EA Might Sell Rights to Dragon Age and Mass Effect After BioWare’s Closure

The shutdown of BioWare was one of the biggest events of the year and certainly the biggest news story of the week. The legendary studio gave the world game series such as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect, so this is a painful blow for fans, even though the developers’ recent releases haven’t been very popular.

As a result, Electronic Arts has also canceled Mass Effect 5, which was officially in production. It is unclear what the future holds for the series or for the studio’s other franchises. Meanwhile, according to former BioWare developer Mark Darrah, who was executive producer from 1997 to 2021, EA may eventually sell the rights to its game franchises, including Mass Effect and Dragon Age. However, he also doesn’t rule out that we may never see new projects in these universes. You can check out his comments below:

“Remember BioWare is 100% owned by EA. EA owns all the IPs. They own Dragon Age, they own Mass Effect, they own Jade Empire. That doesn’t change the situation, really, at all. …Now, there’s nobody working on a game, or games, within the EA organization, and chances are there never will be, which might make them more likely to sell off those IPs. But it might also make them more likely to just try to forget that they ever existed and bury them in the vault.

I think we still are gonna have to wait a little bit before we see if EA has any interest in selling off some of its dormant IPs. Right now, they seem to be in cost control mode. They might start into a revenue-generation mode where selling IPs might be more desirable.”

The situation with Mass Effect 5 is especially interesting. The project had been in early development all these years, but an early trailer for the game, subtitled “Universe,” was recently leaked. On social media, people speculate that to save the franchise, EA needs to sell the Mass Effect rights to CD Projekt RED, and some mention other deals, like “Dragon Age to Larian Studios” and “Dead Space to Capcom.”

Even with Mass Effect: Universe canceled, the franchise isn’t quite dead, since Amazon is reportedly still working on a TV series based on it. Most details are unknown, including whether it will follow the games or be a free adaptation.