EA Cuts About 400 Jobs, Pauses a Sims Project and Pulls Respawn and DICE Closer

Electronic Arts has announced a sweeping set of changes that reach across several of its best-known studios, including plans to cut roughly 400 jobs company-wide. The restructuring cancels an unannounced project connected to The Sims, pauses development on it, and reduces the team working on Skate.

The publisher is also bringing Respawn and DICE closer together. Taken with the reported closure of BioWare and the cancellation of the next Mass Effect, the moves amount to one of the most significant reshuffles EA has made in a long time, and they land on developers who had no warning that their projects or roles were at risk.

EA justified the decision by pointing to its position in the market, describing itself as "the number one publisher in Western HD gaming." That confidence sits awkwardly beside the scale of the cuts. Hundreds of people now face uncertainty about their jobs, and fans who were waiting on a Mass Effect follow-up or a new Sims-related game have lost the projects they were anticipating.

The next few weeks will show how deep the cuts go and which teams are restructured first. For now, the clearest takeaway is that EA is shrinking its portfolio of in-development games and consolidating studios to focus on a smaller set of bets.