# Only 50 of EA's 400 Cuts Worked on Mass Effect. List the Systems Instead

_EA closed BioWare and shelved Mass Effect and Project Lotus. Here's how to list unshipped, NDA-covered game work on a resume for studio and tech jobs._

- Canonical URL: https://www.refolk.ai/candidates/blog/list-cancelled-unreleased-game-on-resume-nda-ea-bioware
- Published: 2026-11-02
- Reading time: 9 min
- Keywords: how to list a cancelled project on resume, unreleased game on resume NDA, game developer resume after layoff, leaving game industry resume tech job, EA BioWare layoffs

If you were one of the roughly 400 people EA laid off when it closed BioWare, you may have years of work that never shipped, under a codename you might not be allowed to say. The standard advice is to list only shipped titles. That advice will cost you interviews. Describe what you built, not which game it was for.

## What happened in the EA BioWare layoffs, and why does it matter for your resume?

EA cut about 3% of its 14,500 staff, shut down BioWare after 30 years, cut the new Mass Effect project and paused a Sims game codenamed Project Lotus. Most of the people laid off can't point to a shipped game from that work, so their resumes need another way to show it.

This was EA's first major restructuring since going private. The buyout closed on August 4, 2026, funded with about $36 billion in equity and $20 billion in debt from JPMorgan Chase. BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk called the private-equity deal the "final nail in the coffin" for the studio, per Kotaku. EA hasn't said why it cut Mass Effect or how much the restructuring will save. Kotaku reported on October 30 that EA chose a Star Wars multiplayer project over it.

The detail that matters most for your resume is this one: **Bloomberg reports that only 50 of the roughly 400 people laid off were on the new Mass Effect.** Most of the people affected weren't on the famous franchise at all.

## Should you list a cancelled project on your resume?

Yes. Leave years of AAA work off your resume and you have a gap you'll be asked to explain anyway, plus nothing to show for the time. List the project, describe what you built, and leave out whatever the NDA covers.

The games industry's own guidance contradicts itself here. 8Bit Recruitment, a games recruiter, writes that "Only released titles should appear in a CV or portfolio." The same guide then explains how to describe NDA work without naming it. You can't follow both rules, and the job market tells you which one to drop.

> **48%** of laid-off game developers hadn't found a new job yet
>
> From the GDC 2026 survey, where 33% of US developers and 28% worldwide reported a layoff in the past two years.

Layoffs have been concentrated at the big studios. In the same GDC survey, 67% of respondents at AAA studios said their employer had cut staff, compared with 33% at independent studios. Game designers were the most affected profession, at 20% of layoffs. So the people with the most unshipped AAA work are also the ones competing hardest for the next role. Cutting that work from your resume removes your strongest evidence.

The worst version of this job hunt goes like this. You send out applications with a resume that has a three-year hole where your best work should be. You can't name the project, the studio no longer exists, and nobody replies. That isn't a sign you lack the skills. The page just doesn't show them.

## What does a game NDA actually cover?

A game NDA usually covers the title and the story. It rarely covers the engine, the platform or the kind of system you built. In 8Bit Recruitment's words, "the platform, engine, and type of system you built are rarely covered by NDA - the game's title and story usually are."

You can normally describe these without naming the game:

- **Engine and language:** Unreal Engine or a proprietary engine, C++
- **Platform:** PC, console, cross-platform
- **System type:** combat, AI, dialogue tools, networking, UI
- **Genre at a coarse level:** "third-person action RPG," "life simulation"
- **Team context:** studio tier (AAA), your role in the discipline
- **Measurable engineering outcomes:** frame-time improvements, build-time reductions, memory budgets met

These are usually off-limits:

- The codename (Project Lotus, or any internal name)
- The franchise, if the project wasn't officially announced
- Story, characters, setting, unannounced features
- Screenshots, footage or builds you don't have written permission to show

Your NDA is a contract, and the wording of yours decides this, not a recruiter's rule of thumb. Read it before you write. If something is ambiguous, leave it out.

## Write "unannounced," not "cancelled"

On a resume, call the project "unannounced," not "cancelled." That's more accurate, it carries less legal risk, and it doesn't hand a hiring manager a reason to think the project failed.

Project Lotus shows why. EA's own memo says it is "pausing development on Project Lotus" to focus on Project Evergreen. Gematsu, Game Developer and Kotaku all reported it as "canceled." If you write "cancelled Sims project" on your resume, you've confirmed a fact EA hasn't, about a project that may come back and still be confidential.

Developers have argued this on the Polycount forums since 2013. The point that keeps coming up is that "cancelled" really means the same as "unannounced," because a studio can cancel production on a game and later restart it with another team.

There's a second reason. "Cancelled" makes the reader think about failure. "Unannounced" makes them think about confidentiality. Same work, a different first impression.

> Most of these resumes won't get anything from the franchise name. The systems you built are what you have to sell.

## How do you write a bullet for unreleased game work under NDA?

Put the system you built first, then the stack, then the scale, then the result. The project gets a single neutral line as the role context. That format works whether or not anyone ever learns what the game was.

Only a few people can lean on the franchise. Publicly known Mass Effect leads like Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts and Parrish Ley already have their names attached to it in press coverage. For the other 350 or so people cut from EA, the codename was never going to open doors. The work has to speak for itself.

