On Wednesday, publisher Electronic Arts announced that it was closing BioWare and canceling the next Mass Effect game . It’s the kind of thing EA has always done , but the news still caught many off guard. And BioWare’s goodbye message to fans also disappointed at least one developer who is still working on the Star Wars MMO the studio helped create over a decade ago.

Back in 2011, BioWare launched Star Wars: The Old Republic , an MMO set in the same time period as the studio’s popular Knights of the Old Republic RPG. It was BioWare’s first attempt at making a large-scale multiplayer video game, and while it wasn’t perfect, the writing and voice acting were praised by many. In 2023, EA moved BioWare off of developing Old Republic and put Ultima Online steward studio Broadsword in charge of developing future updates for the still-online MMORPG.…