BioWare Is Gone, but the Games That Made It Matter Remain

Electronic Arts has shut down BioWare, the studio behind some of the most celebrated role-playing games of the past two decades. The closure came earlier this week, and it ends the run of one of the genre's most influential developers.

BioWare built its reputation on games that changed how players think about story and companionship. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins were built around worlds that felt lived in, and around party members that players grew attached to and argued about long after the credits rolled. Those games set a standard that many later RPGs have tried to match.

The studio's recent record is harder to defend. Its output in the years before the shutdown was widely seen as a long stretch without a game that matched its earlier work. That slump is part of why the news lands as an ending many fans had half expected, even if few anticipated it arriving this quickly.

For players, the closure leaves open questions about the franchises BioWare helped build. The studio's lasting contribution, though, is less about any single title than about a design idea: that a game can make you care about the people inside it. That idea has spread across the genre, and it is likely to outlive the company that did so much to popularize it.