**Weak (names too much, says too little):**
- Worked on Project Lotus, the next Sims game
- Gameplay programmer on cancelled Mass Effect sequel

**Strong (says nothing confidential, says a lot about you):**
- Built the ability-targeting and cooldown system for an unannounced AAA third-person action RPG in Unreal Engine (C++)
- Owned the dialogue authoring tool used by the narrative team, cutting the steps from script to in-engine playback
- Profiled and fixed CPU spikes in AI systems on console hardware

For the role header, use this format: *Gameplay Programmer, [Studio], Unannounced AAA Project, 2023 - 2026.* The studio name is usually safe to list, but check your NDA. The project gets described, not named.

Turning three years of standups, tickets and design docs into bullets like that is slow, and most people undersell themselves on the first draft. [Refolk](/candidates) does that step for you. It writes the resume from your own history and phrases the work by system and outcome, so the codename never has to appear.

## Get clearance before your supervisor is gone

Before the studio fully closes, ask your lead in writing what you can show and say. Once BioWare is gone, the person who could have approved a portfolio clip may not be reachable.

A GDC-style panel covered in the Design Dive newsletter gave this advice: if a project is cancelled after years of work, "sit with supervisor and see what you can show without breaking NDA." That was written for normal times. When a whole studio closes, the timeline is shorter, so I'd go further and get the answer by email now, while your access and your chain of command still exist.

Ask for these specifically:

1. Whether you can name the studio and your title
2. Whether you can describe the genre and platform
3. Whether any footage, screenshots or tools UI can go in a private portfolio shown under NDA to hiring teams
4. Whether you can use a lead as a reference who will confirm your scope
5. A short written note you can keep, even if it's one sentence

## Leaving the game industry? Write the tech-job version of your resume

For non-game tech roles, lead with the engine, the language, the tooling and the performance work, and drop the genre. Refolk's index shows game skills spread well outside game companies, and that's where many laid-off developers will end up.

In Refolk's index of professional profiles, 743 people in Canada hold Game Designer, Gameplay Programmer or Gameplay Engineer titles. But 5,791 Canadians list Unreal Engine as a skill. The sampled Unreal profiles were mostly Founders, CTOs and Co-Founders, at employers like Info-Tech Research Group, IcePanel, Quantum Capture and VFX shops.

> **7.8x** more Canadians list Unreal Engine as a skill than hold a game-dev title
>
> Refolk's index: 5,791 Unreal profiles vs. 743 game designer or gameplay engineer titles in Canada.

| Segment | Profiles | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Game designer / gameplay programmer / gameplay engineer titles, US | 3,244 | Refolk's index |
| Same titles, Canada | 743 | Refolk's index |
| Unreal Engine skill, any title, Canada | 5,791 | Refolk's index |
| US-to-Canada ratio, game titles | 4.4x | Derived |
| Unreal skill vs. game titles, Canada | 7.8x | Derived |

*Counts are full totals. Titles and employers come from a 25-profile sample, so treat them as directional.*

Here's why. Engine and systems skills carry over to other industries. Genre experience doesn't. A tech hiring manager reading "shipped combat for an action RPG" thinks of a hobby. Reading "built a real-time C++ system that held frame budget on console hardware," they think of an engineer.

Translate the vocabulary:

- **Gameplay systems** → real-time interactive systems, state machines
- **Tools programming** → internal developer tooling, editor extensions
- **Frame-time optimization** → performance engineering, profiling, latency reduction
- **Live-ops or online features** → backend services, telemetry, networking
- **Build pipeline work** → CI/CD, build infrastructure

Keep two versions, one for studios and one for tech. Then adjust each to the specific posting, because a VFX shop and a software company want different bullets at the top.

## Why your local market can't absorb you

The US has about 4.4 times as many game-title holders as Canada, and Canada's game jobs sit in Quebec, not Alberta. If you were at BioWare in Edmonton, staying local and staying in games may not be possible.

In a 25-profile sample of Canadian game-title holders in Refolk's index, the most common employer was Beenox in Quebec City (8 of 25), and Quebec regions dominated. Edmonton didn't appear in the top 10 regions. A studio that closes in a city with few other studios leaves you three options:

- **Move** to a studio hub, which in Canada mostly means Quebec, or to the US market
- **Work remotely** for a studio or tech company elsewhere
- **Switch industries** into the non-game companies that already hire for Unreal and C++

Two of those three mean competing for roles where nobody has heard of your codename. That's why the systems-first resume matters so much.

When you do apply, the cover letter is where you explain the closure in one plain sentence ("BioWare closed in 2026; I'm looking for my next real-time systems role") and then go straight to what you built.

> **Remote engineering roles open now** - [see the open roles](https://www.refolk.ai/jobs/search?family=engineering&remote=1)
>
> Remote listings from Refolk's job board, useful if your local studio market has closed.

## FAQ

### Can I put Mass Effect on my resume if I worked on the cancelled sequel?

Only if your NDA allows it. Coverage of the layoffs names the Mass Effect project, but your contract may still restrict details about story, features and your specific work. The safe default is to name the studio and your title, describe the project as an unannounced AAA action RPG, and get written clearance from your lead before using the franchise name.

### How do I list an unreleased game on my resume under NDA?

Name the studio, your title and the dates. Describe the project in neutral terms ("unannounced AAA title") and write your bullets around the systems you built, the engine and language you used, and the results you can measure. Leave out the codename, story and any unannounced features. Read your NDA first, because its wording overrides any general advice.

### Do non-game tech companies value game developer experience?

Yes, if you describe it as engineering. Refolk's index shows 7.8 Canadians listing Unreal Engine as a skill for every one with a game-dev title, and many of them are founders and CTOs at non-game companies. Lead with C++, Unreal, tooling and performance work. Drop the genre, and don't open your summary with "passionate about games."

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_From the Refolk job search blog. More posts: https://www.refolk.ai/candidates/blog/index.md_