A former BioWare Montreal employee’s Glassdoor review of the company from last July seems to indicate difficulties during employment that could potentially explain a downhill curve during the development process of Mass Effect: Andromeda, of which critics and consumers alike have expressed mixed opinions.
While acknowledging a great location to work at and excellent past treatment at BioWare, this anonymous VFX Artist claims that recently, numerous layoffs, a lack of fundamental leadership, and a series of conflicts and harassments all negatively affected developers at BioWare and, consequently, their work.
A performance improvement program, abbreviated to PIP, was apparently utilized to fire otherwise talented employees who did not adhere to a certain leadership style that BioWare Edmonton, another location, was trying to push for. PIP was also used to blame specific employees for issues that actually arose due to incompetent management staff.
For more than two months, BioWare Montreal apparently also paid for employees’ lunches but refused to allow more than thirty minutes of rest time in an effort to finish development quicker, likely causing major issues with respect to morale and stamina. Other unnamed benefits were apparently also abolished in an attempt to complete various aspects of Mass Effect: Andromeda before certain deadlines as well.
The review also mentions serious issues with HR, which was more interested in marking employees who spoke out about harassment as nuisances than in actually listening to or solving their complaints.
You can take a look at the full review here if you want to read about these grievances in the author’s own words. Although it is unreasonable to acknowledge all of this as untainted fact, a large amount of conflict going on behind the scenes at BioWare could explain how Mass Effect: Andromeda did not turn out quite as stellar as fans of the franchise were expecting it to be, given the high quality of its predecessors. There have been many controversies lately about the game’s animations, bland side quests, and game-breaking bugs. What do you think? Could BioWare management have unfairly oppressed developers in recent months? Should Mass Effect: Andromeda have been delayed further? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Tristan was a regular ICXM contributor between 2015–2017, publishing 51 articles across opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news. Their work focused on hands-on reviews, platform commentary, and breaking-news reporting during the Xbox One X launch year and Microsoft’s wider Play Anywhere / UWP gaming initiative. They post on X as @tbogost.