Electronic Arts, in yet another example of being a short-sighted, money-hungry corporation that cannot manage its assets to save its life, shut down Mass Effect and Dragon Age developer BioWare this morning. This included the cancelation of the in-development fifth Mass Effect game, but according to IGN‘s sources, this won’t affect Amazon’s upcoming live-action series set in BioWare’s universe, so there’s still more Mass Effect on the way, I guess.
The outlet’s sources confirm that Amazon intends to move forward with the show at Amazon MGM Studios, and that all creatives who were attached to the project remain on board. Not much is known about the series just yet, but it will take place after the original trilogy starring Commander Shepard. BioWare confirmed as much last year on N7 Day, the studio’s annual celebration of the sci-fi series, saying that the video games, which players could create and customize the main character and make decisions, were meant to capture the player’s story, and without the player, that story shouldn’t be retold.
I’m frankly nauseated at the thought of EA making any sort of profit off the Mass Effect license now that it’s committed an act of such cultural vandalism, so this doesn’t really feel like good news, to me. Maybe it’s just me, but my biggest concern when a company is shut down by bean-counting private equity and the livelihood of the people who made the thing I love is upended isn’t that I won’t get more of my favorite toy.