EA Keeps Star Wars Jedi 3 and Iron Man as BioWare Closes

EA says Respawn's next Star Wars Jedi game and Motive's Marvel's Iron Man are still on track, in an October 21 letter to staff from COO David Tinson and chief studios officer Cam Weber. The same letter announced about 400 layoffs, roughly 3% of EA's workforce, and the closure of BioWare, ending early development on the next Mass Effect.

"We're continuing to deliver on our two huge launches coming up with Marvel's Iron Man and the next Star Wars Jedi game," the executives wrote, per Gematsu. Neither game has a release date. The letter calls action-adventure "one of the most competitive and high-stakes genres in the industry," and says that beyond those two, EA will concentrate on fewer simultaneous large-scale projects.

The third Jedi game would follow 2019's Fallen Order and 2023's Survivor, both starring Cal Kestis. Iron Man has been in development at Motive, which responded in August to leaked open-world gameplay from the project.

The details

• Staying: next Star Wars Jedi (Respawn), Marvel's Iron Man (Motive)
• Release dates: none announced
• Layoffs: about 400, including about 50 at BioWare
• Closing: BioWare; the next Mass Effect is no longer in development
• New: a Respawn and DICE project, which Variety reports is Star Wars: Battlefront III

What else changed at EA?

BioWare's statement was blunt: the studio is closing and its Edmonton workspace with it. The Sims "Project Lotus" is paused while "Project Evergreen" continues, and skate. keeps going with a smaller team. Battlefield, Apex Legends and EA's sports lineup carry on, including Fight Night, now in pre-production. Bloomberg sourced the layoff figures to a person familiar with the company's plans.

EA closed the studio behind Mass Effect and kept both of its next superhero-adjacent action games. Cal Kestis has now outlasted BioWare.