWare is a legendary studio that helped define the role-playing genre, and we do not take this decision lightly,” EA’s statement said. Bloomberg reported about 400 job cuts across the company, around 3% of staff, and GameSpot puts about 50 of them at BioWare. BioWare confirmed the closure on X the same day.
BioWare was founded in 1995 and made Baldur’s Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect and Dragon Age. Its last two games, Anthem in 2019 and Dragon Age: The Veilguard in 2024, fell short of expectations, GameSpot notes. CD Projekt joint CEO Michał Nowakowski paid tribute, PC Gamer reports: BioWare lent CD Projekt its Aurora Engine for the first Witcher and gave it space on its E3 booth. Star Wars: The Old Republic, which BioWare launched in 2011 and handed to Broadsword in 2023, keeps running, and its players paid their respects on the game’s subreddit, IGN reports.
Mark Darrah: EA might sell Mass Effect and Dragon Age, or shelve them
Mark Darrah, an executive producer at BioWare from 1997 to 2021, said in a YouTube video that EA owns Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Jade Empire outright. With nobody inside EA left working on a BioWare game, he said, the company might be more likely to sell those IPs, or might put them in the vault. “Right now, they seem to be in cost control mode,” he said, per IGN. We will log any sale in the Rumour Ledger when EA confirms one.
The Sims’ Project Lotus is shelved, and Fight Night returns after 15 years
The same letter set out what EA keeps. Project Lotus, a mobile-first multiplayer Sims game, is shelved, and its resources move to Project Evergreen, which IGN reports, citing rumours, is a successor to The Sims 4. Full Circle keeps working on Skate with a smaller team. Apex Legends, Battlefield, the sports games, the next Star Wars Jedi game and an Iron Man game continue.
EA Sports confirmed Project Gridiron, a “brand-new, social-first open-world” football game, and Fight Night returns after 15 years, per GameSpot’s round-up. EA also confirmed that DICE and Respawn are working together on a new project, IGN reports. Variety has reported that it is a new Star Wars: Battlefront, which EA has not confirmed.
The changes follow the $55 billion leveraged buyout by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, which took EA private in August. PC Gamer’s reading of the plan is that guns and football are safe and everything else is under review.
GTA 6 is 27 days out: a Burger Shot at the Kaseya Center, and Pißwasser labels approved
Miami’s Kaseya Center, home of the Miami Heat, has rebranded its burger restaurant as Burger Shot, with Vice City posters inside, according to images a fan shared on X on 21 October, reported by IGN. Rockstar has not announced it. IGN also reports that the arena hosts the Heat’s Vice City night on 18 November, a regular-season game in GTA 6 jerseys on a themed court.
GTAVice.net found three GTA beer labels from Tripping Animals Brewing, a Florida brewery, in the US Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau’s label database, PC Gamer reports. No Mames Vice City, a 6% lager, was approved on 9 October, and Pißwasser and Patriot, both 4.2%, on 15 October. Rockstar has not confirmed the beers, and the brewery sells mainly in and around Miami.
Jason Schreier, in a video covered by GameSpot, said Rockstar’s Aaron Garbut told him GTA 6’s roads are “significantly” narrower than GTA 5’s, which meant building more of the city around them. Schreier also said Rockstar spent months, possibly years, testing alternatives to the weapon wheel before keeping it, and that individual developers add small details of their own, like Red Dead Redemption 2’s weather-reactive horse anatomy.
Economics professor José García Montalvo projects that 1.5 million Americans will call in sick on 19 November, costing about $1 billion in lost work, in an International Business Times report covered by GameSpot. It is an academic estimate built on an assumed $70,000 salary. For the launch timeline, see our GTA VI hub and the release calendar.
Modern Warfare 4: full launch on 23 October, after DMZ disconnects in early access
Modern Warfare 4 launched in full on 23 October, after DMZ early access opened on 20 October. During early access, server disconnects cost players the loot they had picked up in a match. Infinity Ward deployed a potential fix on 21 October and said affected players keep the equipment they started with and their progression, and lose that match’s loot. Some players reported the problem continuing, IGN reports.
IGN’s DMZ review in progress, after about five hours, says the bigger, better mode “makes a great first impression.” Players are calling the Possum operator trait broken, PC Gamer reports: it lets a fully dead player self-revive into last stand once per match. On PC, the online modes require TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot, and PC Gamer has a guide to the BIOS settings. Our 21 October round-up covered the campaign.
WoW: Forever name reservations open on 27 October, and the game launches on 4 November
Blizzard extended the World of Warcraft: Forever beta by three days, to 23 October. Name reservations open on Tuesday 27 October, for up to three characters, and the game launches on 4 November, IGN reports. Beta progress is deleted at launch.
Quick hits
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 is now due in the second half of 2027, narrowed from 2027, Bandai Namco said, per IGN.
Xbox chief technology officer Scott Van Vliet posted a video on 20 October, about the Xbox Labs revival of the Blades dashboard, that ends with Halo 3 booting in what appears to be the Edge browser. Browser Halo 3 is GameSpot’s inference from the clip.
Diablo Unbound, a co-op or solo board game from Glass Cannon Unplugged, goes to crowdfunding on Gamefound in the first quarter of 2027 and is playable at SPIEL Essen until 25 October, GameSpot reports.
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