EA to shut down BioWare, studio behind Baldur's Gate and Mass Effect

EA has announced that it is shutting down BioWare, the studio behind Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age and Mass Effect. PC Gamer reported the closure.

CD Projekt joint CEO Michał Nowakowski paid tribute to BioWare after the closure was announced. CD Projekt Red licensed BioWare's Aurora Engine to build The Witcher, an early link between the two studios.

BioWare's influence on RPG design is expected to outlast the studio itself. The company's early work shaped a generation of developers: Obsidian Entertainment, formed after the closure of Black Isle Studios, went on to make Pillars of Eternity as a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, and Larian Studios later made Baldur's Gate 3.

In 2002, BioWare released Neverwinter Nights, whose Aurora Engine and Toolset were widely used by modders. That same year, CD Projekt was founded as a localisation studio and worked with BioWare and Interplay on the Polish version of Baldur's Gate.

BioWare followed Baldur's Gate with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and later returned to the series with the MMO SWTOR. Its studios' legacy also runs through titles such as Planescape: Torment, Tyranny and Disco Elysium, which drew on the RPG lineage BioWare helped establish.