EA has paused development on Project Lotus, an unannounced Sims game, and is shutting down BioWare as part of a company-wide restructuring laid out in an October 21 letter to staff. The changes also end early work on the next Mass Effect and cut roughly 400 jobs across the company.
Project Lotus shelved in favor of Evergreen
Chief operating officer David Tinson and chief studios officer Cam Weber wrote that EA is "pausing development" on Project Lotus to redirect resources toward a separate Sims project codenamed Evergreen. The goal, according to the letter, is to give the Evergreen team more time to reach the game's full vision.
EA's own language stops short of calling Lotus cancelled, but the distinction may not matter much in practice. The letter says nothing about what Lotus was, how far along it got, or whether any of its work carries over. PC Gamer reports that Lotus was originally presumed to be a precursor to The Sims 5. As we covered on October 31, early reporting described Lotus as a mobile-first multiplayer spinoff and Evergreen as a single-player successor to The Sims 4, though EA has not confirmed either characterization publicly.
Evergreen gets no description beyond its priority status. Sims fans have a codename to watch and nothing else to go on.
BioWare closes after 30 years
A small BioWare team had been doing early development on the next Mass Effect. EA decided not to move forward, and the result is that BioWare and its Edmonton workspace are closing. The letter calls BioWare "a legendary studio that helped define the role-playing genre."
Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the plans, reported that about 400 employees are being laid off across EA, roughly 3% of its workforce, with around 50 of those at BioWare. EA's letter does not give a headcount but says the company will support affected staff in finding other roles internally.
Where EA is putting its money instead
The restructuring frames everything around "fewer, bigger bets." The letter lists shooters (Battlefield, Apex Legends, a new Respawn-DICE collaboration), action-adventure games (Marvel's Iron Man, the next Star Wars Jedi), and the EA Sports portfolio as the pillars going forward. Two new sports projects are also mentioned: a social-first open-world American football game called Project Gridiron, and a return of Fight Night in pre-production.
The Sims and skate. sit together in EA's Lifestyle category. For skate., EA says it is moving to a smaller team with a clearer roadmap after struggling to retain players. For The Sims, the focus is squarely on Evergreen.
The ownership backdrop
These cuts come about two and a half months after EA went private. A consortium of PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners completed a $55 billion acquisition on August 4, financed in part by roughly $20 billion in debt. The letter itself does not mention the new owners and presents the changes as the outcome of a business review organized around three priorities: deepening core franchises, expanding reach, and transforming the business.
EA says it will discuss its direction further at a Global Town Hall in November. That is an internal employee event, so any public detail on the Sims roadmap would likely come afterward.
Original reporting by Tbreak UAE via Google News - The Sims