BioWare Forms New Montreal Group

I should be in bed already, but I just noticed this news on Gamasutra and thought I'd post it first.

It seems that BioWare is forming a new group within EA Montreal to help work on Mass Effect 2:

BioWare Forms New Montreal Group To Work On Mass Effect 2

BioWare is forming a new studio group within Electronic Arts Montreal, hiring 30 new staffers to support the team developing Mass Effect 2 in Edmonton.

"Our new presence... will be located within the existing EA Montreal facilities," BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka tells Gamasutra today. "It's great that we have a strong foundation to build out of."

The company will be hiring artists, animators, designers and other positions to join the team working on Mass Effect 2.

"We'll be working together with our friends at EA Montreal," says Muzyka. "There's a great studio here continuing full-force with a whole bunch of really cool, exciting things as well."

The new studio and project won't affect existing projects at EA Montreal. Neither will BioWare's existing work on Dragon Age and Star Wars: The Old Republic in Austin be affected -- nor any of what Muzyka calls "a couple unannounced projects... really cool future stuff."

Sounds like BioWare is expanding again, which is only good as it means more good BioWare stuff for us in the future. Of course, it's not really BioWare as such and more EA so it's just as likely that after Mass Effect 2 that Montreal group will continue to work on non-BioWare products. But we'll see.

Thanks to The Escapist, Kotaku, and VG247 for reporting the news.