Most people agree that BioWare, long considered one of the best RPG studios, is no longer what it used to be. Gamers' confidence was shattered by the failure of their last big projects, Mass Effect: Andromeda and, above all, Anthem. They are currently working on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and Mass Effect 4, with which they hope to regain some of their glory.
However, in company culture things are apparently not looking good... A tweet on X from Jon Renish, BioWare's former CTO, reports that 50 employees at the Edmonton, Canada-based studio were laid off last August and provided with no severance pay (presumably Renish was one of them, according to his LinkedIn profile). Some of his former colleagues who were also laid off had been working at the studio for more than 16 years, and had been behind the successes of Mass Effect and Dragon Age in the past (and worked on the upcoming Dreadwolf). According to Renish, not only have these workers received no financial compensation, but also no agreed benefits (such as health coverage), and they cannot even add in their portfolios that they worked on Dreadwolf. The case has escalated and they have joined together to take the situation, which is illegal under Canadian law, to court.
This is just further evidence of the degradation and fragility of jobs at the big companies in the sector that we have seen throughout 2023. Epic Games, 343 Industries, and even Naughty Dog have cut staff, and several studios have even had to close.